Sexual Reproduction and Development

I like to plan. I try to think ahead. So I really thought that I had covered my bases when I laid out the lesson plan for Chapter 26 – Reproduction and Development. I sent a note home to parents warning them about the chapter that we were about to start and asked them to have some serious, meaningful conversations with their daughters. I had the girls watch “The Miracle of Life” for 3 days with a female teacher. I asked Ms. HomeSkillet to have "girl-talk" to them in homeroom. As a young male who teaches all female students, I am always walking on eggshells.

What I didn’t realize was that when you’re walking though a minefield, disarming 5 or 6 mines just isn’t going to cut it.

We started out by doing an activity. I handed each student a notecard and told them that they had 5 minutes to get 3 other people to sign their card. Before the activity, I had taken one girl aside and asked her to refuse to participate – I had decided to have her represent an abstinent person. I had also written a red dot on the back of one of the notecards – this would represent a person that started with an STD.

The girls eagerly rose from their seats…”Sign mines [sic]! Sign mines!”
“Wait, why isn’t you doing the activity?”, they asked my accomplice.
“I just don’t feel like it, okay?”

By the third signature, everyone in the class had “caught” the STD. When I revealed that ally had been modeling an “abstinent” person by simply choosing not to participate, the girls started giggling… “Not a good choice for the ‘abstinent’ girl,”, one classmate snickered.

Detention city. I knew that things would only get worse from there.

Over the course of the chapter I was asked a multitude of hilarious questions, but here is a sampler:

“So do cows be comin’ outta of their mom’s butts? How ‘bout horses?”

“How do snakes have sex? They don’t have hands to grab on to nothin’.”

Q: “What happens if sperm lands on a girl’s mouth?”
A: “Ask Ms. HomeSkillet.”

(written on a note that was handed to me)
“What makes our Butox [sic] different than males? Is it just genes?”

“Can you break your vagina when you have a baby?”

“Can twins have two different fathers? Like if a sperm fertilize an egg, and a different sperm fertilize another egg in the same mom, could they have different dad’s? Cause that’s what happened on Maury.”