“PROTECT OUR CHILDREN from extreme sex education!” were the words forcefully expressed to me, as the leaflet was placed into my hand.
There are a number of small but considerably loud groups of people currently spreading manipulative, misguided and often wholly false information about the changes being brought into the new Social, Personal and Health Education (SPHE) curriculum and it’s not OK.
Last night, I attended an information night along with approximately 400 concerned parents hosted by one of these groups. It was to outline what they had promoted as the “radical changes in sexual education” in schools and I had hoped that being there might have given me a better understanding of what their concerns were based upon.
Although there was lots of high emotion, the wringing of hands, the ridiculing of the LGBTQIA+ community, teachers being referred to as predators and groomers, calls for political resignations, false claims of what children are to be taught, the purporting of conspiracy theories involving the agenda of childless government ministers, climate change denial and the sterilisation of children, what was clearly lacking, was any evidence-based argument upon which the speakers could rely on to back up their claims.
It was two-and-a-half hours of highly dramatic but ultimately unsubstantiated fear-mongering.
Don’t get me wrong: of course, it is our right to fight for the form of education we want for our children. Of course, it is our right to protest.
Of course, it is an essential part of a healthy democracy to have groups of active citizens that hold the government to account. All of these valued and welcome practices ensure that what we are teaching children in Ireland is necessary, beneficial and age-appropriate.
But what we should not get to do is lie.
We do not get to lie to parents, particularly when the consequence of those lies is the removal of a child from the education they have a right to. And we do not get to abuse, threaten or intimidate SPHE teachers or their principals as they go about their duty of serving the best interests of the children in their care.
At one stage last night, the lead speaker quoted CS Lewis. He said, “One of the most cowardly things ordinary people do is to shut their eyes to facts.” I suspect the irony of the moment was lost on one of us; it certainly wasn’t lost on me.
What follows is a simple clarification of the facts regarding some of the misinformation currently being circulated.
False Claim #1: The new curriculum has an obsessive focus on gender identity
This is untrue. I appreciate the whole area of gender identity is a complex one, too complex for this article (but not too complex for this one), so let’s at least be clear on this: gender identity is mentioned twice, it has replaced the term ‘gender’ as a small part of just two of the 39 learning outcomes of the new curriculum.
It’s listed along with family, peers, culture, sexual orientation, race/ethnic background, dis/abilities and religious beliefs/world-views as a factor of life that may contribute to the formation of a human’s identity and then it is mentioned once again with regards exploration of what might contribute to a person’s sexual identity.
As important as it is for Irish children of different races to feel their experience is represented in their education, the same goes for children with differing abilities, religions, sexual orientations and experiences of gender. For the vast majority of children whose gender has always aligned to their sex, like anything else that is not relevant to them, the fact that it is now referred to as ‘gender identity’ instead of gender has absolutely no impact on them.
For the tiny proportion of children (fewer than four in every 1,000) who may be in significant distress due to their experience of gender not aligning with their sex, it is vital that this is recognised.
See more on this claim here.
False Claim #2: The new curriculum will teach that a boy can become a girl and vice versa
This is not only untrue but also an oversimplified and reductive description of the varied experiences of what it is to be transgender. The process commonly known as transitioning will not be taught on the new curriculum nor will any medical or surgical procedures and processes. Teachers are not medical authorities and are not in a position to comment on such complex and individually personal processes.
False Claim #3: The new curriculum will normalise pornography and make watching it acceptable
Untrue, again. The new curriculum with not normalise porn. Based on the evidence that 10% of children are now exposed to porn before they are nine years old and that the majority have been exposed to it before they reach secondary school, the new curriculum will aim to provide children with the skills they need to be critical of any content they see online, be it pornographic in nature or not.
It will outline the well-documented negative impacts porn can have on their sexual development, their expectations of sex and the subsequent damage it can do to their future adult sex lives.
Let me be clear… this does not and would never involve showing children pornographic material of any kind in a classroom or anywhere else. To do so would be illegal.
False Claim #4: The new curriculum will sexualise children.
This is not only untrue but also misses the entire point of the new course. The new curriculum will not in any way sexualise children. In Ireland, 98% of our 8-12-year-olds currently own their own smart device and 84% of the same age group have their own social media accounts against the age restricting rules of the apps themselves.
The glaring truth is that as long as we continue to allow the entire online world unfettered access to our children in this way, it is essential that we at least attempt to provide them with the skills they need to protect themselves from the undeniably sexualised nature of the vast array of targeted content they are universally reported to be bombarded with on a daily basis.
False Claim #5: The new curriculum promotes sexual activity for 12- to 15-year-olds, providing a sexual license with a ‘sex is for pleasure’ approach only
This is untrue and a ridiculous claim to make about a long overdue educational programme that is aimed at providing children with the awareness, information and skills to protect themselves from the negative sexual experiences we are all only too aware was, and is, a common feature of Irish adolescence of generations past and present.
The idea that the provision of comprehensive sex education somehow gives children a license to ‘do it’ has been long disproven. Evidence consistently shows that the kind of sex education we are now going to be delivering in Ireland actually delays sexual activity in young people and significantly lessens their risk of experiencing a whole range of negative sexual outcomes and risky sexual behaviours.
False Claim #6: The new curriculum cuts parents out of their children’s education
This is also untrue. The new curriculum has gone through the most extensive consultation process ever undertaken in the history of the Department of Education. The overwhelming majority of parents, students and teachers identified the long overdue changes needed and the NCCA (National Council for Curriculum and Assessment) is doing its best to deliver them.
On a school-based level, parents are always encouraged to be as involved in the education of their children as they wish. Whether this is reinforcing the learning they have experienced in school again when they come home, or checking with them that what they have learnt is universally inclusive by acknowledging each student’s beliefs and cultural or religious ideology in the teachings that are provided.
We may also remove our child from their education at any time and instead teach them ourselves at home, should we wish. This is, as always, our right.
The NCAA explicitly states that parents are given a right to request that their child can opt out of any lessons that go against their conscience or beliefs.
False Claim #7: The new curriculum ignores the ethos of Catholic and minority religion schools
Again, this is untrue. As outlined previously, the ethos of a student’s religious belief/worldview is explicitly listed as one of the aspects children are to consider as contributing to the formation of their identity along with family, peers, culture, gender identity, sexual orientation, race/ethnic background and dis/abilities.
Alan Hynes, chief executive of the Catholic Education Partnership, which “aims to provide an authoritative and unified voice for Catholic education” has repeatedly stated that Catholic schools can work constructively with the new curriculum, recognising that “it’s a very important part of education” and that Catholic schools will positively engage with the curriculum “while also presenting the Catholic point of view and other points of view”.
To the parents who are still adamant that we are not going in the right direction:
The world has become a very scary place, particularly for children and their parents, especially online. It’s very understandable that when we can’t control what our child sees online, we turn instead to something we can control, like the books in the local library.
When we can’t control how quickly our children are growing up these days, we instead vilify the curriculum that is trying its best to equip them for a world we don’t want to admit they’re going to have to live in.
But if we were to take all the passion, time and energy that is currently being put into what I am outlining as a misguided and potentially very damaging campaign and instead if we were to invest it into improving the communities our children are going to inherit, imagine the value of the impact that could make.
To the parents who feel we’re finally starting to serve the educational needs of the young people of Ireland:
It’s time to call out the misinformation when we hear it. It’s time to acknowledge our support of the SPHE teachers in our children’s schools. It’s time to reinforce with our children the importance of the subject because, for a long time now, the obvious irrelevance of it to the modern lives of children has resulted in a culture of it becoming a bit of a joke.
It’s time to reinforce that it is now likely to be the most important course of learning they will undertake in school. After Leaving Certificate results day, no one cares about what subjects you did or didn’t do but the skills taught in SPHE will form the foundations of the most important aspects of your life – all throughout your life.
Teachers of SPHE fulfil an integral role in the positive personal development of the adolescent children of this country. The effective delivery of the subject requires a level of understanding, empathy, student engagement and the sensitive facilitation of diverse opinions being expressed on a wide array of challenging topics that is unparalleled in any other section of the Irish secondary school system.
And SPHE teachers have now been tasked with the unenviable challenge of taking, what was for years, a discredited and at often times irrelevant subject and fighting for it to be valued not only by the students in their care but also by those in management who provide for it within the school timetable.
We live in a country still seemingly reluctant to make amends for its history of adults in positions of power being facilitated by the school system to physically, emotionally, sexually and psychologically abuse children. It is imperative to the health and well-being of our rapidly modernising society, that we actively endeavour to cultivate in our current generation, a culture that creates a cohort of young people who have the information and the skills they need to confidently protect themselves.
They do need to be able to protect themselves, not only from those who somehow still manage to use their powerful positions to exploit children time and time again, but more generally, from anyone they come across in life who doesn’t know better than to treat them as they will now learn humans are entitled to be treated by each other.
“Protect our children”, was passionately cried out from the stage on numerous occasions last night. I agree: protect our children by helping us teach them how to confidently and effectively protect themselves.
Eoghan Cleary is a secondary school teacher, assistant principal and SPHE & Wellbeing Coordinator, who has lived and worked in Co. Wicklow for the last six years. He has over 10 years previous experience as a youth worker in the east inner cities of both Dublin and Galway and has studied at UCD, NUIG and TCD, completing master’s degrees in Drama and Theatre Studies, International Human Rights Law, and Education.
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