The vast majority of Singaporeans have no intention of having such content dessiminated to our kids. In fact I am suspicious if this Josie and co. knew the existence of the instructor's manual until the pressure mounted to substantiate their allegations, many of which remain unaddressed.
If they had been aware of the guide, all it needed was someone to write to the forum page, pointing out extracts from the instructors guide and I can assure you that heads would have rolled. No one did , neither did any parents. When the guide surfaced, things were very much after the fact. I can tell you that the guide even suggested/alluded that heterosexuality (not homosexuality) cannot be explained. Thats appalling by any standard.
Just wanted to offer an alternative perspective on this.
Firstly, Josie L and Co did not know of existence of instructor's guide until they got into the AWARE office. The IG is confidential. The IG does not contain the contents of the sex ed programme. Instructors don't go into schools and mouth off the contents of the guide, i.e. telling them that homosexuality is ok, that foreplay is fun. They match what they say to the specific context of the students they're dealing with. There are also different levels of instruction.
My take on this is that sex education should not be moralising or didactic but tell kids the facts. It should convey to students the whole spectrum of attitudes and emphasise that their own values and that of their parents, religion, etc should guide their action and decisions. It should not reflect only the perspective of the conservatives but also that of liberals. Liberal parents have rights too.
Liberal parents stated at the EGM that they do not want their children to be taught that homosexuality is unnatural, wrong, etc. because they don't believe that, and they don't want their children to grow up being judgemental and discriminatory.
There are different schools of thought about the etiology of sexuality. Some consider it to be biological, while others think socialisation and psychology, and the primary formation of desires in childhood, have something to do with it. Others think it is a combination of factors. The 'heterosexuality-is-natural' argument has received a dent because scientific studies have recorded homosexuality and bisexuality among animals.
So, while some people may consider heterosexuality to be self-evident, others do not. Today, no bona fide sexuality expert is going to go around claiming that heterosexuality is natural and homosexuality is unnatural. And it is sexuality experts who design sex education programmes.
Do Singapore parents and MOE want sex educators to teach kids that homosexuality is not normal? What is that going to do to kids with homosexual tendencies? Do we want to point them towards suicide?
By describing homosexuality as 'neutral', AWARE was providing space to help such teens, to help them feel 'normal'. It's an awful thing to go through life considering yourself to be abnormal. It was not trying to promote homosexuality. To my mind, it was the only responsible thing to do. You don't become gay by receiving a lesson on it. This neutral positioning of homosexuality was also meant to guide other students not to discriminate against gays.
The conservatives also took umbrage at the CSE for positioning virginity and pre-marital sex as 'neutral'. Without saying so, through subterfuge and omission, they give the false impression that the instructors don't explain that several religious and other communities in Singapore are against pre-marital sex.
The CSE is conducted within the context of kids today being sexually active and the easy availability of sex materials on the internet (and AWARE had nothing to do with this). All students receive MOE's basic sexuality education programme. AWARE's programme comes in to supplement this. From what I understand, some schools identify students who they feel need such a programme.
Try telling sexually active kids that pre-marital sex is wrong and emphasising to them the virtues of virginity. They will think you are from another planet and switch off. The aim of CSE was to give such students the tools to make responsible decisions for themselves--to introduce issues of values, how to negotiate peer pressure, how to evaluate and form healthy relationships, to teach about safe sex, the consequences (economic and otherwise) of becoming pregnant.
Leading studies have proven that abstinence programmes don't help with containing the teen pregnancy problem.
All of my teacher friends are aghast at the withdrawal of the programme. They say their students badly need the programme. Why would they say so, knowing all the facts that have emerged now about the programme? They know their students, what they're up to, don't they?
Let's see where the narrow-mindedness of the Christian conservatives will lead our teens, in terms of STD levels, teen sexual activity levels, teen pregnancy, suicide rates in the future.
Perhaps AWARE's take on this issue might be useful, so you can see how complex the whole matter is:
http://we-are-aware.sg/cse
and yucky too..
