In most secular school systems there will be many elements in the sex education curriculum that are contrary to biblical teaching. As a Christian teacher, this will be problematic for you. There will be other elements that will concern you whether you are a Christian or not, because you realize that they promote unhealthy, even dangerous, behaviors.
How can you deal with these conflicts? How can you be true to your own conscience and help your students to make wise and healthy decisions?
Know your facts
The requirements of your school system — what you are required to teach
What the bible says — about gender, the context of sexual intimacy, sexual orientation, and healthy boy-girl relationships
Medical and social science research — what happens in our bodies and our brains when we are sexually intimate and how sex outside marriage can impact the lives of young people. Listen to Dr. Miriam Grossman, an American psychiatrist, speak on these issues for information and an expert opinion you can trust.
Be bold and creative
You want to teach your students biological truths and how to develop healthy relationships. How can you do this while still meeting the requirements of your school’s curriculum, which may be based more on ideology than fact?
- Can you provide your students with opportunities to think through the implications of behaviors? They may themselves come up with the cautions you would like to give them.
- Can you make bold statements? One teacher told a class of girls that they didn’t have to send naked pictures of themselves to their boyfriends. The girls cheered. Most didn’t like doing it, and were relieved when someone told them they didn’t have to. A young teen boy at a Christian youth rally said to the speaker after the talk, “I never heard before that I didn’t have to have sex. I thought it was expected.”
- Can you teach alternative views? One teacher said, “I begin by telling my students, ‘This is what I’m supposed to teach you. Then I’ll tell you there is another way. Then I’ll tell you what I think, and why.”
Dr. Grossman saw hundreds of students in her many years at a large university in the United States. Most of them were suffering from the consequences of unwise sexual choices, and all of them said to her, “Why didn’t anyone tell me this?” You don’t want your students to be uninformed.
Related posts
Teen Sex Talk Part III: Some facts
Teen Sex Talk Part IV: More facts
For further reading
Miriam Grossman, Unprotected: A Campus Psychiatrist Reveals How Political Correctness in Her Profession Endangers Every Student
Miriam Grossman, You’re Teaching My Child What? A Physician Exposes the Lies of Sex Ed and How They Harm Your Child