July 7, 2021

"We think, condom on a banana, and that’s enough, and then we’re confused as to why there’s a consent problem. We’re still teaching the golden rule and we should be teaching the platinum rule: to treat others the way they want to be treated."

Said Justine Ang Fonte, quoted in "A Private-School Sex Educator Defends Her Methods/After nine years at Dalton, why was Justine Ang Fonte suddenly being pilloried by parents?" (NYT).

The W.H.O. guidelines state that between the ages of 5 and 8, children should learn to “identify the critical parts of the internal and external genitals and describe their basic function” and “recognize that being curious about one’s body, including the genitals, is completely normal.”

“I equip them with a way that they can exercise body agency and consent, by knowing exactly what those parts are, what they are called, and how to take care of them,” Ms. Fonte said. “That was paired with lessons around, what are the different ways to say ‘no’? And what’s the difference between a secret and a surprise? And why you should never have a secret between a grown-up and you. Because it’s never your responsibility as a child to hold a secret or information of a grown-up.”...

“I wanted to believe that Columbia Prep was a school that was ready to take on these issues in an educational, intellectual way and at least one person at that school trusted that I could do it,” she said. “And I did. But they weren’t ready to back it up, and it cost me my safety.”

5 comments:

Ann Althouse said...

Temujin writes:

"I got stuck on the 'noble' photograph of her at the top. You can tell when someone is being put up as the hero in a story. Then I got stuck on the phrase "exercise body agency". The term 'agency' seems to be getting overused these days. Body agency heaps more of the contractual approach to sex that our educators and others on the front edge of the secular Left love to proffer. But that said, the rest of the story reeks of the Upper East Side. Where parents pay an extreme amount of money to hand off the education of their children to the most front-edge secular Leftists and hope they come out OK and have that paper from Dalton that opens up the necessary next few doors. I somehow cannot imagine those types of parents stopping to talk to their kids about right or wrong, let alone sex. So let's leave it to the experimenting 'experts' who follow the 'National Sex Education Guidelines' and the WHO's International Technical Guidance on Sexuality Education. Because, you don't just have to lean on the WHO to help eviserate the world with Covid, you can count on them to educate your kids on sex, gender, and body agency as well.

"It's always interesting to me when our experts take on a topic that humans have been figuring it out on their own for millennia and decide to make it a 'science', complete with all the formal titles and trappings, theories and discoveries (such as teenagers probably watch porn anyway), and decide to formalize and regulate how it is to be done. Regarding sex- we're here. After all the generations, we've somehow managed to figure some of this out. Stumbling around perhaps, but we're here. Somehow- even without the WHO overseeing us.

"I think if parents do not want to take on the topic of sex with their kids, they have to hand it over to someone, and hopefully it's not Bubba on the street corner teaching your son (though it probably is). The choice comes down to Bubba or Justine Ang Fonte. If parents are spending $55,000+ to send their kid to a private grade school, it might as well include learning about body agency.?

Ann Althouse said...

Dave Begley writes:

"She was the woman that had the porn literacy class. Tough gig. What does WHO say about that?"

Click on my tag for her name to read my earlier post about the "porn literacy" class.

Ann Althouse said...

Lawlizard writes:

"How come Justine doesn’t apply the golden rule, the platinum rule or even the consent rule to parents? The main complaint is the parents did not consent to their children being taught her lessons, and they did not want to be treated this way. Sex educator, heal thyself."

Ann Althouse said...

MikeR writes:

"Sensitive topic, and some parents really didn't like the way this sensitive topic was taught by this particular teacher. Of course teachers can botch any part of their jobs, or not, and of course that is to be determined on a case-by-case basis.

"Trust the NYT to present it as a critique of parents who haven't joined modern society."

Ann Althouse said...

A reader writes:

"Is like to see more discussion of the so called "platinum rule". It basically requires stereotyping. The golden rule is as good as it gets. The only way you can know house someone else wants to be treated (barring then explicitly telling you) is to imagine how you would like to be treated. If you use the platinum rule (as explained to me at my company's DEI training) you start by seeing their skin color and that tells you what you need to know about how they want to be treated.

"It's a Kafkatrap."