From The Gazette

High school students say condom video is no big deal

by Sean R. Sedam

December 8, 2004

When students at Northwest High School heard news reports last spring about a controversial video about condoms approved for 10th-grade health classes, they were anxious to see it for themselves.

As students at one of three schools selected to show the video on a trial basis -- along with James Hubert Blake High School and Montgomery Blair High School in the east county -- Northwest students, with their parents' permission, got their chance to view the eight-minute-long video produced by the county school system.

Afterwards, students wondered what all the fuss was about.

"It was so boring," Christina Tarpley, now a 16-year-old junior at the Germantown school, said of the "Protect Yourself" video, which includes a discussion of sexually transmitted diseases, different forms of contraception and a demonstration of the proper way to put on a condom.

"I didn't see what the big deal about the demonstration was about," said classmate Walter Hood. "It wasn't that serious. It was stuff everybody knew about."

The controversy over the video began last spring and gathered momentum last month when the board approved showing the video countywide and approved a discussion of sexual orientation for trial in eighth- and 10th-grade health classes.

Critics of showing the video and discussing homosexuality, same-sex families and sexual identity see the new curriculum as tilted toward a more liberal agenda by the county school board.

Several students at Northwest said they see it as an appropriate and necessary lesson for young people who are reaching the age when they may become sexually active or begin questioning their own sexuality.

Students might not be ready to deal with the complex issues of being sexually active, said Hood, a 16-year-old junior. "But they're ready to learn about how to protect themselves," he said.

Learning about homosexuality, Hood said, is not as important as learning about pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Still, "If they teach it the right way they don't infringe on anybody's values," he said.

Condoms and homosexuality are part of the world and part of Northwest High School, students said. There are Northwest students who have become pregnant and there are Northwest students who are openly gay, students said.

"You need to know about it because there's a lot of people who are gay and getting married," said Chante Littleton, 16.

It is also important for students to know that the sexually transmitted diseases they have been learning about in health classes for years can be contracted "if you're gay or not," she said.

The curriculum will give health lessons greater context, said Lorraine Arca Goldstein, who has taught health at the middle and high school level for nine years, the last five at Northwest.

Under the current curriculum, teachers are forced to send students to school nurses to get many of their questions answered, she said.

Tinitra Torian, a 16-year-old senior, said she believes homosexuality is a choice and that a 10th-grade health class is the right place to get information about how people arrive at that choice.

"Let me step in their shoes for a while and understand what they're going through," she said. "How they got pushed to where they are now."

Students and teachers said that the facts of sexual education stay with students more when they are given real-world context.

That is why Goldstein questions the effectiveness of the condom demonstration, in which a young woman unrolls a condom over a cucumber.

"I think the information is good," she said. "The video is good. I didn't like that they used a cucumber. It makes kids laugh. It puts it in a silly tone when I think it's a very serious topic."

She said she would prefer that the video used one of a number of teaching aides used by health professionals that more closely resemble a penis.

Students said a demonstration given by a representative of Planned Parenthood that used a wooden model was more effective.

Students said they also learned from another guest speaker who had become sexually active at a young age, contracted chlamydia and gonorrhea, and can no longer have children.

"It's reality," said Tarpley, the Northwest junior.

Broaching subjects like contraception in a health class is beneficial to students, who sometimes have a tough time discussing such issues with parents, said Torian.

"If you are talking with parents you might sugarcoat [questions about sexual activity] and not be as open as in the classroom setting if students are there that want to know about the same questions you're asking," Torian said.

Students said the class sent a clear message that abstinence is the only way to prevent disease or pregnancy.

The discussion of homosexuality in health classes, which will be introduced in three middle and three high schools in the spring, may have its own consequences, Goldstein said.

Some "old school" teachers opposed to including the discussion as part of the course may stop teaching the class, she said. But she does not think it will be enough to cause a noticeable shortage of health teachers, she said.

In fact, Goldstein said she believes teachers will have greater flexibility, since this is the first time teachers will be able to broach the subject of homosexuality without students first asking questions.

School officials and teachers say that the discussions of homosexuality are mostly about promoting tolerance.

"We're just throwing it in as one of the issues, just like we'd talk about arachnophobia, we'd talk about homophobia," said Goldstein, who was one of two teachers on a group that wrote the curriculum on sexual orientation. That group included school nurses, psychiatrists, members of the Citizens' Advisory Committee for Family Life and Human Development and others.

"We just tried to set down the myths versus the facts and I guess that's the biggest thing, is to promote tolerance," she said.

Intolerance comes from not knowing the facts, said Northwest health teacher Lynn Wiegand.

"Miseducation is what it is," Wiegand said. "I would go so far as to say parents are just as miseducated as the kids."