Religious group teaches unusual sex-ed lessons in Maryland PUBLIC schools

[9th Engineer]

Ok, I kept getting confused on what you meant by the comments about 'wards of the state' and stuff to that effect. I was talking about factual content, not ideas, all along. When you disagreed I thought you meant that parents should control the content of their child's education.

Not at all, I think we were having two different converstations... I was talking about your comment about education being about creating "productive adults".
Education is about informing kids about the world, it is about the act of education and nothing else.
Not raising kids into adults for parents in any way.

[9th Engineer]

A productive adult is someone who has both the knowledge to make a decision, and the skill and prowess to act on it. A deficiency in either skill or understanding is what turns people into cogs. I tend to omit the understanding part on the first pass because you have to build an understanding out of facts.
Also, I don't think it's possible for someone to understand the world in any real scope or context with what passes for a highschool education in most areas. Kids just aren't taught enough information to make that leap. You can't understand current foreign policy without a solid history background that spans WAY more than the typical U.S. 40's - Present that is most highschool history coursework. You can't understand issues like Stem Cells without knowing embryology, and you can't understand why healthcare costs so much without knowing what it takes to care for a patient. This is all part of the reason why I'm a bit of an extremest when it comes to pushing for more post-highschool education.

I have no issue with telling students they "should continue their education if they want to" and what it could do for them. I went to college... but remember I was a schoolteacher when I was telling them this. Kids are not stupid. They look-up to people like actors, athletes, Warren Buffet and Bill Gates too.
It often falls flat.

[piercehawkeye45]

Originally Posted by 9th Engineer

I don't want someone with a degree in philosophy deciding whether my kid needs calculus in highschool any more than you do.

You want someone with common sense deciding whether your kid needs calc in High School. I am planning to get a degree in engineering and I still want my kids to learn history, pyschololgy, chemistry, and english.

Originally Posted by rzrge

They look-up to people like actors, athletes, Warren Buffet and Bill Gates too.

Then you tell them if they can get a 99% on a college level economics final without going to a single class then they can do it.

[Elspode]

I think the State/Religion gap can be bridged, insofar as sexual education is concerned, anyway, by a compromise.

The Church can teach sex ed in the public schools, while laypersons teach self-gratification technicques in the churches. After all, self-gratification *is* a form of abstinence, right?

[Aliantha]

No els...self gratification is a form of self gratification when there's no one else around to do the job for you. If you're gratifying yourself you're not abstaining are you?

[Ibby]

Originally Posted by 9th Engineer

You can't understand current foreign policy without a solid history background that spans WAY more than the typical U.S. 40's - Present that is most highschool history coursework. You can't understand issues like Stem Cells without knowing embryology, and you can't understand why healthcare costs so much without knowing what it takes to care for a patient. This is all part of the reason why I'm a bit of an extremest when it comes to pushing for more post-highschool education.

As a current high-schooler, both in the states and at TAS, I can assure you we're taught (coughforce-fedcough) history from the Greeks and Romans to the 90's. Not very well, but it's there if the kid has the slightest inclination to learn.

The problem is not the schooling. The problem is the kids. I'm nuthin' special, just an average kid by objective standards... but compared to most people my age I'm a hyper-mature, very literate, knowledge-hungry, brilliant prodigy. All the fuckers my age care about is their cell phones, their illegal liquor, and their homogenous, boring friends who are all exactly like eachother. They fight and fight for good grades and do their homework like good little slaves of the system and forget it all the moment they dont need it.

[piercehawkeye45]

Ibram, I agree with everything except the last line. Yes, it is true, but it’s something that you just can't rebel against and hope everything will go for the best later. There are times when you should rebel against the system, but getting good grades is something, no matter how much you hate it, you should join the system with.

A wise quote from a black man (yes, I intentionally put black in) on a different forum, "once you get a master's degree, you run the world".

I am still young and may be wrong but I noticed that to be taken seriously in this world you only need two things, respect and connections. A master’s degree will help you very much with both.

Originally Posted by Elspode

I think the State/Religion gap can be bridged, insofar as sexual education is concerned, anyway, by a compromise.

The Church can teach sex ed in the public schools, while laypersons teach self-gratification technicques in the churches. After all, self-gratification *is* a form of abstinence, right?

Why a religious group? How is that preferable to the school system itself or a secular group?
Since when do churches get secular groups to teach masturbation?
Even if they do, that is their choice... kids have to be in school, they do not have to be in church, and our taxes are not used for church. The difference is choice.
Again, if one wants their kid taught by a church, they should send them to a religious school.
BTW, most Christian denominations believe that masturbation is, or leads to, a sin.
As with all groups that wish for influence, allow them one "in" and more will follow, as we have learned and are now having trouble regaining the way it is supposed to be with separation of church and State, like getting our pledge back to the way it was originally written and the way the author (a preacher) wanted it, god off of our money, out of our courts and government buildings, etc.

[xoxoxoBruce]

BTW, most Christian denominations believe that masturbation is, or leads to, a sin.

Naw, dancing leads to sin.

I say we just take a lil Jesus doll an a lil Barbie, strip em' down for tha kiddies, lower tha lights a bit, put on some Barry and let em' have at it!
Well, around it, as it were...
Jesus never calls Barbie back, we pretend that her friends won't speak to her and she now works at a crappy clerical job and only goes to a "special" high school that is really just a glorified co-op day care for other knocked-up teens.
Then lil down syndrome strawberry shortcake pops out (Jesus was on tha' crystal don't cha' know) and the state has to help her and her mother raise her.
This ends-up giving her purpose in life and she gets her degree in ten years but marries an abusive ex-Gi Joe who drinks all her savings and eventually, money, away... the saga continues.

[Phil]

Originally Posted by rkzenrage

I say we just take a lil Jesus doll an a lil Barbie, strip em' down for tha kiddies, lower tha lights a bit, put on some Barry and let em' have at it!
Well, around it, as it were...
Jesus never calls Barbie back, we pretend that her friends won't speak to her and she now works at a crappy clerical job and only goes to a "special" high school that is really just a glorified co-op day care for other knocked-up teens.
Then lil down syndrome strawberry shortcake pops out (Jesus was on tha' crystal don't cha' know) and the state has to help her and her mother raise her.
This ends-up giving her purpose in life and she gets her degree in ten years but marries an abusive ex-Gi Joe who drinks all her savings and eventually, money, away... the saga continues.

ROFL!

[footfootfoot]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

BTW, most Christian denominations believe that masturbation is, or leads to, a sin.

Naw, dancing leads to sin.

I thought it was having sex standing up that leads to dancing.

Dancing is the devil's favorite thing... Notice I did not have Jesus dancing with Barbie, I'm not evil or nothin'.