Nakkula Chapter 9

This chapter was very straight forward and I appreciated how blunt it was throughout the chapter.  Sexuality is not a topic that I have ever discussed with students for fear of what the conversations would consist of but it gave me the thought that there should be real discussions happening in schools.  I remember being in 8th grade and the "discussions" started in Health class.  It basically consisted of a few corny videos that showed an egg and a sperm followed by a few awkward lectures done by the Health/Phys. Ed teacher.  In 9th grade, we all took a trip to the nurses office to watch another video that was very confusing to watch.  I remember to this day how the girls went to watch this video separate from the boys.  All in all, nothing was really learned about sexuality.  I suppose we saw a little of the biological process of how a baby is formed in the womb.  It was very heterosexual, strategic, and boring.  I hope that those videos have long been done away with.

Nakkula writes, "traditional romantic tales of heterosexual love are as much gender scripting as they are sexuality myths.  Such tales provide the gender roles within which healthy sexual interactions are expected to develop.  These roles are designed to play out in happy ending of romantic bliss, marriage, and eventually children (pg. 183)."  I disagree with this statement for claiming it is a myth.  I believe that for some people this is what eventually occurs between two people.  Many things have to occur to an individual to get to this point as described in some of the case studies in the chapter.  The problem is the lense is very narrow and does not pertain to many people in society.  There are many heterosexual people that never have the expectation of having sex to have children and only do so for the physical or mental pleasure obtained.  With that being said, there are many gay, lesbian, and transgendered individuals that have romantic bliss and eventually marriage, but where are those roles examined? The problem is that these individuals are left out of the traditional discussions of sexuality.  The material being discussed does not align with our world. 

"Whatever approach is taken formally, there is a hidden curriculum to all of sexuality education, according to Sears, and its pedagogy can be as varied as its content.  In almost all cases, either spoken or unspoken values guide the hidden curriculum (pg. 190)." I agree with this statement because there are going to be other forces determining what is being taught about sexuality that will prevent a lot of "real" aspects of sexuality that should be taught.  If the person doing the teaching is religious, there could be a moral spin placed on sexuality.  If the person teaching has personal opinions on sexuality, they could teach in a biased way.  I believe it may be difficult to form a curriculum that would be meaningful for all students in different schools but the dialogue should be opened.  Perhaps the students can take ownership of the discussions and these school settings can be places where students are allowed to speak freely.