Update sex ed says Windsor teacher consultant

A teacher consultant for health and physical education with the local public school board says Ontario's sexual education curriculum needs an upgrade.

"The current curriculum is 15 years old. When you think about it, think of all the changes that have occurred in 15 years," Sharon Seslijia of the Greater Essex County District School Board said.

She says smartphones, sexting, the internet and the increased availability of cable and satellite TV all should be considered.

Earlier this week, a group of several organizations, including the University of Toronto, Public Health Ontario and The Hospital for Sick Children, released three reports pushing the province to update their lesson plans before increasingly tech-savvy students return to school in the fall.

"Now, we’ve got all these things to deal with; cyber bullying, sexting ... same-sex marriage. All these are things we weren’t talking about 15 years ago," Seslijia said.

Previous upgrade scrapped

Former Premier Dalton McGuinty proposed new sex education curriculum that was to begin in 2010, but scrapped the idea. Religious groups and others objected to the revised curriculum.

That previously proposed curriculum would have seen children in Grade 1 learning to identify genitalia using the correct words, like penis and vagina, and Grade 7 students learning how prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections.

"Other provinces start teaching that in kindergarten," Seslijia said of the previously proposed first grade curriculum.

At the high school level, students are only required to take one health and physical education credit before graduating.

"If we don’t get kids in grades 10, 11 and 12 we don’t have the ability to address all the issues," Seslijia said.

Brenna Duffy, a Grade 10 student at Kennedy high school, called the current lessons "pretty basic at the beginning, in Grade 9." She said the curriculum should be updated to include parenting.

Some students don't think the courses currently offered fall short.

"To be honest, I think I’ve learned most of my sex education on my own. I believe I get a better education on the streets than I do in school," Kennedy high school student Kory Mauldin said.

An Ontario Physical Education and Health Association survey found 93 per cent of parents want an updated sexual health component to the 15-year-old health and physical education curriculum for elementary and secondary school students.

Ontario's education minister, Liz Sandals, says that the province does have a proposed updated curriculum, but wants to "check in with parents" before moving forward.