Rambling about sexual education + Frindle . . . | . . .
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Content Warning: talk about genitals, including in relation to children (some ways discussed include children having them and children talking about them), sexuality in children & teens, csa, sa, talk about how sex & sexuality is taught to children & teens/sex ed, self harm, suicidalness, violent fantasies, a teen having a hard time at school & in general ("in general" part just mentioned)
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wnhsbsb Just saw Athena P's Frindle Review on youtube* and omg that ending monologue by Mrs. Granger was so sweet,,,
"My dear Nicholas:
Please turn to page 541 of this book.
[...]
frin•dle (frin’ dl) n. a device used to write or make marks with ink [arbitrary coinage; originated by Nicholas Allen, American, 1987- (see pen)]
[...]
This is a brand-new dictionary, the one I recommend that my students use for their homework. And now when I teach them how new words are added to the dictionary, I tell each and every one of them to look up the word frindle.
And, of course, I have sent along that letter I promised to give you when our little battle was over.
And now it’s over.
Your teacher,
Mrs. Lorelei Granger
[...]
Dear Nicholas:
If you are reading this letter, it means that the word frindle has been added to the dictionary. Congratulations.
A person can watch the sunrise, but he cannot slow it down or stop it or make it go backward. And that is what I was trying to do with your word.
At first I was angry. I admit that. I was not happy to see the word pen pushed aside as if it did not matter. But I guess that if the Latin word for feather had been frindilus instead of pinna, then you probably would have invented the word pen instead. Like the sunrise, some things just have to happen—and all you can really do is watch.
The word frindle has existed for less than three weeks. I now see that this is the kind of chance that a teacher hopes for and dreams about—a chance to see bright young students take an idea they have learned in a boring old classroom and put it to a real test in their own world. I confess that I am very excited to see how it all turns out. I am mostly here to watch it happen.
But somehow I think I have a small part to play in this drama, and I have chosen to be the villain. Every good story needs a bad guy, don’t you think?
So someday, I will be asking you to forgive me, and I hope you will.
Nick, I know you like to think. Please think about this: When I started teaching, no one had landed on the moon, there were no space shuttles, no CNN, no weather satellites. There were no video cassette recorders, no CDs, no computers.
The world has changed in a million ways. That is why I have always tried to teach children something that would be useful no matter what.
So many things have gone out of date. But after all these years, words are still important. Words are still needed by everyone. Words are used to think with, to write with, to dream with, to hope and pray with. And that is why I love the dictionary. It endures. It works. And as you now know, it also changes and grows.
Again, congratulations. And I’ve enclosed a little present for you.
Yours truly,
Mrs. Granger
There was a flat, oblong case in the white envelope, the kind of case you get when you buy a watch. Nick pulled it out and opened the lid. Inside was something else Nick had not seen for ten years. It was Mrs. Granger’s favorite pen, her old maroon fountain pen with the blue cap. And under the clip was a little folded piece of paper. It was another note. A very short note. Just one word: Frindle."
—Frindle by Andrew Clements
DUDE that whole thing was KILLER! It makes me so emotional and I haven't even read this book??? It's awesome. I aspire to write stuff that feels like this. I love it!
*Well the video is on youtube, which is what I was referring to, but I actually watched it on NewPipe. Highly reccomend using a youtube client such as NewPipe, ReVanced (android app patcher), or LibreTube if you aren't already.
Edit: Oh woopsie! I realised these are all android–focused, so here's a list of alternative youtube front–ends on github (and for a bunch of different sites as well!). I can't vouch for all of them but at least some of them are good! If you have firefox or chrome, I also found an extension named LibRedirect (chrome ver.) which I have now added myself that makes it easier to redirect to various front-ends. Note: these are not working from the same list, although I'm pretty sure you can add stuff to LibRedirect. Have fun everybody!
Anyway Athena P asked if anyone invented or knew someone who invented a word (and had it catch on) and it reminded me of my older sister (I'm the second oldest btw and you can't tell through that text so I'm telling you I'm saying this in a very smug way) who also made up words. Not often though (at least from what I can remember), and always to fill in blanks for words we didn't know.
I pointed to a moth when we were little and asked her what it was called, and she said it was a "lushi-bug" without missing a beat. Just full on made something up on the spot.
Also came up with "beedee" for vulvas/vaginas/basically all of that genital because I know those words actually refer to separate parts but beedee referred to the whole genital because we had those genitals but because we were kids and our society is weird people refused to teach us about our OWN bodies and what certain parts are called!
Girl, bodies are not inherently sexual! Can you genuinely not handle the idea that children have genitals because you see them as a "sexual" thing so you get uncomfortable associating them with children so you instead choose to ignore the reality that kids have GENITALS!??? HUH!?
Not talking about certain words or body parts doesn't even prevent kids from talking about them anyway as evidenced by the fact that we made up beedee to talk about our genitals. How could kids not? That's an entire part of their body!
Even if it was an inherently a sexual thing kids still deserve to learn about that. Partly because they would still deserve to know about their own body. But also because kids can still have sexual feelings or desires and they deserve to be able to act on them and manage them. Like, when puberty starts the majority of kids also get really horny because of it. They deserve to be able to navigate that in an informed and shame-free manner.
Even kids younger than that can have sexual feelings and desires. I know I did when I was in second grade. The above benefits would apply to them too.
Also, learning about one's body like this can help prevent or mitigate child sexual abuse. If you know what certain parts of your body are called, and what consent is (which isn't an inherently sexual thing— I'm sure it's obvious why such concepts as "I get to decide whether someone gets to touch me, touch me in certain places, or in certain ways. These boundaries are normal and it's wrong to cross them." would be useful here (and also useful in everyday life)), it can be easier to discern when sexual abuse has taken place or when a situation feels uncomfortable and suspicious.
At what age(s) should explicitly sexual subject matter be discussed (as opposed to naming body parts or learning about consent), and to what extent? Girl I don't know! But clearly earlier and more in-depth the we do now! At least in Australia and the US. Don't know how it is in other places (or even in other parts of Australia and the US than I've been in/am in).
Can't say anything about sex ed in the US because I didn't do that there I was in Australia. It was a part of HPE (Health & Physical Education). Um, I'm glad that it talked about STIs, Contraception and how efficient different methods were at preventing pregnancy and stis, how to identify and deal with abusive relationships faced by yourself or others, that it wasn't abstinence-based, and that it had a part where we focused on queer identities, including intersex people. Apparently some people in the US didn't even have that.
A complaint I have is that the whole "sexual education" part of hpe was rather small. It definitely wasn't something that lasted a whole year or anything. I think it lasted a term? But it might've been a semester. It wasn't studied every hpe, either.
HPE was split into "theory" and "practical" at my highschool ("my highschool" lol. I'm lying to you, I went to a bunch of different highschools. This is the one where I learnt this, though). Theory was for learning from sheets and teacher lectures and the projector. Prac was for doing RUGBY and BASKETBALL and RUNNING AROUND the stupid OVAL.
(They didn't call it the oval at that school. That was exclusive to my main primary school, and it stuck to me. Now I call any big field of grass at schools meant for running around "the oval").
Theory and prac would each take up one whole lesson. You wouldn't have them in the same lesson. It was either THEORY day or PRAC. I don't remember how they would divvy up hpe between theory and prac. I don't think it was one after the other, though.
Actually, now that I think about it, I remember that I never managed to memorise the schedule. I'd just always take my hpe notebook if I had hpe that day and try to follow people I knew were in the same class as me when it was time for hpe, since you'd be going to entirely different parts of the school depending on if it was theory or prac. I'd have to find somebody quick or else everyone would have already left. Sometimes I would have to guess, and just hope I got it right. I definitely had to go to both locations before, and try to be subtle about being lost. Very stressful!
^ The last two paragraphs were added in after writing the rest of the article, which I think leads to a funny tone shift at the next paragraph.
Wow I've been drinking that big jug of iced tea while writing this (while outside! And listening to music!) and I feel sooo much better. My skin burns a lot less and my headache has subsided. Also the bodyache, I just realised. I feel great. I'll feel even better the more I drink!
It's weird how it's 6:39pm and it's still light out. In Australia it would already be night.
Anyway! The sex ed unit would take place during theory, so it was kinda spread out. I'm not entirely sure it was sex ed every theory? But I'm pretty sure. I suppose it's good that it was spread out? I heard that that helps with memory retention. But also I heard that in reference to memorising flash cards and it was separated by minutes and hours (but at most days! It was like "space out the repetition a little more each time").
But it contributed to the feeling of "we're barely doing this". As a result of this small unit, we couldn't go that in-depth on subjects. It wasn't that bad. It wasn't like a pamphlet or super light or anything. But it definitely left something to be desired. Some sections more than others.
The part where we talked about contraception offered a decent variety I think, but we only talked about it for one or two classes. And it didn't elaborate much on any of them beyond their effectiveness at preventing pregnancy and STIs. Like I didn't know about birth control pills coming in both combination pills (estrogen + progestin, also called combined oral contraceptives or COCs) and progestin-only pills (only has progestin, also called POPs or mini pills) until I researched them on planned parenthood because I wanted a way to prevent periods and I heard they could help with that.
And the STIs section was just a slideshow we went over once, and there weren't even many STIs listed, let alone various treatments for each. Like I didn't even know what PrEP and PEP were (PrEP: Pre–exposure prophylaxis, helps prevent HIV, PEP: Post–exposure prophylaxis, pills you take after being exposed to HIV which lowers your risk of getting it, has to be started within 3 days of exposure, start as soon as possible, "every hour matters" — plannedparenthood).
So all this would've benefited from being longer and more in-depth. In addition, we should've been taught more topics. Like kinks/fetishes, child/sexual abuse, and more information on safe sex practices beyond the basics of consent. I also would've wanted some parts to be taught sooner, like what genitals were and their different parts (and for ""girls and boys"" to not be separated for it. Primary school I'm dissapointed in you for doing that when talking about puberty), and consent (please my touch averse ass would have benefited).
It's kinda funny to say all that 'cus I fucking hated sex ed at the time. It made me close to a breakdown at least once in most classes and made me desperatly want to self harm and increased my baseline suicidality. Had to think of killing people (like my teacher. I actually liked my teacher, I just thought this when I was really distressed) to cope. Also drawing vigorously in my notebook and never looking up. And self harming. Fun fact if you wanted to see how distressed I was in class you just had to look at how much I doodled in my notebook. Although it could also be indicative of boredom or not being able to understand the content of the class.
Which is also pretty funny because I'm pretty sure I was of the opinion that sex ed was a good thing that should be taught at every high school. I think I wished there was an opt–out option, though. Like "I can learn about this stuff MYSELF don't talk to me about SEX and imply that I am a SEXUAL BEING with SEXUAL WANTS & DESIRES.". I was very sex repulsed and also going through some things.
I mean I'm sure the knowledge from the class made my life better but going through classes also made my life worse. Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad if my life and school wasn't already really bad and stressful. In any case, I'm not sure what to do in instances like these. Maybe there really should be an opt-out. But then how do you make sure that the knowledge is learnt or that parents don't abuse that. I don't know!
Hmm. I think that's all I have to say about that subject.
Y'know, now that I think about it, I think lushi-bug and beedee were the only words she made up. But she was very imaginative in other ways. She'd make up these grand stories for us all to play pretend with.
I think... I kinda hope she doesn't come across this. Not sure about my other siblings (don't know if I care about them seeing this). I don't care about my older sister seeing this as much as I did when I first started writing this, at least. Don't care about my parents seeing this.
The examples of words she made up are pretty specific. So if any of them did come across this, they'd be able to recognise it. Oh well. I think I'm still going to post it.
Anyway I think the Frindle video Athena P made is very good and the actual book sounds awesome. Go watch it! And perhaps read the book! Also listen to Axman Jazz (Don't Scare Me Papa) by the Squirrel Nut Zippers (unrelated but I listened to it (among other songs) while writing this and it's really good).