Local Issue; 23; The Subject of Sex
- Transcript
it's b but when it comes before most sex education most homes strikeout don't qualify they become reticent they feel are not properly informed of a skit i'm doing a good job i don't really accept the fact that this is just a sex education program were attempting to make poison pills aware of many problems that they will come back and the program their units on the study of the effects of narcotics alcohol tobacco pornographic literature there you have a very unique voice there is much more to the program and sex education it could be appropriately named the horse and evolving healthy attitudes regarding the problems of growth and development of boys and girls
sex was brought into the future of mankind through the bible it seems rather ironic to me that the bible out of public school building this one segment of the thinking within that that we can expect remember every atom with sex and rival whether the topic everyone fell apart after decades of gradual changes in attitudes that seemed suddenly become a national preoccupation there was talk going to want to do a lot of the parents soon send out you know so what their schools to help me as a result sex education programs in schools have grown at an unprecedented rate them alive or your alternative route that sex education is the province of the school like an examination of the country for more than one school board voted against sex education program and the battle with one thing community before it was approved
jefferson county colorado is a sprawling area which lies to the west of denver it includes ranches farms tones and housing development for thousands of denver commuters the county's move is often conservative but its residents are also proud of their school system which is among the most experimental innovation and which frequently accuse excellent last fall the school board asked its parents to follow the lead set in sex education by other cities it also asked them to go several steps beyond offering information about contraceptives and a realistic account of the sex act in the eighth grade dr allan grew parker formerly director of obstetrics and then a college at mount sinai hospital in new york and our president of planned parenthood comment on why he's a very expensive programs of sex education in the first place i think we are in the midst of what people have called the cuts for lack of a better term a sexual
revolution i think that has six ways of you and a grimy a rather dramatic changes i think has come about through several factors one is in the ear creation of the single sex standard so that we don't expect a different job sexual behavior of the male from the female vice version the second time i think and a woman as desperate poverty and everything built job sexual activity these i think there are two important things there it isn't mccain didn't really have our own condition latitudes decades ago when i grew up show that
the modern activities and you are totally un chaperoned day giving a child to keep iraq will be ok at sixteen and some states are making others and have to take it a little and we will then i think of the poor media in both the outspoken visual certainly titillating you know all kinds of pornographic stimulation the miniskirt i don't think is going to happen or sexual standard to review its assembly one of the many things which are to solving you however the jefferson county school system come to a recognition of a problem why did it persistent disturbing the complacency of thousands of its parents i'm greatly expanded program of sex education was first proposed of the school's three years ago by the clear creek valley medical society whose positions were disturbed by what they thought was an alarming increase in the venereal disease rate among
students and in teenage pregnancy mr ballenger most of the doctors in this community have felt for some time that a intensification of sex education or educational online is necessary and it was through the army the help of the doctors that this was a motive and about letting their voices to those of the doctors were other members of the school's health advisory council public health nurses and dentists and the parent teacher association the curriculum with planners parents teachers physicians ministers and other consultants worked over the program in various combinations for two years when the scoreboard unveiled to the public last november it called the program education poor family living but that didn't make it more palatable to parents who initiated open discussion which
followed found themselves using words which they had previously thought and credible the most controversial aspect of the program was chapter four in a book titled love and sex in plain language which the curriculum committee proposed to present in the eighth grade the book was written by a quaker lame every job head of the junior high school of the germantown friend school in philadelphia and adam johnson attempted to tell his young readers me everything they had told him they wanted to know many parents came to the defense of the curriculum committee but other allows parents formed an opposition group the citizens for better school one of the most vocal crusader for the opposition says graze longer and the mother said in plain language it is everything in plane and nothing is that out my own we fail at
age thirteen with his eighth grade level this is more than you need to tell but he adds you don't need to tell them at any age all of the information that it's contained in this book they're that chapter not a chapter just about hair bags stating the difference between acting and paying them that relative luck that do to apple core curriculum use a curriculum guide you'll find in the kind that aren't the teaching and thinking of secrets which means six information and education counselor united states is woven throughout the entire program dr mary calderon who was head of this organization has been quoted in the outline several times and i'm thinking is woven throughout a completely and i can point to several areas
very few with my two that we don't feel is is i think that we were children taught for instance and i avoid that that you know that i can only angela preston number one who i hold a lighted a wednesday night and the heist the area there's a section on the lab and its states we don't count that the jury in acceptance of responsibility is this saying that if you're old enough can accept responsibility that it's okay go ahead with the other suspected this is that related to the weaker they should be taught this is wrong you're right she was as larry johnson is to expose
selected that we thought that there's less demand religious background was concerned with the moral fiber analysis on without that they live now this is either elaborated on that chapter for controversy i think a hat that controversy perhaps seeking comment from young people entering its second were not shocked they read it as now that is meaningless to this that are you things right and it's so that this man acted alone and people reading this chapter i think we don't experience into an easy leaders have not had this kind of data they actually have not have at least two years then married association and this is the big thing i think that
that may have also found very uncomfortable it's written below my is i have written and said a very marvelous that is described in some detail that in enough detail so that entity not have to ask questions parents who were shocked by chapter four were horrified to learn that ball boys and girls would read it separately they would discuss their conclusions in next sessions dr good marker this seemed the logical course the fall he was asked of the sexes should be separated in order that sex should not become a common pop i am homes to this strongly in my experience it to make medicine well when they're together i always like to think of ideas and huron known for them they commit but you and the boys are not begin until group in one part of the room that goes another and the new study and begin showing are tricks and dirty thing melts down and they flow together
into a somewhat silent group they get so excited that raise hands are unconscious of the other and i think it's great and just not in the way that so you can make sex is something physiology reproduction some even talk about together i think it makes a pornographic when you separate them i agree with that particularly from areas where they are but i do that this leads to breaking down the barriers which has spoken out in the eighth grade level in this curriculum which this chorus is designed to break down the artificial barriers now we that's what i've the artificial barriers it is really our natural inhibitions that ideas in play and we don't feel that these barriers should be broken down their stadium no barrier between
iowa why is that factories are owned by members of his congregation residing in germany on a patent on nelson about his major candidate running community expressed the use of the settlements in chapter or two from it has to be read in a classroom with those enrolled present with the climate of the classroom she captured by the teacher who maybe and as a policy of the numerology who maybe follow where john dewey's very that there are no absolutes everything isn't a relative one of the conditions circumstances to promote their teacher to use in his book an incredible that dialogue political bases would be to rip out every barrier of modesty and chastity that we have treatment can incorporate into children dr robert weiland jefferson county's director a special education explain the committee's thinking on that
this week we'll talk about the citizens for better schools also protested the curriculum committees proposal that were rabbit literature be brought into classrooms in the eighth grade for study for awhile and agreed that it might not be necessary to go outside the classroom to climb one of that literature or like doctors
speaking french is life the jefferson county school board talk about
that along the river anything having to do much of what is included in the program should be done only know those who have read the program ran from the very beginning there is a program on one of the schools but school roman church over if doctors and ministers are going to be brought in to the program but how are they going to be used really it's one thing to say i will bring them in it's another thing to say are they going to prevent the material the teachers are we questioned the qualifications of teachers to teach the subject
the teachers are qualified in their fields but what teacher for instance wanted to what will be his or her moral each week here you cannot separate that teaching insects from the morality that we want teachers who are excellent teachers to teachers who have them raise teacher's teacher who have some religious or not these kind of chosen process of incentives first of all like religious people come in and talk about relationships the church doesn't feel that teachers should no feelings of the various churches and we're talking about a second way we like to
have the medical doctors work with the teens the team developed at possible ways of handling questions about the public health officials come and work with the team so that they update on the statistics problems were involved in the security of communicable diseases we would like to have the legal profession come in and talk with the team about the various legal ramifications are lost like the original writing team work with the teachers to be working on this program we talk with them about the last big change as there is a great deal i was in that program where it's not just sex a majority of the clergy and jefferson
county approved a family living curriculum after tom miller who heads the lake where the christian school was one of the most vocal dissenters they the basic responsibility here lies upon the shoulders of the parents and been in training their children up as the issue rather than an online educational or even in the church i think our children along for some of your parents today's changing moral standards were the bases of pasture nelson's objection i do not accept the fact that no one's in failed or the mortar just impale i think that in most cases the average parent is adequate in the teacher's sex education by this i mean the mortality of sex to the children our state must provide public education i think there's also provide for the protection of the home in the church in their particular well and though we face here is a simple constitutional question that the schools have moved into thinking about sex talking with the volunteers that
we don't have an agreed upon standard there was asking today's church they're doing their part in sex education and what that part should be he was in private student your responsibility and sex education and i don't think the church is specifically qualified there are obviously some ministers who probably only good it's just like you're some doctors are good and some a poem some changes are good and go but i don't think it's a particular functions such as far as i see it it seemed to me that the rest of the secular education not primarily a spiritual education now if no one feels that in the community were going through do damage to the mores of that community of a leading up to the spiritual than i think one could very well invited a minister to talk about the religious the overtones undertones in most instances i think it's a mess those who endorsed the program we're also at loggerheads with a protesting citizens
over what the long term results of that education might be at a school board meeting this is long referred to an article commenting on a similar program at a washington dc public school all that data the incident that very hands while wearing the years nineteen thirteen to nineteen fifties that with the use of antibiotics and access their youth and their job you know i think right now it seems to me that a very significant that that doesn't do that that that that that means that it is hopeful that what about the opposite
side of the line now that the high school's program and those who had not the school program and that people could look at what the law says schools have a program on tv and the other schools in the area and they don't know the statistics for the soul of a glacier regions some citizens fear that sex would run rampant if their children were exposed to all and always contained in the family living room ram as a loving mother of sex was that what modifications would have to be made in the curriculum before she could find it
acceptable well there'd have to be an awfully lot of modifications because i feel that the first thing that's going to you know and when you feed a child too much information too fast they're going to want to experiment with it i have six children that i know but dr bruce walker maintain that a four measure of knowledge is not a dangerous thing he was as a teenager to have become more promiscuous as a result of extensive sex education programs know what that would mean for them i hope that the result of our education schools <unk> to creating a greater sense of sexual responsibility i think that certainly didn't ask for no to be responsible and you must be knowledgeable and therefore my theory is that since so this is being thrust upon as a kind of an avalanche the best way to try to perhaps a stop the speed the avalanches from
sex education inevitably the question arose what about the children themselves they want education on sex again the grownups disagree i don't think that i have talked a number of film and later they will accept that were empty hear with that is that the way they feel about that i think most of them would do and they don't want mixed groups and you can imagine there have been many poles around the community on this and i don't have the exact statistics that students do what they feel a need for it they want to know the truth and if we don't get them to feel that the adults in and the answer calling out on them and they will present a sport one nineteen eighty six months after the first storm a meeting
the school board met to decide if the controversial program should have its beginnings in several pilot schools this fall in the ensuing months committee members have traveled to every corner of jefferson county and explain the program the parents and some eighty three navy meanwhile a revision committee had modified aspects which the citizens for better schools at the most objectionable permission slips were to be sent to our parents so that they might indicate whether they wanted their children to participate if parents they'll return the slips their children would be automatically enroll on that discussion of a sex act description in chapter four was out the two sexes would discuss the chapters separately there were several cautionary statement from parents but the school board's open meeting proceeded with relative calm in the end the school board unanimously approved a modified family living curriculum reverend there are a lot that a christian church minister and a leader of the citizens were better schools was asked his reaction to the program the
school board and approve her the man i would say the same time the commander who were in the committee that's over and i think probably that they would still feel that the rule many questions have been asked and the answer is a cum laude then in contradiction the school board and a majority of jefferson county parents approved of the family living program and a small minority is now preparing to test the constitutionality of the program of the court's affair we're living program will be initiated in jefferson county school of those four but it may require a generation of teaching to tell at this program of sex education needs the challenge of a new reality we can
it's been a peak we can the piece
by the pool room rosanna run national educational telling young lawyer in london
- Series
- Local Issue
- Episode Number
- 23
- Episode
- The Subject of Sex
- Producing Organization
- KRMA-TV (Television station : Denver, Colo.)
- Contributing Organization
- Library of Congress (Washington, District of Columbia)
- AAPB ID
- cpb-aacip/516-c24qj78t4t
- NOLA Code
- LOCI
If you have more information about this item than what is given here, or if you have concerns about this record, we want to know! Contact us, indicating the AAPB ID (cpb-aacip/516-c24qj78t4t).
- Description
- Episode Description
- NET zeroes in on a boiling controversy over sex education in Jefferson County, Colorado, in The Subject of Sex. The film begins in November 1966 when the country school board was asked to approve a Family Living course. The program was proposed by local physicians who were disturbed about the alarming increase in VD and pregnancies among the community's youth, and the curriculum was developed over a two year period by doctors, parents, teachers and clergy. Despite these efforts at a workable formula for teaching a touchy subject, some parents were unimpressed, and they formed an organization, Citizens for Better Schools. Much of the opposition centered on the proposed text book, Love and Sex in Plain Language, written by the headmaster of a Quaker school in Philadelphia. The Citizens felt the language was far too plain. Arousing their particular ire was Chapter Four - Husband and Wife Unite in Sexual Intercourse. In the words of an opposition leader, "We felt that at age 13 this is more than you need to tell the kids. You don't need to tell them at any age all of the things that are in this book." A high school sociology teacher saw it differently - "Young people reading this chapter aren't shocked. They smiled, they said 'we know most of this.' Older people reading this chapter read their own experience into it and these eighth graders haven't had this kind of experience, hopefully." Other issues were raised in addition to Chapter Four. Should the classes be co-ed or segregated by sex? Is sex education really the province of the schools or is it the responsibility of parents and the church? Should pornographic literature be brought into the classroom for 8th graders to study? Would sex run rampant if the children were exposed to all the knowledge contained in the Family Living program? Last May after modifying some aspects of the program to counter the opposition's more vehement objections, the school board decided to begin the courses this fall. All of the critics are far from satisfied as the Rev. Dan Harlow states, "I feel that they (the school board) have acted probably in good faith - however we still feel that they're wrong." A small minority of the dissenters are now preparing to test the program's constitutionality in the courts. And although the Family Living course begins this fall the big question remains - does this program and others like it really meet the challenge of the new morality? THE SUBJECT OF SEX is a 1967 presentation of National Educational Television. Produced for NET by its Denver, Colorado affiliate, KRMA-TV. (Description adapted from documents in the NET Microfiche)
- Other Description
- In this series several of National Educational Televisions affiliated stations take a close look at controversies in their own areas that may greatly affect the entire nation. Each of the local problems is presented from the points of view of those who have been involved in it, or who have watched its gradual development. The 32 half-hour episodes that comprise this series were originally recorded on videotape. (Description adapted from documents in the NET Microfiche)
- Broadcast Date
- 1967-09-03
- Asset type
- Episode
- Media type
- Moving Image
- Duration
- 00:30:21
- Credits
-
-
Associate Producer: Griffiths, David
Camera Operator: Siceloff, Dick
Camera Operator: Seegmiller, Carlos
Consultant: Drew, Robert
Director: Schlaefle, Jack
Executive Producer: Weston, William
Film Editor: JPI Denver
Narrator: Chandler, Warren
Producer: Schaefle, Jack
Producing Organization: KRMA-TV (Television station : Denver, Colo.)
Production Assistant: Zoretic, Annalee
Production Assistant: Moody, Katherine
Sound: Largene, Jack
Technical Director: Kester, Frank
Writer: Watt, Eva Hodges
- AAPB Contributor Holdings
-
Library of Congress
Identifier: 2310020-1 (MAVIS Item ID)
Format: 2 inch videotape
Generation: Master
-
Library of Congress
Identifier: 2310020-2 (MAVIS Item ID)
Generation: Master
-
Library of Congress
Identifier: 2310020-3 (MAVIS Item ID)
Generation: Copy: Access
If you have a copy of this asset and would like us to add it to our catalog, please contact us.
- Citations
- Chicago: “Local Issue; 23; The Subject of Sex,” 1967-09-03, Library of Congress, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed December 22, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-516-c24qj78t4t.
- MLA: “Local Issue; 23; The Subject of Sex.” 1967-09-03. Library of Congress, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. December 22, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-516-c24qj78t4t>.
- APA: Local Issue; 23; The Subject of Sex. Boston, MA: Library of Congress, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-516-c24qj78t4t