Are sexualised materials in the classroom perverting the very ideals of education?
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
Gender ideology is not just about beliefs
Introduction : Following our recent campaign to get the Scottish Government to take inappropriate teaching concepts and materials out of schools (which the Scottish Government has ignored), this blog addresses the likely repercussions when adults fail to take responsibility for the inevitable emotional impact of sexualising the classroom.
Anyone who has studied the materials provided for teachers in the resource bank Relationships, Sexual Health and Parenthood (RSHP), will be aware of the explicit nature of some of the slides and scripts designed for various age groups in the RSHP.
Meanwhile, the Supporting Transgender Pupils in Scotland (STPS) guidance is based on the false concept that individuals can be born in the wrong body and can change sex. This guidance is likely to mislead teaching staff, is based on junk science, but at least, it is not statutory. Schools can, if they choose, ignore it completely. Whereas, the guidance for the RSHP materials is statutory. The RSHP guidance urges Councils to:
‘discharge their statutory functions relating to provision of education about sexual matters in the schools…’
It is in this way that the premature sexualisation of children takes place firstly through inappropriate RSHP materials. By creating a sexualised atmosphere in the classroom, the RSHP materials potentially pave the way for further graphic images to be used. The STPS guidance serves as further reinforcement regarding the erosion of boundaries between males and female pupils, the distancing of parent involvement, and the 'product placement' of the false belief that a transgender child can exist and can change their sex.
Carolyn Brown, ScotPAG Convenor
The hidden impact
In addition to the actual content of the RSHP, another aspect that bears careful examination is the potential for emotionally unsettling and sexually over-stimulated environments created in classrooms by the discussion of sex and sexuality. It affects teacher-pupil dynamics and children's relationships within peer groups, and arises from discussions of such topics as sexual acts, pornography, sexual abuse, and the belief that a human can change sex. Do adults really believe that these are educational subjects like any other? Furthermore, does the statutory obligation on teachers to venture onto personal, psychological territory really benefit children, or increase the expertise of teachers? Are teachers really comfortable with acting as confidantes to confused children who ask them to keep secrets from their parents? These are situations that ought to have alarm bells ringing everywhere. Is this what education entails?
For those of us who are not teachers, what is happening appears to be a strange inversion of reality, and an attempt by some educationalists to use classrooms as places where adult themes can be inappropriately distributed to children, and turn what should be ordinary curiosity about life, into voyeurism. Their own materials even hint at this, showing the naivity of its authors. Take, for example, the guidance regarding teaching children about pornography, which the Scottish Government recently moved into the category for first year secondary pupils :
“At around P5/P6 we explain to children what pornography is as follows: … Pornography is a photograph, image, film or words that are about something sexual. Porn can show people’s sexual body parts or show people having sex.”
Similarly, the material on sexual abuse for the younger age group, around 8 or 9 states:
“Sexual abuse can be when someone shows you sexual pictures or makes you watch people doing something sexual. You might have heard this is called pornography” (RSHC resources Level 2)
If children are being told that being shown sexual images is akin to pornography, and that it can constitute abuse, what are they to make of the graphic materials that teachers may choose to use, and the motivations of those teachers who use sexual images and go into details about all manner of sexual topics in class?
Three Red Flags in School Practices
1. Ignoring the generational difference : It is always wrong for teachers to relate to children as if they are emotionally equivalent to adults in their understanding of sexual matters. Showing sexualised adult images in class, (even, or especially, if they are in cartoon form) and sexualised discussions, erase the natural moral boundary between adults and children. This is particularly damaging where the adults are acting in loco parentis.
2. Secrecy: Not informing parents under the guise of confidentiality about a child’s ‘social transition’ mimics the secrecy dynamics common in childhood sexual abuse (CSA). It creates emotional conflicts in the affected children,
their peers, and often in staff too.
Coercive boundary‑breaching: Obligatory classroom discussions of intimate body parts or adult themes leave children powerless to object and are intrusive, echoing the coercive elements of CSA where an abuser persuades a child that what is happening is good, special, and normal.
The potential consequences of these actions include the development of mistrust in adults, and long-term vulnerability in relationships. There is a also a risk of creating a second, complicated tier of disturbance in both children and adults who have already been exposed to sexual abuse or over-sexualisation elsewhere, causing increased anxiety about participation in obligatory classes that focus on sex, sexual acts, and questions relating to changing sex.
Potential Impact on Teachers?
Many teachers find themselves placed in ethically compromising positions, effectively becoming “accomplices” to policies involving secrecy and boundary violations. As figures of authority both in the eyes of children and their parents, they risk having that authority undermined as a result of complicity. They may also be carrying the after-effects of their own childhood experiences, and find themselves being forced, in adulthood, into participating in sexualised environments that are disturbing and emotionally demanding.
When government guidelines and resource materials begin to be questioned publically, as being morally objectionable and at times harmful, it is hopefully only a matter of time until the challenges, to professional educational bodies and to governments, brings about much needed reflection and change.
June Campbell, Retired Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist, previously in charge of a CSA service in an NHS psychiatric hospital.
Is the updated RSHP statutory guidance even legal? See our blog next week!