Once students develope a deeper understanding of God and His law, graphic talk is unnecessary

Recently I read an article by Onalee McGraw, Ph.D., on “Sexual Development and Education in the Virtue of Chastity.” On reflection, I was reminded of my elementary and high school years.

I attended a publicly-funded Catholic school up to grade four, at which point I was transferred by my parents. At my first school, sex education classes began in grade five, and from the stories of my older friends, the classes were graphic, embarrassing, and more a laughing matter to the students than an educational experience. My parents were noticing a lot of difficulties with the separate school board and their teaching methods, not to mention their lack of character and moral education, deficiencies which my parents could not overlook.

From grade five until my graduation with OACs from high school, I attended a private school in Toronto, Hawthorn School for Girls. My first year at Hawthorn was its first year of existence.
Hawthorn is still a small school, with only 140 students from kindergarten to OAC. It is non-denominational, but strongly based on Catholic doctrine. Each teacher is carefully selected so that she is a role model for the students’ character formation, exemplifying moral uprightness. More importantly, the parents are integral to the very existence of the school. (In fact, my parents were founding members, along with seven or eight other couples.) The parents either run the school or participate in it by volunteering, acting as advisors to the students, or serving on the board or the administrative council.

Thus the guidelines for sexual education utilizing the virtue of chastity as outlined by McGraw were very familiar to me. Hawthorn prides itself on the development of virtues in the girls, starting immediately in kindergarten. Chastity, modesty, and decency are among the many virtues that teachers explain each month to the class. The parents and staff practice the same virtue so as to be role models; advisors follow up with each student; and the girls have a chance to practice every day at school and at home.

The sexual education program at Hawthorn can hardly be so labelled. It is more of a recognition of the development of each girl at her own pace, with respect for the authority of parents as the primary educators of their children. Sex, therefore, is never specifically taught by the teacher. Instead, each student is shown how to live a chaste life, respecting her body and sexuality and always remembering that she is a daughter of God and a temple of the Holy Spirit. The details of puberty and intercourse and its repercussions are left to the parents’ discretion.

Hawthorn is affiliated with Opus Dei, a personal prelature of the Roman Catholic Church. The school chaplain, a priest of Opus Dei, gives a two-hour seminar to the grade eight students one evening in the presence of their parents. This gives students the opportunity to learn the details of their sexuality in the context of morality, in a way suited to their individual character development, and respectful of the role of the parents as primary educators.

This is the extent of sex education at Hawthorn. Yet it is not lacking in any way. Hawthorn uses moral education and character development to prepare the students for their lives, including their sexuality. The school is correct in believing that it is more important to teach each student how to think according to the law of God and her own conscience so that she will be able to make those hard decisions in life with conviction. Sex education as such is not required, because it is not something that needs explaining once the student gains an understanding of her relationship with God.

You don’t sit a person behind the wheel of a car before teaching them the rules of the road. Once they know the rules, they need much less instruction when they first drive. Likewise it would be backwards to teach a student about sex without giving her a moral foundation. And once this foundation exists, there is little sex education that is required.

Jacquie Nivet is studying journalism at King’s University in Halifax.