The Abstinence Clearinghouse Blog

[LeAnna Benn, October 24, 2005]

Legitimacy —Written materials lend legitimacy and strengthen the students opinion of healthy concepts of sexuality.

Credibility –Creating credibility for abstinence education with visible tools for educators.

Consistency — Delivering the message with predictable regularity and common information between schools, between teachers and between classes.

Transparency - Parents and community members can know exactly what will be taught in the curriculum without having to research through many different resources or disjointed notes and programs. A specific teacher does not have to defend his or her teaching notes as the sole source for information.

Accuracy — Documented footnotes substantiate medical facts and information disseminated to students. A cadre of professionals can be brought into the classroom by merely opening a book that displays an array of information from various disciplines and even perspectives.

Dependability – Programs with written materials can defend what has been said and can defend the teachers that presented the information.

Flexibility –Written materials can reach all learning modalities by producing instructions, activities and content for the visual learner, the kinesthetic learner and the auditory learner.

Transferability— Programs can deliver the same materials throughout the school district when new teachers are hired. Written programs can be transferred to teachers without the being part of the past development process. Transferability is important considering the high mobility of teachers in most education systems and abstinence programs.

Evaluation—Continuity, commitment of the teacher and the standardization of message allow programs to be evaluated for effectiveness and improved for better outcomes. Teachers are a variable, students a variable, the community environment and current events. One consistent factor can then be the written materials. This consistent factor allows materials to be used in different projects and the transferability of results can be used to substantiate the value of abstinence education to larger populations creating a cultural shift.

Continuity/stability— Programming that stays in place year after year is more likely to make a cultural impact on the community. Written materials allow for the stability of programs and the continuity of messages across years.

Parental involvement— Printed materials allow busy parents to know what their children are learning and be involved in that learning process without going to school or taking days off from work.

Cost effective— Printed materials that teach the abstinence message allow educators in a variety of venues to present to students. This saves projects the cost of providing paid staff presenters in the classroom or for more expensive assembly speakers. Unlike speakers, travel costs are unnecessary with printed materials once the materials have been delivered. Printed materials do not preclude presenters but printed materials can be used when presenters are not available and when grant funding has been decreased or declined. Remote areas –Rural communities do not have the resources, grants, volunteer presenters or large enough audiences to draw assembly speakers so they must rely on printed materials to deliver their message through the indigenous population of school district teachers.

Leverage – Local teachers or presenters can do the work of an abstinence presenter without the cost to the program but also without a large learning curve for the local presenter.

Institutionalizing abstinence – Adopting materials provides an opportunity for school districts to establish a policy on sexuality education that promotes abstinence. Old programs that permitted students to engage in sexual activity prior to marriage or failed to understand the aspects of the emotional social and financial consequences can be replaced with abstinence programs that give a more complete message.

Security for teachers –Institutionalizing abstinence education gives the teachers a sense of security because as long as they follow the school district policy and the adopted curriculum they do not need to fear teaching sexuality. One of the main reasons that sexuality is not taught consistently within school systems is that teachers fear parents reprisals over what might happen in the classroom.

Capacity – Printed materials increase the capacity of organizations and develop a longevity that provides a quality experience and the resources to mentor community members and other abstinence organizations.

Sustainability — In political seasons when funding is lean for abstinence education, the sales of abstinence materials keep the movement alive.

Education usually begins with information. That information is usually organized in a manner that allows leaders/teachers to present to students. In sex education and abstinence research, it has been found that knowledge alone does not change behavior. Abstinence education has been called to a higher standard than general education e.g., math, science, English in that, abstinence education must not only educate but motivate. Our success is not measured by transmission of knowledge like other forms of education but on measurable results, unlike Sex Education that hasn’t measured anything.

Abstinence education must transmit knowledge because it either confirms values that drive behavior or begins the process of logically changing those underlying values. Various types of education materials are the tools used by educators, (teachers, presenters, assembly speakers even mentors) to leverage the message, engage the intellectual and often the social aspect of the learner.

Detractors of abstinence education have, since the first day of Title XX funding, attacked the tools of abstinence education. The ACLU assault worked in the early 90’s to shut down efforts by many schools that were leaning towards abstinence skill training and certainly shut off funding at the federal level.

Waxman et al, hasn’t attack the means of delivery, e.g., youth, schools, after school, clubs, but his committee went right to the heart of it and criticized materials. If they think the tools are important, then we should too. Please consider sharing this information with your grants management team.

LeAnna Benn
Teen-Aid