Fifth Graders Allegedly Having Sex In Classroom

[Brandon]

Ok, now nothing shocks me anymore. I thought living in Boston, I see and hear about some pretty strange things, but this takes the cake.

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AP) -- Five fifth-grade students face criminal charges after authorities said four of them had sex in front of other students in an unsupervised classroom and kept a classmate posted as a lookout for teachers.
The students were arrested Tuesday at the Spearsville school in rural north Louisiana, authorities said. Two 11-year-old girls, a 12-year-old boy and a 13-year old boy were charged with obscenity, a felony. An 11-year-old boy, the alleged lookout, was charged with being an accessory. ...

Full Story Here:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/03/school.sex.ap/index.html

 

[dong]

Do tell us. What was the part that took the cake for you?

 

[berlinlife06]

Well, I hope they were being "safe" and had the sense of at least using condoms! I can't believe this things are happening. But they happen everyday aparently.

 

[mamab]

It's not the first time something like this has happened. There was an instance in, I'm wanting to say in Michigan someplace, where the students had sex with the teacher IN THE ROOM! Apparently the class was shaped like an "L" and the teacher couldn't see what the students were doing.

I don't think sex ed was on the lesson plan for the day, in either case.

 

[hoosierhunter]

That unfortunate incident occurred in Indiana in the Raymond Pk Middleschool. It was sixth graders. The problem parents around here had was that they were not informed. It was a shop class.

 

[FourBear]

Am I the only person who didn't know how sex worked in 5th grade? I mean, I remember that it was always like "ooo sex" back then, but I'm not sure all of us knew how to actually perform it!

 

[Brandon]

In 5th grade, I was just getting started on the whole sex-ed education classes. My parents had to sign the permission slip for me to attend and we spent most of the class giggling when they said the words 'vagina' and 'penis'.

At that age, I was still unsure of what to do, but I had a vague knowledge of what happens. Plus it wasn't until middle school when puberty started and turned me from 'girls have cooties' to a drooling middle schooler.

 

[mamab]

Well, even in sex ed classes, they don't have anyone perform the act in front of your children. If they did, I'm sure most people would say, "No, thank you, I'll keep my child home that day."

 

[luvcamerasnic]

You know, I had no idea what it was until Life Science in 7th grade. I did not have sex ed in my school - that was up to parents. When I had a question, I asked my mom. Perhaps sex ed is not the school's job, but the parents!

 

[mamab]

I firmly believe that sex ed should be a parent's responsibility. I've tried to answer my kids questions whenever they come up, but thankfully they're not an every day thing. Of course, I also homeschool, so in effect, the school IS teaching them. LOL

 

[dong]

More generally, I think talk of sex is highly oversubstantiated. But this is a sign of the times, if nothing else- due to education reshuffling, I pretty much missed out entirely on sex ed, until maybe a smattering in the late half of high school.

It's a good thing I'd done my independent research nearly a decade earlier.

 

[luvcamerasnic]

I firmly believe that sex ed should be a parent's responsibility. I've tried to answer my kids questions whenever they come up, but thankfully they're not an every day thing. Of course, I also homeschool, so in effect, the school IS teaching them. LOL

I teach at a private school, and we talk about biology so reproduction comes up, but we don't teach them how sex works. That is the parent's responsibility.

 

[mamab]

Well, of course you have to teach about reproduction while teaching science, but that's entirely different that teaching about "the birds and the bees." That's SCIENCE, the other is life!

My kids understand about sex in animals from watching educational shows on tv. When it comes to the "physical how-to's" I'm going to let my husband do that part of the lesson.

 

[dong]

My kids understand about sex in animals from watching
educational shows on tv.

I'm actually glad to see this. It used to be a pet peeve of mine that one seemed encouraged to indulge in sexual topics but if one were to casually talk about sex in other species (meaning, of course, the sexually reproducing ones) one would elicit an OMFG YOU PERV. It was probably the whole adolescent titillation thing, but I thought that ideally one really didn't have to make a whole big deal out of it. I mean...it's...sex. (But of course that last line could probably be taken in all kinds of manners I don't mean!)

On that note, this does speak quite a lot about how we view sex with regard to a certain personal aspect. I'd also go further to say that the rationale for criticism of all manners of topics sexual relies largely on our treatment of notions of sex...is it just me or does it tend to get compartmentalised, isolated from other parts of life that it would typically be integrated into?

Furthermore, would this be the result of a backlash against a generally repressive environment? And...have I already asked this before on a separate thread? Hmm...

 

[mamab]

I wonder, in regard to the beginning of the thread, if these children would have even considered something like this if it weren't shown so openly and blatantly on tv programs today. While I agree that sex is a wonderful thing, it's personal, and shouldn't be paraded around like it's nothing. What Hollywood and much of society has done is taken the "sacredness" of sex and made it cheap, taudry, and lacking the original intent. I know that probably sounds a little "Puritan," but I think that sex SHOULD be viewed as something special, not just a way to have fun, regardless of the consequences.