Verse
Kilmer, Anne
Fern's "certain type" of sex educator points to the most obvious. What should such a teacher be like? At the very least, well-informed about the biology and psychology of sex, sensitive to its...
...As usual, a few experimental courses may show promise, and a few districts may boast successful programs, but elsewhere we risk putting children into highly sensitive courses taught by teachers of average or below average competence...
...The cost therefore is high...
...If some district's sex education program grows large enough, you can bet it too will have a "coordinator" who has left the classroom to process papers...
...Yet their overwrought assessment may yet prove prophetic...
...Could we find enough to insure strong programs throughout the country...
...Yet they learned that millions of dollars nationally will be ticketed not only for sex education, but also for public nurseries, bilingual education, special help for the handicapped, and racial integration...
...However, that's not the way it works...
...Worse yet, good counselors had once been good teachers, the kind with a knack for relating with the often puzzling teen-ager...
...During the eighties, these teachers are being told once more to wait a little while longer, just long enough for us to straighten out America's youth on their sexuality...
...Even if all sex education teachers were as good as required, their courses as effective as hoped, their support from the public as broad as possible, we would still pay a stiff price...
...In spite of these disturbing portents, we have initiated any number of multi-million-dollar sex education programs...
...In colleges, on the other hand, many administrators keep active in their disciplines...
...Today's critics speak of the "failure of the schools" as if they reported undisputed fact...
...Enrollment in teacher education programs has fallen by half since 1973...
...Suppose, nevertheless, we could find enough of Fern's special type of teacher...
...If sex education diverts good teachers from academic courses, it also diverts needed funds...
...Those new specialist educators were supposed to help kids function better in the classroom and deal more effectively with personal problems and career choices...
...These are worthwhile programs, but from an academic perspective they should be installed only after the fundamental curriculum is in good shape...
...Those years were good only in comparison to what followed when public confidence plummeted, tax support shriveled, and good talent escaped to other professions...
...Many counselors performed as advertised, but there were never enough of them and even the best faced client loads exceeding two hundred...
...During a period when many of us demand a return to the basics, teachers of a basic called writing find increasingly large class loads...
...We should note in passing another cost...
...We might have spared ourselves the cost and argument had we first asked, "Where will we find enough good teachers...
...Many of those remaining form the lower half of academic ability with SAT scores falling 48 points below the national average in math and 35 points in verbal skills...
...If we recruit thousands of able teachers to teach and administer s e x education programs, we will therefore take them away from courses where they are needed...
...Even though since 1912 students of the writing problem have recommended no more than 100 students for composition teachers, in every succeeding decade some pressing social program has elbowed its way forward to top priority...
...20 April 1984:239...
...In pro-education Palo Alto, California, for example, composition teachers who only five years ago met 100 students now average over 150...
...Even during the prosperous fifties when many districts could recruit their share of talent, the sheer magnitude of public education confounded efforts to keep standards high...
...At the very least, well-informed about the biology and psychology of sex, sensitive to its cultural context, astutely diplomatic regarding its role in competing moral systems, able to maintain adult composure while working with immature students on the most personal and volatile of subjects...
...This tendency to lose teachers to non-academic duties is built into the public school system...
...Those teachers were told that budget cats forced the overload...
...In the early fifties, for instance, we touted school counselors as the answer to many scholastic and social problems...
...During those years we also lost many good teachers to administration whose ranks swelled because of the ever increasing regulations imposed by state and federal programs...
...Could we find such teachers...
...There were 4 million teachers, many of them very good, many others reasonably competent...
...But such large numbers also meant that more than a few did not pass muster...
...Probably not...
...We would still pay a heavy price because the superteachers needed for properly handled sex education courses would no longer be teaching math or science or English...
...But in America where the concept of educating the total child has taken hold, any program that services some need of the student qualifies as education...
...In Europe even the headmaster of secondary schools often teaches a course or two...
...We've been robbing academic programs in that way for years...
...Probably...
Vol. 111 • April 1984 • No. 8
