Sex education, since its advent at the dawn of the twentieth century, has provoked the hopes and fears of generations of parents, educators, politicians, and reformers. On its success or failure seems to hinge the moral fate of the nation and its future citizens. But whether we argue over condom distribution to teenagers or the use of an anti-abortion curriculum in high schools, we rarely question the basic premise--that adolescents need to be educated about sex. How did we come to expect the public schools to manage our children's sexuality? More important, what is it about the adolescent that arouses so much anxiety among adults? Teaching Sex travels back over the past century to trace the emergence of the sexual adolescent and the evolution of the schools' efforts to teach sex to this captive pupil. Jeffrey Moran takes us on a fascinating ride through America's sexual mores: from a time when young men were warned about the crippling effects of masturbation, to the belief that schools could and should train adolescents in proper courtship and parenting techniques, to the reemergence of sexual abstention brought by the AIDS crisis. We see how the political and moral anxieties of each era found their way into sex education curricula, reflecting the priorities of the elders more than the concerns of the young. Moran illuminates the aspirations and limits of sex education and the ability of public authority to shape private behavior. More than a critique of public health policy, Teaching Sex is a broad cultural inquiry into America's understanding of adolescence, sexual morality, and social reform.

Exposes the lies and misconceptions about sex education taught to American children in school, including information on sexually transmitted diseases, contraception, and homosexuality.

No parent wants to admit that their child-even their well-educated, well-grounded, Christian child-could be having consensual sex before graduating middle school. Promise rings, parental contracts and disease warnings provide but meager defense against a culture overrun with weapons of mass seduction. While many factors contributing to the misguided messages received by children stand outside the realm of parental control-music videos, film, fashion-others, like the meaning of true love, can, and should be fostered at home. Eric and Leslie Ludy, authors of the bestselling When God Writes Your Love Story, present the shocking, unvarnished realities of today's sexual climate but they balance the bitter pill with a large dose of hopeful, practical advice for parents.

Conclusions -- Bibliography -- Index

The design of school curriculums involves deep thought about the nature of knowledge and its value to learners and society. It is a serious responsibility that raises a number of questions. What is knowledge for? What knowledge is important for children to learn? How do we decide what knowledge matters in each school subject? And how far should the knowledge we teach in school be related to academic disciplinary knowledge? These and many other questions are taken up in What Should Schools Teach? The blurring of distinctions between pedagogy and curriculum, and between experience and knowledge, has served up a confusing message for teachers about the part that each plays in the education of children. Schools teach through subjects, but there is little consensus about what constitutes a subject and what they are for. This book aims to dispel confusion through a robust rationale for what schools should teach that offers key understanding to teachers of the relationship between knowledge (what to teach) and their own pedagogy (how to teach), and how both need to be informed by values of intellectual freedom and autonomy. This second edition includes new chapters on Chemistry, Drama, Music and Religious Education, and an updated chapter on Biology. A revised introduction reflects on emerging discourse around decolonizing the curriculum, and on the relationship between the knowledge that children encounter at school and in their homes.

Teaching about Sex and Sexualities in Higher Education argues that much more can be done in teaching about sex and sexuality in higher education. This edited collection provides key information on professional training and support, and acts as a crucial resource on sex, sexuality, and related issues. With a focus on diversity, this book features expert contributors who discuss key concepts, debates, and current issues across disciplines to help educators improve curriculum content. This collection aims to provide adequate and appropriate sex education training and opportunities to educators so that they may explore complex personal and emotional issues, build skills, and develop the confidence necessary to help others in their respective fields.

The story of the eventful and controversial life of Margery Kempe - wife, mother, businesswoman, pilgrim and visionary - is the earliest surviving autobiography in English. Here Kempe (c.1373-c.1440) recounts in vivid, unembarrassed detail the madness that followed the birth of the first of her fourteen children, the failure of her brewery business, her dramatic call to the spiritual life, her visions and uncontrollable tears, the struggle to convert her husband to a vow of chastity and her pilgrimages to Europe and the Holy Land. Margery Kempe could not read or write, and dictated her remarkable story late in life. It remains an extraordinary record of human faith and a portrait of a medieval woman of unforgettable character and courage.