By Amelia Nowicki & Colin Duffy
North Pointe
Grosse Pointe North HS
1st Place Division 2, News Writing
In-Depth Feature
JUDGING CRITERIA
- Lead captures attention, arouses curiosity
- Topic relevant to interests and/or welfare of school or students
- Extensive, intensive and thorough investigation
- Effectively combines basics of good news and feature writing
- Effectively organized with smooth transitions; carefully outlined
- Sentences, paragraphs of varied length; written clearly, concisely and vividly
- Proper diction/grammar
- Balanced and fair presentation
In the eyes of many students, sexual education means awkward conversations and excessive sweating while surrounded by peers in a suffocating classroom setting. Given this, many dread the courses the district has integrated into the curriculum since the fourth grade, leading many to substitute out the mandatory health class needed to graduate. According to health teacher Jane Kithier, the health program consists of a few major units: substance abuse, mental health, nutrition, exercise and human sexuality. With these sections, she hopes that students learn and understand everything that impacts their personal health and wellbeing. “My goal as a health teacher is to inspire healthy choices in my students and to reevaluate healthy habits throughout their life,” Kithier said. Starting in elementary school, students are allowed to either participate or, with permission from their legal guardian, opt out of beginner’s health classes. Primarily teaching similar topics to that of the higher level, students are given insight as to how their mental and physical health may be changing as they enter a high school setting. While Kithier believes that the health program is sufficient, many students believe the reproductive portion o f the program lacks the proper information. Based in abstinence — the avoidance of sexual acts altogether to counter pertinent health issues — many students think this allows for ambiguity and many topics are thus disregarded. Senior Brooklyn McWhorter believes that by changing the presentation of the curriculum, the district can properly educate students. “I think (sexual education) needs to be blunt, clear and concise,” McWhorter said. “Sometimes there are these convoluted explanations of things and somebody raises their hand and says, “Isn’t that just?” and the teacher kind of goes, “Yeah.” I think it should just be laid out point blank.” According to a 2017 study from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, programs preaching abstinence-only preventative strategies have no real impact on whether or not students are initiating certain acts. In addition, the study found that the number of students formally learning about birth control and other contraceptives have fallen over the years along with the percentages of those who remain abstinent until marriage. Upholding this ideal, as part of the curriculum, GPPSS’ abstinence plus programs work to teach students that abstinence is the only sure way of preventing problems such as pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections, however, they do aim to provide information regarding other forms of prevention such as oral contraceptives. Despite this effort, McWhorter does not believe that this is enough regarding the safety of many students. She thinks that while programs briefly address alternative p r e v e n t i o n methods, it does not address key pieces of information, thus stigmatizing certain ways students can say safe. For example, McWhorter believes that the courses should not only cover a variety of preventative methods, but should also provide students with ways to resolve sexual health issues once they arise. “If there’s something wrong going on with your sexual reproductive system, you go to an urgent care or a clinic, but there’s also a huge stigma around that, and I think that’s preventing kids from getting tested,” McWhorter said. “You should know that you’re legally able to get an abortion on your own at sixteen without having your parents being notified and (for) a lot of girls, it’s hard to talk about. But a lot of girls need to know these things, and having access to safe, and legal abortions is important.”
While many may believe that the sexual education curriculum is ready for a change, the process for the aforementioned is lengthy. After the curriculum is selected and put into place, it cannot be altered or changed until the next review meeting. Director of Secondary Instruction and acting member in the building of the Foundation of the Sexual Education Curriculum Maureen Bur believes the course for grades 4-8 could be up for review within the next year or two. Although Bur believes the programs are sufficient, she also admits that it is a little old fashioned. “Some of those videos are very outdated,” Bur said. “You may have watched some of those videos and thought, “Wow, when where those made?” The idea of having more up-todate and applicable information is important to both Bur and McWhorter. This is a change Bur thinks should be done in the next review, to ensure the curriculum is sufficient. Aside from changing the videos to ensure they are relevant and informative, the review board has made sexual identity a vital component within the curriculum. Gender identity has become a controversial issue in recent years, and the school system is working to make it a priority. The courses also have made pushes and advancements in educating students on their identity and the importance of pronouns. “In middle school, we are looking to have it more gender neutral with pronouns,” Bur said. “They do role plays or scenarios, and we really try (not) to make it gender specific.” On the topic of gender neutrality and pronoun identification, there has been a similar stigma surrounding, as McWhorter described, the awkward communication in health class. According to Bur, the review board has been working diligently to resolve this and ensure the students feel comfortable. The district and review boards have said they are trying to better represent and educate students on sexual education and will continue to focus on reproductive health and health as a whole. “(We are trying to) really make sure that any changes we make are meaningful,” Bur said, “and will help support the development of our students.”