Sex education

A MINOR controversy erupted recently over the government’s plan to teach sex education to public school students.

It was said that the bishops, with the help of some parents, succeeded in convincing the Department of Education to shelve the delicate subject.

There, of course, were those who were unhappy with this turn of events. They complained that the bishops did an overkill, their understanding of the issue simplistic. Some form of sex education in schools, they insist, is a must.

This has made me wonder whether these people are aware that only recently we complained about the deterioration of our English education in the schools, in spite of heroic efforts to nurture it for many years.

Sex education in public schools? Give it a few months before it degenerates
into something really nasty. We’ll be producing students not only with fractured English but also with ballistic sexual appetite.

Let’s not be naïve about this. Sex is an extremely delicate subject. It should be handled most prudently, considering its volatile character. Sex education cannot be given in a generic way. It requires person-specific attention.

This is because sex education is not about being clever to be safe, about practical, technical knowledge. It is about virtue, about chastity, about love, a love that involves God and man and woman down to their bodily dimensions.

In the recent controversy, everyone has a point. Even the devil can make a point, and at times can score a big point, except for a little lie that spoils the whole thing. He can even appear as an angel of light to pull his grand deception.

What strikes me about the reactions as reflected in the press is the haste in the way they were expressed. There was improvisation galore, with ideas whose gestation must not have lasted more than a split second.

The position of the Catholic Church on sex education can virtually be seen in the document: “The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality: Guidelines for Education within the Family,” issued by the Vatican in 1995.

I wonder if that document was consulted before our seemingly all-knowing commentators open their mouth or start to write. This document certainly was not a result of an improvised effort. A lot of research and consultation went into it. Its suggestions and recommendations just cannot be taken lightly.

In that guidebook, everyone is reminded that the task of education is primarily a responsibility of the parents. The schools, the government, etc., only take on a subsidiary, supporting role. The parental duty should not be replaced by them.

This is especially so when sex education is concerned. In one point, it says that parents can ask the assistance of schools that should be under their attentive guidance and control, not the other way around.

Thus, it says: “It is recommended that parents be aware of their own educational role and defend and carry out this primary right and duty.

“It follows that any educative activity, related to education for love and carried out by persons outside the family, must be subject to the parents’ acceptance of it and must be seen not as a substitute but as a support for their work.

“In fact, sex education, which is a basic right and duty of parents, must always be carried out under their attentive guidance whether at home or in educational centers chosen and controlled by them.” (113)

To me, the bigger problem we have is how to make the parents more responsible to fulfill the delicate duty of sex education to their children. Actually, more than the government, the Church has the heavier burden in this regard. Thus, the two should work very closely.