Sarah Mell

Sarah taught the SECS-C to a co ed class of high school students who had been adjudicated and were living in a residential treatment center in Vermont. She writes:

Renee Randazzo

Renee is a Licensed Professional Counselor Intern in Austin, Texas and is currently the Lead Clinician for School-based Services at Out Youth. She writes:

Delivering this curriculum was a powerful experience. Listening to the youth, it was abundantly clear that they had received a plethora of messages about sex  from many sources besides the sex ed taught in school, including from music, movies, families, religion, and news stories. Some of these messages were causing them confusion and even harm as they tried to navigate their own development. Giving youth the opportunity to talk about sex, not just in terms of health, but in terms of relationship to society and in terms of care for others, was incredibly rewarding. Even when the conversations were difficult, the youth engaged and challenged one another to question stereotypes, notice double standards, and use their own values to think about sex and ethics.

STUDENT REVIEWS

FROM 3 9th GRADE CLASSES in CAMBRIDGE, MA

“I got to see some of the boys’ perspectives.”

“I learned about domestic violence and how it’s never okay. I also learned about benevolence.” 

“I liked that they made it a safe place for everyone.”

“I learned to do the things I want to and to be pressured.”

“I apprecieated the autonomy lesson because everyone wants to make their own choices. They just have to know there are consequences behind it.”

“One of the most important things I learned was that consent is really important in a relationship and we have to ask before we just do it.”

“I learned that friendship and trust is one of the foundations of love and relationships.

I learned about love, consent, coercion, shame, jealousy, sexting, pornography, and benevolence (caring.)

The most important lessons were on shame, jealousy, sexting, and pornography.

I appreciated the knowledge of what’s wrong and what’s right, even though you didn’t give us your opinion.

I appreciated getting to speak my mind and give my opinion. You didn’t judge us. You listened to what we had to say.

I learned there were many kinds of friendship and love was bigger than I thought.

I appreciated that we were able to talk about hard subjects and everyone would stay mature about it.

I was able to look at a lot of ethical beliefs.

Media lesson was important

This was a good sex and ethics course. I learned a lot!