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Sex ed led by teens is dividing parents
Philadephia Inquirer ^ | 02/17/2008 | John Sullivan

Posted on 02/17/2008 4:58:59 PM PST by Kid Shelleen

A tussle that began with a condom and a banana has morphed into all-out war at a New Jersey high school, with some parents trying to end a peer-to-peer sexual-education course taught in about 45 other public schools statewide. Parents opposed to the classes at Clearview Regional High School, in Mullica Hill, say that kids shouldn't be instructing kids about sex ---snip--- Do you want a 16-year-old boy teaching your 14-year-old daughter how to put on a condom by using a banana?" asked Lisa Westermann, whose son said the course had made him uncomfortable

(Excerpt) Read more at philly.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events; US: New Jersey
KEYWORDS: culturewars; education; educrats; publikskoolz; sexeducation

1 posted on 02/17/2008 4:59:01 PM PST by Kid Shelleen
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To: Kid Shelleen

Glad to hear they’re still using the bananas. The alternatives are far more destabilizing, but this is New Jersey and everybody knows how those people are.


2 posted on 02/17/2008 5:01:33 PM PST by muawiyah
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To: Kid Shelleen

We had peer to peer sex ed at my high school, but it was more informal, i.e. locker room banter, dirty jokes after class etc. etc.


3 posted on 02/17/2008 5:04:17 PM PST by squidly
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To: muawiyah

They are just getting started. The liberal mind is never satisfied.


4 posted on 02/17/2008 5:04:29 PM PST by Kid Shelleen (Aztlan My Azz: La Raza is Spanish for Tan Klan)
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To: Kid Shelleen
This appears to be an application of the ed school theory that students learn best through socially constructed knowledge (and applied to the particular subject of sex education):

http://teachvu.vu.msu.edu/public/designers/social_interactions/index.php?page_num=5

Michigan State University
Social, Cognitive and Situative Frameworks:

Socially Constructed Knowledge

(last updated 9/15/2004)
concept overview

Bandura's social learning theory and Vygotsky's ideas about social constructivism are well supported insights related to the proposition that all knowlege is socialy [sic] constructed.

Who we are as individuals, what is means to be human, our place in the world, what we think of as facts and skills, what it means to learn -- all of these things are experienced and defined within our social context and through our social contacts.

Knowledge is Socially Constructed

"Our culture is the sea in which we swim, as transparent to us as the ocean is to the fish that live in it."

George Hein, 1998

social context

The idea that knowledge is socially constructed builds upon the idea that knowledge is constructed. Remember Piaget's explanations of assimilation and accomodation? What is missing from the assimilation and accomodation diagrams is the socio-cultural environment. Our families, friends, school, city, and culture are the social background within which we define our own identity and accomodate and assimilate knowledge. It is by interacting with other people and the world that we learn.

"Interaction with the world produces meaning and identity." Barab and Duffy, 2000

"A child's capabilities are shaped by the cultural practices and systems of ideas of the community in which they find themselves."

Agoliki Nicolopouou, discussing Vygotsky, 1993

Albert Bandura and Social Learning

Bandura's Social Learning Theory and his more recent Social Cognition Theory provide the basis for vast numbers of research studies of the impacts of mass media on society. Social learning theory recognized that we can learn by observing others, not just by doing ourselves. While behaviorism looks at learning as a result of outcomes personally experienced (enactive learning), Social Learning theory imagines we watch other people, even actors in the media, to learn new behaviors (vicarious learning). We also observe the consequences of those behaviors, which help us decide whether to perform those behaviors ourselves.

Social learning is not a one directional influence. Social and personal influences impact each other, and influence behavior, which in turn may influence personal and social factors. In day to day life, social learning occurs in a state of almost constant flux, influenced by many factors. In a classroom or in an online learning experience, the teacher tries to structure and harness some of these factors to optimize desired learning.

Woolfolk (2004, p.310) suggests four techniques for encouraging observational learning:

* model or demonstrate desired behaviors
* have students model desired behaviors
* show that desired behaviors result in desirable * enlist participation of class leaders

Some models are more effective, more powerful than others. Movie stars are often recruited to appear in anti-smoking public service announcements. Models who are "like me" (same age or gender or circumstance) may be more effective. Some reinforcements are more effective than others, depending on how valuable that reinforcer is to the observer.

Vygotsky and Constructivism

Children "appropriate the conceptual resources of the preexisting cultural world, which are transmitted to them by their parents, other adults, and peers." Agoliki Nicolopouou, discussing Vygotsky, 1993

Vygotsky looks at learning as cultural, not just individual. Our interactions with others directly (parents, teachers, friends) and with society overall (through media and social events) provide both context, stimuli, and interpretation as we construct knowledge.

He introduced some fascinating concepts, extending and sometimes contradicting Piaget. We learn through interactions with others who are more advanced. We "appropriate" (take for our own) their ideas as we actively construct our own knowledge.

Vygotsky talks about the "zone of proximal development." That is the outer edges of what a learner is capable of learning (at this particular state in their personal cognitive development in that content domain) if they have the help of a teacher or guide, peer or parent. Some things learners are ready to easily learn on their own. The zone of proximal development is the region they are just barely capable of learning, with the right help.

[...]

5 posted on 02/17/2008 5:19:57 PM PST by SteveH (First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.)
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To: wintertime

ping


6 posted on 02/17/2008 5:21:19 PM PST by wintertime (Good ideas win! Why? Because people are not stupid.)
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To: Kid Shelleen
I’d love to see a study about the lack of depth in Baby Boomer’s relationships. I suspect the Sexual Revolution has caused much deeper problems than just the diseases transmitted. I suspect this is the reason for the skyrocketing divorce rate. Sex with anybody, at any time, and any age-including junior high. Kindergartners taught about aberrant sexual practices, etc. Kinda makes for really superficial relationships, ya think? It’s all about sex not making love. Sad state of affairs.
7 posted on 02/17/2008 5:22:46 PM PST by originalbuckeye
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To: originalbuckeye
Sex with anybody, at any time, and any age

Why couldn't I have been in THAT high school instead?

8 posted on 02/17/2008 5:24:56 PM PST by Old Sarge (CTHULHU '08 - I won't settle for a lesser evil any longer!)
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To: Kid Shelleen
how to put on a condom by using a banana

Condoms are never easy to put on, but I don't see how a banana would make it easier.

9 posted on 02/17/2008 5:26:15 PM PST by Larry Lucido
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To: Larry Lucido

I they perfer it take place in the back of a car?


10 posted on 02/17/2008 5:32:31 PM PST by M. Dodge Thomas (Opinion based on research by an eyewear firm, which surveyed 100 members of a speed dating club.)
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To: Larry Lucido
Isn't there an old joke about a doctor telling his patient to put a condom on his organ?

The patient came back and said he could get it on his piano, but not his organ.

11 posted on 02/17/2008 5:35:09 PM PST by Loyal Buckeye
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To: Loyal Buckeye

And don’t forget the true story about the lady who got pregnant even though she had her contraceptive jelly (on a cracker) every morning.


12 posted on 02/17/2008 5:48:40 PM PST by Larry Lucido
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To: originalbuckeye

It is sad. It’s sexual devolution, not a revolution.
A lot of bad ideas came out of the liberal minds of the ‘60s, and the repercussions continue.


13 posted on 02/17/2008 5:55:51 PM PST by RepublitarianRoger2
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To: Kid Shelleen

Who needs sex ed in schools when every home has TV and internet access?


14 posted on 02/17/2008 6:14:04 PM PST by Hacklehead (Crush the liberals, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of the hippies.)
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To: Loyal Buckeye

The punchline was more like the patient couldn’t put the rubber on his organ so would a raincoat on his piano suffice?


15 posted on 02/17/2008 6:20:56 PM PST by printhead
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To: Kid Shelleen

This would be a non issue if we had a complete separation between state and educatin.
You want to learn something, find and pay a private teacher to do so.


16 posted on 02/17/2008 6:22:18 PM PST by genghis
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To: Larry Lucido
"how to put on a condom by using a banana.... Condoms are never easy to put on, but I don't see how a banana would make it easier."

LOL!

17 posted on 02/17/2008 6:53:44 PM PST by boop (Democracy is the theory that the people get the government they deserve, good and hard.)
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To: muawiyah

In all seriousness, are people so stupid that they have to be “taught” how to use a condom?


18 posted on 02/17/2008 6:56:16 PM PST by boop (Democracy is the theory that the people get the government they deserve, good and hard.)
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To: boop

This is New Jersey and everybody knows how those people are.


19 posted on 02/17/2008 7:10:16 PM PST by muawiyah
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To: Larry Lucido
Condoms are never easy to put on, but I don't see how a banana would make it easier.

Like a shoe horn, don't you know...

Cheers!

20 posted on 02/17/2008 7:11:28 PM PST by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: Larry Lucido
Larry, baayybee, how do ~ not just a true story, a general problem ~ catch this: http://nfb.org/legacy/vod/vodwin02all.htm

Search down for "jelly".

21 posted on 02/17/2008 7:13:41 PM PST by muawiyah
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To: originalbuckeye

I believe it’s all about socially engineering emotional ruin by enticing people of all ages into sexual deviancy, leading to emotionally dysfunctional people who are too involved with either their deviancy or the aftereffects of said deviancy to deal with anything involving their government. Add other government programming including dependency on the State and an abstract view on how government is supposed to function — if they know that at all — and you have a recipe for a people who can be easily controlled and lead by their “betters” at the State’s pleasure.

</conspiracy theory>


22 posted on 02/17/2008 8:36:18 PM PST by John Williams ("The urge to save humanity is always a false front for the urge to rule it.")
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To: John Williams
I have a slightly simpler idea. I think that the Leftists promoted basically anonymous sex as a way to lessen the importance of a close, stable relationship in hope of tearing the family fabric that solidifies the heart of our country. They have done everything in their power to diminish the importance of a stable family environment. It breaks my heart to think that the American family, as we know it, is on it’s way out if the Leftists have their way.
23 posted on 02/17/2008 8:53:11 PM PST by originalbuckeye
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To: originalbuckeye
I’d love to see a study about the lack of depth in Baby Boomer’s relationships

How long have you been married?

24 posted on 02/18/2008 5:34:25 AM PST by laotzu
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To: Kid Shelleen
“Here dear, I’m out of bananas, but this will do....”
25 posted on 02/18/2008 5:38:49 AM PST by G Larry (HILLARY CARE = DYING IN LINE!)
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To: John Williams

More like “hit the nail straight on the head” than “conspiracy theory”.

The left is all about destroying the Western Culture and its accompanying individual independence. Following this destruction, they believe that they will be in charge when they institute their dystopian socialist culture.


26 posted on 02/18/2008 5:40:08 AM PST by MrB (You can't reason people out of a position that they didn't use reason to get into in the first place)
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To: laotzu

24 years. Sadly, at this point, I have a number of friends divorced or in the process of divorcing. Mostly the husband’s expectations of their wives was waaaay too high. I have said for years that ‘having it all’ just means you have to do it all. And at the age we are now, we are just tired.


27 posted on 02/18/2008 5:40:47 AM PST by originalbuckeye
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To: originalbuckeye

Congratulations. 24 years truly is something to be proud of.


28 posted on 02/18/2008 5:46:15 AM PST by laotzu
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