 | "For a self proclaimed progressive art school in the “liberal bubble” that is the Bay Area, a baseline Sexual Education for high schoolers at Oakland School for the Arts would not seem to be a tall order." |
For a self proclaimed progressive art school in the “liberal bubble” that is the Bay Area, a baseline Sexual Education for high schoolers at Oakland School for the Arts would not seem to be a tall order. But when the sexually inactive high school students here come into contact with something as basic as condoms, for an overwhelming number of them it will probably be for the first time. This is because two years ago, OSA dropped its Health unit prepared for the freshmen, and in the brief and arguably problematic, resource lacking course given to the 7th graders, there are no demonstrations or lessons about the usage of condoms. So, why is Sex Ed so lacking for the middle schoolers here and lately nonexistent for the high schoolers, who would probably benefit from it the most? Is it purely negligence? A lack of time? Resources?
Health Education is vital in a young person’s life, and should be taught with neutrality. But the tactics for Sex Ed (and lack thereof) here at OSA are far from neutral and foster an environment of silence. Students at OSA do express displeasure with OSA’s lack of sex ed; but only to each other. Because of the lack of communication between students and administration, there aren’t a lot of voices advocating for what the majority of the student body feels is necessary. I spoke with Mr. Oz, OSA’s high school principal, who has been an advocate for Sex Ed at OSA since he began working here.“I think if there was a voice bringing it up it would become a priority. [...] In this building, unlike most schools, we run the entire school, there’s not like an outside administration running things. So without a voice of people coming in, sometimes things that are very important and actually necessary at a school, do not get proper attention.” The issue seems to be a low priority for administrators because of the distrust between students and the faculty/administration, which has lead to a complete unawareness on their end about how strongly many students feel about this. Are high schoolers innately uncomfortable reaching out to adults, or is that an environment that has been fostered within our school?
Even the culture around dress code is not what one might expect of a high school with a progressive, open minded administration. Many speakers have been brought into our school who preach to girls about the perils of wearing “clown”-like makeup and dressing inappropriately, an incredibly problematic message to send to our student body. Once again, students discussed with each other how deeply hurt they were by various speakers’ language around these subjects but nothing was heard from the administration. It’s unclear on whether this was brought to the administration’s attention or not, but the views on their end don’t seem to be changing up to this point. Within OSA (faculty wise), the attitude doesn’t differ very much from the outside speakers, except in reason. Administrators often stop students about what they’re wearing, claiming they aren’t worried about students’ skin showing, but rather presenting themselves “respectable” and “professional,” duelly as problematic due to the fact that there is no discussion about what that means. This language around dress code violations is common at OSA, but discussions around professionalism and what it really means to and for the students are entirely nonexistent.
Health Education is vital in a young person’s life, and should be taught with neutrality. But the tactics for Sex Ed (and lack thereof) here at OSA are far from neutral and foster an environment of silence. Students at OSA do express displeasure with OSA’s lack of sex ed; but only to each other. Because of the lack of communication between students and administration, there aren’t a lot of voices advocating for what the majority of the student body feels is necessary. I spoke with Mr. Oz, OSA’s high school principal, who has been an advocate for Sex Ed at OSA since he began working here.“I think if there was a voice bringing it up it would become a priority. [...] In this building, unlike most schools, we run the entire school, there’s not like an outside administration running things. So without a voice of people coming in, sometimes things that are very important and actually necessary at a school, do not get proper attention.” The issue seems to be a low priority for administrators because of the distrust between students and the faculty/administration, which has lead to a complete unawareness on their end about how strongly many students feel about this. Are high schoolers innately uncomfortable reaching out to adults, or is that an environment that has been fostered within our school?
Even the culture around dress code is not what one might expect of a high school with a progressive, open minded administration. Many speakers have been brought into our school who preach to girls about the perils of wearing “clown”-like makeup and dressing inappropriately, an incredibly problematic message to send to our student body. Once again, students discussed with each other how deeply hurt they were by various speakers’ language around these subjects but nothing was heard from the administration. It’s unclear on whether this was brought to the administration’s attention or not, but the views on their end don’t seem to be changing up to this point. Within OSA (faculty wise), the attitude doesn’t differ very much from the outside speakers, except in reason. Administrators often stop students about what they’re wearing, claiming they aren’t worried about students’ skin showing, but rather presenting themselves “respectable” and “professional,” duelly as problematic due to the fact that there is no discussion about what that means. This language around dress code violations is common at OSA, but discussions around professionalism and what it really means to and for the students are entirely nonexistent.
For a while, it didn’t seem like any faculty member was comfortable tackling the topic of sex, or at least didn’t have time or room for it on their plates. Even when ninth grade students were taken to see Kaiser’s play about HIV/AIDS, Secrets, (which the school will no longer take the freshmen to) there was no discussion outside of the field trip that went into depth about STIs, prevention, contraception, or anything else. For the most part, students were left terrified. The plot of Secrets involves nearly everyone within one friend group contracting HIV, stigmatizing the disease and giving students an unrealistic perception of it.
From my recollection, the Sexual Education course provided in 7th grade was an overview of the biological aspects of it, horror stories about 16 year old pregnancies, and a slideshow of STDs with sparse information about them and how to prevent them. At the end of the unit, the “boys” and “girls” are split up. They are to have a conversation on the social aspects of it, where the girls (in my year, at least) were told why they should cover up their skin and not "tempt,” or "distract," the male gaze. A female student from my year remembers it.
¨Sex ed was very uninformative. We mainly learned things I had already known. When I did become sexually active, I did not feel like I had been prepared in any way to have a healthy sexual relationship with someone.They separated us by gender at one point, and all they told girls was what to wear in order to avoid being assaulted or treated badly.I felt very cheated.¨
The 7th graders at OSA up to this point are still being split into two separate groups up to this point. Mr. Oz commends the boys group for their questions and maturity."[...] There’s a breakout afterward where the boys will be with a male teacher, it’s been me historically, and the girls will be with a female teacher to discuss more of the social side. This breakout is not intended to coverall, because it’s not enough time. [...] But just generally speaking with the boy’s group it’s a place for people to ask questions that may otherwise be awkward. [...] I’m so impressed with this school, it's the questions that come up there and the things people are willing to say [...] I think it’s unlike what would come up at other schools. People are confident in discussing gender issues, gender identity, far beyond just the silly kind of immature questions you might expect. There’s real conversation going on in that setting."
Essentially, the Sex Ed at OSA consists of a very brief overview in 7th grade, (previously) a field trip to a Kaiser play about HIV/AIDS and (previously) a reiteration in the 9th grade of sexual education where a student I spoke with (who was in the last grade to receive this course before it was discontinued) recalled that condoms were not handed out, and heterosexuality was the only thing covered.
¨Sex ed was very uninformative. We mainly learned things I had already known. When I did become sexually active, I did not feel like I had been prepared in any way to have a healthy sexual relationship with someone.They separated us by gender at one point, and all they told girls was what to wear in order to avoid being assaulted or treated badly.I felt very cheated.¨
The 7th graders at OSA up to this point are still being split into two separate groups up to this point. Mr. Oz commends the boys group for their questions and maturity."[...] There’s a breakout afterward where the boys will be with a male teacher, it’s been me historically, and the girls will be with a female teacher to discuss more of the social side. This breakout is not intended to coverall, because it’s not enough time. [...] But just generally speaking with the boy’s group it’s a place for people to ask questions that may otherwise be awkward. [...] I’m so impressed with this school, it's the questions that come up there and the things people are willing to say [...] I think it’s unlike what would come up at other schools. People are confident in discussing gender issues, gender identity, far beyond just the silly kind of immature questions you might expect. There’s real conversation going on in that setting."
Essentially, the Sex Ed at OSA consists of a very brief overview in 7th grade, (previously) a field trip to a Kaiser play about HIV/AIDS and (previously) a reiteration in the 9th grade of sexual education where a student I spoke with (who was in the last grade to receive this course before it was discontinued) recalled that condoms were not handed out, and heterosexuality was the only thing covered.
Honest, information based Sexual Education is essential for high schoolers. They carry those resources and that information with them for the rest of their lives. Abstinence only, or lacking and biased Sex Ed, actually creates higher risks of pregnancy, STDs, and STIs within schools. The Guttmacher Institute found that seventy percent of women are at risk for unintended pregnancy. A high percentage of young people (ages 18-29) who are at the highest risk for unintended pregnancy also have a very weak knowledge of contraception. They also found that Teen pregnancies are the highest risks in states that teach abstinence only education. While pregnancy may not appear to be a huge issue at OSA, students have felt very at risk due to the little knowledge they had about safety.
One student here reached out to me, saying she wishes there was a class here as she felt herself and others she knew went into the world not knowing what safety precautions to take.
“I mean I didn’t know you could get [an] STD orally till like last year. And most things I’ve learned, I got from experience. Good and bad. I think [a] program for it is super needed.”
Another student spoke to me about how she felt that OSA's students could benefit from lessons about consent in Sex Ed in the age of technology.
¨It's really important to me that OSA teaches it's students about consent more in detail. Especially now because we are living in the age of technology. [...] Many factors come into play that they just do not discuss at schools that would have been so beneficial to me. [...]As a teenager, you already feel so much pressure to do what will advance you socially, and to not appear as mean, rude, etc. When an older, popular boy asks flirts with you/asks you on a date/asks for nudes/asks for sex etc. a young girl is going to feel a lot of pressure to say yes, even if she doesn't want to. She is going to think "I said yes. My school told me yes means yes. No means no. Who wouldn't do this?"[...] Now that technology is a factor, there is new "etiquette" that a lot of people feel pressure to follow as well, that many people take advantage of. We just don't learn about this stuff in school. We need to.¨
Many students at OSA have taken the responsibility to teach themselves what they need to know, or have found themselves in bad situations because they didn’t have the sexual education they needed to prevent those situations from happening.
From the people who I spoke with, there were far fewer complaints from the students in other schools across the Bay Area. Of course, students at other schools do have their own complaints, but a surprising amount of them were very proud of the sexual education and resources their schools provide for them.
“I go to Oakland Tech and we have a super complex sex Ed curriculum that’s LGBTQ inclusive and taught to all freshmen. We also have the best clinic pretty much ever, it’s called the La Clinica Raza and it has totally free confidential birth control (the pill, diaphram, patch, etc), morning after pill, male and female condoms, std [...] and pregnancy testing, counselling, and a nurse practitioner who does checkups. [...] And the best part is that [you] can get its services for free even after you graduate (until [you’re] 21)!”
One student here reached out to me, saying she wishes there was a class here as she felt herself and others she knew went into the world not knowing what safety precautions to take.
“I mean I didn’t know you could get [an] STD orally till like last year. And most things I’ve learned, I got from experience. Good and bad. I think [a] program for it is super needed.”
Another student spoke to me about how she felt that OSA's students could benefit from lessons about consent in Sex Ed in the age of technology.
¨It's really important to me that OSA teaches it's students about consent more in detail. Especially now because we are living in the age of technology. [...] Many factors come into play that they just do not discuss at schools that would have been so beneficial to me. [...]As a teenager, you already feel so much pressure to do what will advance you socially, and to not appear as mean, rude, etc. When an older, popular boy asks flirts with you/asks you on a date/asks for nudes/asks for sex etc. a young girl is going to feel a lot of pressure to say yes, even if she doesn't want to. She is going to think "I said yes. My school told me yes means yes. No means no. Who wouldn't do this?"[...] Now that technology is a factor, there is new "etiquette" that a lot of people feel pressure to follow as well, that many people take advantage of. We just don't learn about this stuff in school. We need to.¨
Many students at OSA have taken the responsibility to teach themselves what they need to know, or have found themselves in bad situations because they didn’t have the sexual education they needed to prevent those situations from happening.
From the people who I spoke with, there were far fewer complaints from the students in other schools across the Bay Area. Of course, students at other schools do have their own complaints, but a surprising amount of them were very proud of the sexual education and resources their schools provide for them.
“I go to Oakland Tech and we have a super complex sex Ed curriculum that’s LGBTQ inclusive and taught to all freshmen. We also have the best clinic pretty much ever, it’s called the La Clinica Raza and it has totally free confidential birth control (the pill, diaphram, patch, etc), morning after pill, male and female condoms, std [...] and pregnancy testing, counselling, and a nurse practitioner who does checkups. [...] And the best part is that [you] can get its services for free even after you graduate (until [you’re] 21)!”
While OSA may not have the resources for something like that, they could at least provide information about where to find places with those resources. Many of the students I’ve spoken with don’t know that Planned Parenthood provides completely free services, providing STD and STI testing, contraception, various modes of birth control, abortion, and other help including advice, information, and resources about abusive relationships, body image, and transgender issues, to name just a few things. If OSA can’t provide the students with care that extensive, they could at least provide the information about Planned Parenthood locations in the Bay Area; that is information that many students here don’t have who would greatly benefit from it.
Many of the students who reached out to me from other schools overwhelmingly preferred learning about sex ed from peers. Schools like Albany High and Berkeley High have programs like Peer Helpers and SHIFT, where the information is taught to the students by students who sign up to be part of those programs. Maybe this goes to show that students are innately uncomfortable talking to adults about these things. Perhaps OSA would benefit from a similar program.
But a plan for Sex Ed at OSA is actually already in the works now. Ms. Bynum, a new teacher of Art History and Ethnic studies has decided to incorporate a unit for the Freshman Art History Class called Sex and Drugs and Art. The class will discuss the artist in relation to sex and drugs, the perceptions of artists in relation to these things, and will incorporate sexual education into the unit. Ms. Bynum told me about the program.
“[...] This is a month long unit, so it’s no shorter than any other unit.[...] I am contextualizing it in art but I would like for people not to assume that that doesn’t mean it will be scientific. Because I do feel one, qualified, and two, responsible to teach that scientific content. So first of all it will be about the science. And it will mostly be about substances and what they do to the brain and body, sex and what it does to the brain and body. [...] The risks of overdose, addiction, STI’s, unintended pregnancy. But also just [...] how does this stuff work when people do have sex? When people do use drugs? Like what happens? And then you can know for yourself, like, when in my life would I want that to happen if ever? And then the art component of it is we’ll be doing biographies so like we’ll look at one particular artist as a class, we’ll look into their drug use and sexual behavior, how that shows up in their art, how that affected their life, their life span. And then each student will choose an artist that they want to do that kind of biographical analysis of, look at that artist’s body of work. [...] And we want to talk about the stereotype of the artist as particularly prone to excessive drug use or sexual behavior. [...] I’m coming from a scientific background here, I have a biology background.”
When I asked her if the Unit would include providing condoms for students, she said it’s not her call, but she would prefer it. Hopefully, permission can somehow be granted for that to happen here.
Ms. Bynum and Mr. Oz seem to feel that OSA is in a serious need of a Sex Ed program at OSA. Mr. Oz, a long time advocate for it here, spoke to how he thought the school could benefit from this program.
“Two things come to mind, one is starting conversation. Sometimes, more importantly than what actually happens in the classroom is just the conversation started. [...] And secondly, like I said, information. Information as long as it’s accurate information[...]. Information as long as it’s presented properly can do nothing but help.”
Ms. Bynum, who has been a Health teacher for a long time, also feels that there is a great need here for this class.
“It’s what Mike [Oz] said. [...] It’s the basic assumption of liberalism is that with good information people make good decisions. And that your decisions about your body belong to you. [...] And you deserve to have information that helps you get the experiences you desire and intend, and helps you avoid experiences you would not desire. Obviously I hope that nobody who goes through my class gets an STI in their life. And nobody in my class struggle with addiction or ever [...] is at risk for overdose. [...] I hope it directly affects the long-term health of people who go through my classroom and also allows them to have better social experiences, better relational experiences, to know how to have conversations, to know how to assert a choice, to know how to get good information from someone else. [...] Getting people to know what they believe and want for themselves. [...] and that they can take care of others as well.”
It seems as though some people within the administration at OSA are finally catching on to the urgency of this want among the students. Hopefully, if it cannot provide resources for students, it can at least provide more information than the programs here have provided in the past. And it seems as though the faculty and administration was not being entirely prudish in it’s lack of discussion, but rather the students felt a lack of trust to speak with them about their feelings around sexuality and sexual education. But the question still remains- why has such a progressive school neglected the pertinence of this issue for so long?
But a plan for Sex Ed at OSA is actually already in the works now. Ms. Bynum, a new teacher of Art History and Ethnic studies has decided to incorporate a unit for the Freshman Art History Class called Sex and Drugs and Art. The class will discuss the artist in relation to sex and drugs, the perceptions of artists in relation to these things, and will incorporate sexual education into the unit. Ms. Bynum told me about the program.
“[...] This is a month long unit, so it’s no shorter than any other unit.[...] I am contextualizing it in art but I would like for people not to assume that that doesn’t mean it will be scientific. Because I do feel one, qualified, and two, responsible to teach that scientific content. So first of all it will be about the science. And it will mostly be about substances and what they do to the brain and body, sex and what it does to the brain and body. [...] The risks of overdose, addiction, STI’s, unintended pregnancy. But also just [...] how does this stuff work when people do have sex? When people do use drugs? Like what happens? And then you can know for yourself, like, when in my life would I want that to happen if ever? And then the art component of it is we’ll be doing biographies so like we’ll look at one particular artist as a class, we’ll look into their drug use and sexual behavior, how that shows up in their art, how that affected their life, their life span. And then each student will choose an artist that they want to do that kind of biographical analysis of, look at that artist’s body of work. [...] And we want to talk about the stereotype of the artist as particularly prone to excessive drug use or sexual behavior. [...] I’m coming from a scientific background here, I have a biology background.”
When I asked her if the Unit would include providing condoms for students, she said it’s not her call, but she would prefer it. Hopefully, permission can somehow be granted for that to happen here.
Ms. Bynum and Mr. Oz seem to feel that OSA is in a serious need of a Sex Ed program at OSA. Mr. Oz, a long time advocate for it here, spoke to how he thought the school could benefit from this program.
“Two things come to mind, one is starting conversation. Sometimes, more importantly than what actually happens in the classroom is just the conversation started. [...] And secondly, like I said, information. Information as long as it’s accurate information[...]. Information as long as it’s presented properly can do nothing but help.”
Ms. Bynum, who has been a Health teacher for a long time, also feels that there is a great need here for this class.
“It’s what Mike [Oz] said. [...] It’s the basic assumption of liberalism is that with good information people make good decisions. And that your decisions about your body belong to you. [...] And you deserve to have information that helps you get the experiences you desire and intend, and helps you avoid experiences you would not desire. Obviously I hope that nobody who goes through my class gets an STI in their life. And nobody in my class struggle with addiction or ever [...] is at risk for overdose. [...] I hope it directly affects the long-term health of people who go through my classroom and also allows them to have better social experiences, better relational experiences, to know how to have conversations, to know how to assert a choice, to know how to get good information from someone else. [...] Getting people to know what they believe and want for themselves. [...] and that they can take care of others as well.”
It seems as though some people within the administration at OSA are finally catching on to the urgency of this want among the students. Hopefully, if it cannot provide resources for students, it can at least provide more information than the programs here have provided in the past. And it seems as though the faculty and administration was not being entirely prudish in it’s lack of discussion, but rather the students felt a lack of trust to speak with them about their feelings around sexuality and sexual education. But the question still remains- why has such a progressive school neglected the pertinence of this issue for so long?
