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 Peregrine wrote:
lying to students

 Peregrine wrote:
the school obviously lying

 Peregrine wrote:
indisputably and shamelessly lies

And that's just from one post.

But here's the actual objection:

 Peregrine wrote:
the entire point of abstinence-only "education" is to promote right-wing Christian ideology

This is an example of:

 Manchu wrote:
trying to reframe an argument over ideology as an argument over facts

 Manchu wrote:
stuff

So let me get this straight: in your bizarre world pointing out the probable reason that someone is lying magically transforms the argument from "they're lying" to "I don't like their ideology"?

Wait when is this sort of thing not in general promotion of right wing christianity?

Teaching that abstinence is one of many options is reasonable, teaching abstinence at the expense of informing properly about contrraception and other related issues is a failure of sex education. What exactly are the lessons for? It should be about informing them of the subject so they can make informed decisions, it shouldn't be about trying to force them down one choice by using scare 'statistics' and games. Fundamentally there's a lack of respect to pupils in teaching them in this manner, it's about imposing ideology on them, it's not teaching them anything.

A heavy bias on abstinence education typically is from a religious right agenda, and it's going to be Christian in most western countries, that's just common sense. That said, in the UK sex education can be opted out of and I recall its Muslim parents that are more likely to do this. Personally I don't think it should be optional, the sorts of parents that take them out are the very sort too cowardly or wrapped in their own beliefs that their children will be kept in ignorance. Chemistry and maths aren't optional, nor should sex education be.

The problem with thinking you can sell a version of fact twisted to your agenda is that children aren't quite so dumb as to take it all in. If condoms failed 18% no one would use them. Many children can tell when they're being told lies to force a certain type of behaviour from them, and as soon as they pick on on one thing they ignore the rest. Some of the things in this class were ridiculous, the odds are that any worthwhile content in the lesson will be ignored. Clearly abstinence education doesn't work because there are still plenty of teenage pregnancies in the US because people are still going to have sex. Instead of telling them to control their urges, you equip them with the knowledge to have sex safely.

Sex education cannot avoid being an issue of social values. Here's an exchange I doubt few people would find problematic:

Teacher: Abstinence is not having sex, even in situations where you and your partner desire to do so. If you don't have sex, and by that I mean heterosexual vaginal intercourse, you can't get someone pregnant or get pregnant yourself. In a wider sense, abstaining from sex also means you have effectively no chance of developing a sexually transmitted infection.

Student: I want to have sex despite the risks you mention. Plus, the contraceptives you also taught me about significantly reduce those risks. And even if I develop an STI, I can be treated. Similarly, if I become pregnant or get someone else pregnant, there is always abortion.

Good so far. But that's incomplete. And here's where values come into the matter:

Teacher: It's key to remember that contraceptives reduce those risks but do not eliminate them. And while pretty much every STI can be treated, treating a STI is not the same thing as never having one to begin with. Even those that can be cured can have serious consequences for your health after the infection itself is treated. Similarly, having an abortion is not the same thing as never having become pregnant. And of course whether to have an abortion is not your decision unless you are the one who is pregnant. It is up to you to weigh your desire to have sex against the possible negative consequences of doing so.

Young people need more than interest group generated statistics ("FACTS") to deal with these issues. What I have posted above is as far as I think it is appropriate to go in a public school sex education program. That is, even at this superficial level, the teacher cannot avoid demonstrating that choices about sexual behavior ultimately relate to personal values. In the best cases, young people can turn to many resources when it comes to thinking more deeply about the personal values they currently hold or would like to develop. But even without going into that, sex education itself implies some values: A sense of control over and ownership of one's body arises from learning about it, and along with that comes a vague notion of responsibility. And of course teaching about consent is purely a matter of values.

 Manchu wrote:
Sex education cannot avoid being an issue of social values.

Of course it can't, because right-wing Christians believe that any sex education besides "sex is sin, if you have it (or even have lustful thoughts) outside of marriage you will burn in hell" is unacceptable. That doesn't change the fact that there are honest lessons that are supported by facts, and dishonest scare tactics that care more about obeying Jesus than letting people make informed decisions.

And here's where values come into the matter:

No it isn't, because you don't have to endorse any particular choice. You simply present accurate statistics on the risks and let the student make their own choices. Saying "here's the best information we have on the subject, you can use it to make the decision that is right for you" is a value-neutral answer unless your values include deliberately keeping people ignorant. There's no need to add your not-so-subtle hinting at how abstinence is the best option.

Young people need more than interest group generated statistics ("FACTS") to deal with these issues.

Nice job dismissing our best information on the subject as "interest group generated statistics". Perhaps if it seems like this is a "culture war" issue it's because you've decided to make it one?

That is, even at this superficial level, the teacher cannot avoid demonstrating that choices about sexual behavior ultimately relate to personal values.

So what? Nobody is disputing that people choose to have sex or not have sex based on their personal values. This has nothing to do with how you're framing this as a "culture war" issue where there are no facts and everyone is just arguing about their opinions.

What sex means, what role it plays in our individual lives and in our society, how we conceive of ourselves and others -- these are the key issues of sex education. And none of them have anything to do with statistics. In our story, mom (and therefore son) object to the values the guest speakers conveyed. The classroom is in some ways the ideal place for discussion of values.

But in our story, the classroom has already been subverted into an ideological battleground. As far as I can tell, these abstinence guest speakers are only present to deploy an ideological counterpoint to the standard health class, which reflects dominant social norms (focusing on contraceptives and STIs). Mom and son have planned their own ideological counter-assault. As data-armed son carries out the standard "but what about the facts" confrontation tactics, mom is busy leveraging social media to mobilize the troops and bring down the gak storm of internet opinion. Then mom moves in to vent her righteous fury. This will make a great blog post or editorial!

 Manchu wrote:
What sex means, what role it plays in our individual lives and in our society, how we conceive of ourselves and others -- these are the key issues of sex education.

That's a very optimistic way of looking at it when in reality sex "education" at its best is usually little more than 15 minutes of straightforward facts about birth control and disease rates stuck in the middle of a random PE class. And very often it's even worse.

In our story, mom (and therefore son) object to the values the guest speakers conveyed.

Well yes, because the primary value of the guest speakers is "it's ok to lie to people if it will help you manipulate them into doing what you want". Mom's main objection to the class isn't that abstinence is portrayed as a good option, it's that the speakers are blatantly lying and trying to scare people into obedience.

As data-armed son carries out the standard "but what about the facts" confrontation tactics

I love how you present "what about telling the truth instead of lying to manipulate people into doing what you want" as nothing more than culture-war "confrontation tactics". Have you forgotten that the goal of education is supposed to be teaching accurate information instead of ideologically-motivated lies?

mom is busy leveraging social media to mobilize the troops and bring down the gak storm of internet opinion.

Yeah, how dare people publicly criticize someone for being a manipulative liar. Clearly this is all just culture war bullying and we should all feel sympathy for the poor abused speakers who had to be shamed for their lying.

I find it totally improbable that the guest speakers in question went to the classroom with the intent to lie to kids. "Today I am going to lie to some kids on behalf of my GOP masters." That just doesn't make sense, except as a piece of culture war rhetoric. What probably happened, as far as the numbers sideshow goes, is these people saw some data somewhere that they believed because it shored up their preexisting values. That is how most people deal with statistics, even people with lots of education. Far from being liars, it is probable that these guest speakers are motivated by the notion that they tell kids the truth about sex. I mean, the only reason to assume bad faith on their part is because you already think they are bad people ... probably because you think they have bad values.

I agree with Manchu on this issue.

The important part of good quality sexuality education is the teaching of relationship values not just contraceptive methods, as is done in The Netherlands which has a very good success rate of later first intercourse and lower rate of teenage pregnancies than countries that tend to rely on pure abstinence education or mechanical risk education, or no education.

This is probably most apparent when it comes to the topic of consent. TBH I don't remember getting much if any information on that. But I would argue it is pretty crucial, certainly as important as information on anatomy, reproduction, and disease.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Although -- thinking about it -- I am not sure how you explain to minors how to give consent when this is legally impossible.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I agree with Manchu on this issue.

The important part of good quality sexuality education is the teaching of relationship values not just contraceptive methods, as is done in The Netherlands which has a very good success rate of later first intercourse and lower rate of teenage pregnancies than countries that tend to rely on pure abstinence education or mechanical risk education, or no education.

Right, but when you have the people who are lying about how effective contraception is and only mentioning one form (condoms) whilst basically ignoring:
1) either type of the pill (admittedly they mentioned the pill in one of their scare stories but completely failed to mention that, when taken correctly, it has less than 1% rate of failure)
2) the injection
3) the implant
4) IUDs

or in other words, every type of contraception that is available to women, whilst at the same time completely fething up the whole idea of how a healthy relationship will go (if she says no then she's the one you want and you should put her on a pedestal) then that is in no way conducive to any kind of effective education program on the mechanics or the values aspect.

The whole sex-ed course would be better without this lesson ever having taken place as no information of any worth to the children came out of it.

Also, on the subject of consent, apparently the only lesson the kids had on it was a policeman coming into the class to tell them not to rape.


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 Manchu wrote:
I find it totally improbable that the guest speakers in question went to the classroom with the intent to lie to kids. "Today I am going to lie to some kids on behalf of my GOP masters." That just doesn't make sense, except as a piece of culture war rhetoric. What probably happened, as far as the numbers sideshow goes, is these people saw some data somewhere that they believed because it shored up their preexisting values. That is how most people deal with statistics, even people with lots of education. Far from being liars, it is probable that these guest speakers are motivated by the notion that they tell kids the truth about sex. I mean, the only reason to assume bad faith on their part is because you already think they are bad people ... probably because you think they have bad values.

So, they lied. If you're going to go and teach some kids about a topic which can potentially have a huge impact on their lives then you should probably make sure your information is accurate, rather than just supporting your preconceived ideas.
They failed to mention that sex is pleasurable, that combining forms of contraception is the safest way to have sex, that proper use of condoms brings the failure rate down to 2%, not 18%, that it is okay to have sex if you and your partner choose to, that there are support programs for pregnant women so they don't need to be ashamed to tell people if they are pregnant etc.

They offered no constructive information about sex, at all.

@Peregrine. I think I found a misunderstanding in your battle with Manchu.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
Culture warriors always present ideological battles as their FACTS versus their opponents' OPINIONS.

And now we're right back to you denying that the school was blatantly lying. Failure rates for birth control are not an opinion, and the school lied about them. No amount of "SJW CULTURE WAR BULLYING" complaining is going to change this.

Manchu was accusing the mother of making those claims, not making said claim against the mother.

Again, Manchu never said the mother didn't have any facts to bring to the table.

The point about Manchu's argument is that the mother basically did a grandstand play aimed at her own audience. She wasn't primarily interested in finding out about the curriculum or getting it changed, she wanted just to pander to various pre-conceptions.

I agree that the abstinence programme is basically useless, and the version presented was tantamount in various areas to blatant lies. However to oppose it any way you like does not necessarily put you on the side of the angels.

If you truly care about children's health and life skills, you need to tackle the issue in a non-confrontational way as you will never achieve buy-in from opponents by slagging them off as idiots and fanatics.

 Scrabb wrote:
@Peregrine. I think I found a misunderstanding in your battle with Manchu.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
Culture warriors always present ideological battles as their FACTS versus their opponents' OPINIONS.

And now we're right back to you denying that the school was blatantly lying. Failure rates for birth control are not an opinion, and the school lied about them. No amount of "SJW CULTURE WAR BULLYING" complaining is going to change this.

Manchu was accusing the mother of making those claims, not making said claim against the mother.

Again, Manchu never said the mother didn't have any facts to bring to the table.

Except he repeatedly said that this was an ideological argument, rather than factual. It is only ideological on the side of the abstinence teacher, the mother and son both have arguments based on facts.

If one side is arguing with facts and the other is not, that does not make the factual argument an ideological one.


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 Kilkrazy wrote:
The point about Manchu's argument is that the mother basically did a grandstand play aimed at her own audience. She wasn't primarily interested in finding out about the curriculum or getting it changed, she wanted just to pander to various pre-conceptions.

I agree that the abstinence programme is basically useless, and the version presented was tantamount in various areas to blatant lies. However to oppose it any way you like does not necessarily put you on the side of the angels.

If you truly care about children's health and life skills, you need to tackle the issue in a non-confrontational way as you will never achieve buy-in from opponents by slagging them off as idiots and fanatics.

These opponents will never buy-in anyway. When actually presented with evidence which disagreed with her preconceived conclusions what did the speaker do? Dismiss it out of hand without even looking at it.

By confronting the issue in a public way you can show this and put the actual facts out there at the same time.

 Cheesecat wrote:

 Hordini wrote:
We had a student put a regular condom on their entire forearm.

Just because they can stretch that far doesn't mean it will feel comfortable at that tension, the truth of the matter is men's penises come in all shapes and sizes and for some the standard ones are too tight and it makes sex too difficult.

Hey, if you want to buy into the marketing, I won't stop you.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
... lots of quoted text...
These opponents will never buy-in anyway. When actually presented with evidence which disagreed with her preconceived conclusions what did the speaker do? Dismiss it out of hand without even looking at it.

By confronting the issue in a public way you can show this and put the actual facts out there at the same time.

The teacher is not the person who needs to be engaged with. The professor needs to engage with the school governors and parents to change their minds about the best curriculum to achieve the desired outcome.

This is not going to be done by Tweeting smarmily about the stupid provincial sex ed class, however "public" the Twitter forum theoretically may be.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
... lots of quoted text...
These opponents will never buy-in anyway. When actually presented with evidence which disagreed with her preconceived conclusions what did the speaker do? Dismiss it out of hand without even looking at it.

By confronting the issue in a public way you can show this and put the actual facts out there at the same time.

The teacher is not the person who needs to be engaged with. The professor needs to engage with the school governors and parents to change their minds about the best curriculum to achieve the desired outcome.

This is not going to be done by Tweeting smarmily about the stupid provincial sex ed class, however "public" the Twitter forum theoretically may be.

And yet doing so has got this issue a lot of attention. The problem goes way beyond the individual school. It goes to the government which is giving schools extra funding as long as they put these abstinence classes in the curriculum, rather than just giving that funding to a sex-ed curriculum that actually works.

 Hordini wrote:

 Cheesecat wrote:

 Hordini wrote:
We had a student put a regular condom on their entire forearm.

Just because they can stretch that far doesn't mean it will feel comfortable at that tension, the truth of the matter is men's penises come in all shapes and sizes and for some the standard ones are too tight and it makes sex too difficult.

Hey, if you want to buy into the marketing, I won't stop you.

That's not marketing (obviously magnums are unnecessary), you want the condom to be snug but not so tight where you can't feel anything or are having erection/orgasm difficulties.
http://www.theyfit.co.uk/pages/condom-myths

 A Town Called Malus wrote:


Except he repeatedly said that this was an ideological argument, rather than factual. It is only ideological on the side of the abstinence teacher, the mother and son both have arguments based on facts.

Where did Manchu say that the mother didn't have any factual arguments? If you are not claiming he said the mother's argument was ideological rather than factual please clarify.

If one side is arguing with facts and the other is not, that does not make the factual argument an ideological one.

Does using facts in an argument preclude it from being ideological?

What's wrong with an ideological argument anyway?

 Peregrine wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
Thankfully, mathematics has not become ideologically charged just yet.

Yes, which is why we don't get any outrage over it. Since there's no right-wing ideology to protect bad math teachers they're just dealt with long before it gets any national-level attention. That doesn't mean that there's some kind of double standard for outrage. If the 1+1=3 teacher somehow didn't get fired and kept teaching that 1+1=3 we'd get the exact same kind of outrage that we see in this case.

But an attack on the person is only fallacious when it substitutes as an attack on the person's argument. My argument is and has been that the mom's behavior was poor and not at all justified by her ideological outrage. I have never argued that the mom's ideology is wrong because she acted like an donkey-cave.

All you've done here is complain about how horrible the mother is and rant about "bullying culture" or whatever. You've completely ignored the fact that the school is blatantly lying to students and the political opinions of the person pointing out the lying are irrelevant to that issue.

A non-ideological lesson on abstinence is very simple: You do not have to have sex. If you do not have sex, you or your partner cannot become pregnant. Not having sex also means your chances of contracting a sexually-transmitted infection are nearly zero, all other things being equal.

Which is fine, as long as it's not all the information students are given. Lying by omission is still lying, and any complete discussion of the risks of having sex must include honest information on ways to reduce the risk. And that includes the fact that those options are very effective and can reduce the risk to near-zero levels when used properly.

But of course we're never going to see that complete lesson in a situation like this because the entire point of abstinence-only "education" is to promote right-wing Christian ideology.

If I was going to disagree with anyone IRL (unlike on the internet), especially someone in authority over me like a teacher, I would only do so if there was a reasonable chance the conversation would be productive. My rule of thumb is, ideological debates are almost never productive.

So your opinion is that we should put up with blatant lying in schools because it wouldn't be "productive" to have a debate about it?

I like you, you're intelligent.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The point about Manchu's argument is that the mother basically did a grandstand play aimed at her own audience. She wasn't primarily interested in finding out about the curriculum or getting it changed, she wanted just to pander to various pre-conceptions.

I agree that the abstinence programme is basically useless, and the version presented was tantamount in various areas to blatant lies. However to oppose it any way you like does not necessarily put you on the side of the angels.

If you truly care about children's health and life skills, you need to tackle the issue in a non-confrontational way as you will never achieve buy-in from opponents by slagging them off as idiots and fanatics.

Precisely. Had this mother wanted an actual constructive resolution she could have met with the teacher/principal/school board and explained her background, her expertise, where she felt there was room for improvement etc. so that way the students could have benefited and been able to make informed decisions.

She did not choose to do this.

 Frazzled wrote:

 von Hohenstein wrote:
Did this happen in the US, a so called "free" country, or somewhere in Pakistan?

No way. An adult trying to get into a high school would be stopped at the office. They're hardcore about that, even keeping out the helicoptering soccer moms.

We in the US do you live. A parent has the right to sit in on their kids class. They do need to check in with the office but they can't be legally denied.

Sure they can be denied. In this case, for example, mom is now banned from doing so because she swore in front of the kids while ranting at the guest speakers after the class.

Dreger said today that Fletcher has banned her from the high school except for her freshman son's events because she swore in front of students at the end of the class. She says she's really being punished for shining a light on the use of a curriculum that's driven by a conservative agenda.

http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/news/local/2015/04/16/judy-putnam-prof-live-tweets-elhs-sex-ed/25879891/

Again -- she herself sees this as a battle of ideological agendas.

 Manchu wrote:
Sure they can be denied. In this case, for example, mom is now banned from doing so because she swore in front of the kids while ranting at the guest speakers after the class.

Dreger said today that Fletcher has banned her from the high school except for her freshman son's events because she swore in front of students at the end of the class. She says she's really being punished for shining a light on the use of a curriculum that's driven by a conservative agenda.

http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/news/local/2015/04/16/judy-putnam-prof-live-tweets-elhs-sex-ed/25879891/

Sounds like she got what she deserved. Not for sitting in on the class, but for acting like an ass afterwards.

 Manchu wrote:
Sure they can be denied. In this case, for example, mom is now banned from doing so because she swore in front of the kids while ranting at the guest speakers after the class.

Child safety and parents rights are two different thing. You notice it wasn't until after the event she was denied. One trump the other, just like I can't smoke in my yard if my house is next to a school do to the 100yards rule despitet it being private property .

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
Precisely. Had this mother wanted an actual constructive resolution she could have met with the teacher/principal/school board and explained her background, her expertise, where she felt there was room for improvement etc. so that way the students could have benefited and been able to make informed decisions.

She did not choose to do this.

Yeah, because the kind of dishonest right-wing zealots that let this stuff into schools in the first place are genuinely interested in doing the right thing for their students and willing to consider alternatives if someone just politely suggests them...

 Manchu wrote:
Again -- she herself sees this as a battle of ideological agendas.

And it's a battle in which one side has facts and is indisputably correct, while the other side is a bunch of shameless liars. Pointing out that the people you're opposing are biased doesn't mean that you have nothing more than ideological opinions of your own, or that you only care about scoring points in some "culture war" battle.

 Manchu wrote:
I mean, the only reason to assume bad faith on their part is because you already think they are bad people ... probably because you think they have bad values.

No, my reasons for assuming bad faith are:

1) I don't think it's at all plausible that nobody has ever said "your facts are wrong, here are the real numbers". It's just like the "debate" over evolution: a creationist speaker says something obviously wrong, someone tells them they're wrong and shows them evidence that proves it beyond any reasonable doubt, and the next day they're right back to the same false statements as if nothing happened.

2) Even a basic google search for information will provide the correct answers. So either they're lying, or they have such a reckless lack of concern for the truth that the end result is the same. Deliberately avoiding evidence that might prove you wrong so that you can say "this is all I know" is still dishonest.

Your side is indisputably correct while the other side is a pack of shameless liars ... yeah you don't sound anything like a culture warrior.

 Manchu wrote:

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Although -- thinking about it -- I am not sure how you explain to minors how to give consent when this is legally impossible.

Same as you explain to a 14 year old what the traffic laws for cars are and how a vehicle works even if they can't legally drive yet...

The premise of driving education is not that kids are already driving. But that is a premise of sex education.