Speakers from the Rockville Pregnancy Center were hired to talk on human sexuality and disease prevention at a high school in Maryland, and proceeded to demonstrate the spread of STDs by asking 100 students to share a single piece of gum. The speakers also asked students to choose amongst four pieces of chocolate, telling them that one was actually a laxative, in order to demonstrate the uncertainty of knowing whether a STD has been contracted after a sexual encounter. There's since been an uproar over these "interactive" lessons, stating that they're "repulsive" and "unhealthy." But I happen to think it's a pretty interesting way to demonstrate the transmission of STDs. This is not to suggest that I'd willingly participate in sharing gum with total strangers, because I think the point is made by simply posing the question to the crowd, but, sadly, this is not the contention I hold with this organization.

In direct contrast to the ingenuitive lesson plan, the Rockville Pregnancy Center has a test on its website called: Am I Going To Heaven? One of the questions is [italics mine]:

Question: Next, what kind of words would you use to describe man?

* Basically good * Destructive
* Righteous * Unfaithful
* Kind * Proud
* Giving * Greedy
* Loving * Selfish

Again, this may surprise you, but according to the Bible only the answers printed in the right hand column above are correct.

Oh boy!

Education and health officials say the gum exercise was unsanitary and should not have happened. The speaker and the clinic, a pregnancy counseling center with a religious orientation, are no longer welcome in Montgomery schools, school officials said.

I would have rather the article said:

Education and health officials say the gum exercise was, at best, unsanitary and should not have happened. Due to the clinic's religious orientation, all speakers with a religious agenda are no longer welcome in public school districts, school officials said.

That's what upsets me. The school officials, the speakers, nobody was trying to get students to think about sex, STDs and ways to protect themselves. They were simply using scare tactics to get their point across.

School officials said a total of about 100 students participated in the lessons, although some declined to chew the gum.

Also, isn't the fact that they were able to get approximately 100 students to share a piece of gum that in direct contract to their point anyway? I think--and this is purely hypothetical as I don't have an excessive amount of information on this current event--that the speakers were trying to get students to not share the gum, because that is metaphorically akin to swapping sexual partners, which is theoretically the point they're attempting to bring to the students' attention.

It's a shame, because I think the lesson had good potential, but ultimately failed, not just because it's unsanitary, but because it was poorly executed--it was teaching students to swap gum (read: partners). How about teaching students how to acquire condoms or reliable forms of birth control? How about giving students information about Planned Parenthood clinics?

No. Let's have 'em share gum, and then tell them they're dirty and that they're not going to heaven because they can't answer a stupid test on their website.

I think this is probably a great example of how inept and arbitrary abstinence-only education is in the real world.

Labels: abstinence only education, gum, high school students

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