As you know, I’m a teacher. All the 5th and 6th grade students are going through the Family Life Education program (otherwise known as Sex Ed) this week before spring break. Now, I don’t teach this program but because you have to have a second adult in the class while it’s being taught, and because there are so few males in my school, I have to sit in on the classes this week. They do this so that if a question arises about what was taught or discussed it can be verified by the second adult. So anyway, today started those classes. I sat in on the 6th grade program. They start the class with videos about “the changes” taking place in your body and feelings you begin to have for “girls”. The video described how you will begin to find yourself attracted to the opposite sex. I’m sitting there thinking what about the boy who says he’s attracted to the same sex? Nothing is said in the video about feeling that way. I feel for all those gay kids out there who will not be hearing this week that it is okay to feel about the same sex the way their friends do about the opposite sex. I wish I could have stood up and said something to let those few boys know that it’s okay. Granted, this video didn’t say anything against feeling gay either, it just didn’t point it out as another possible feeling you might be having when you go through puberty. Generally the videos that were shown were fine. They discussed body odor, zits, hard-ons, etc. All the things we went through as kids. I think these videos today are much more descriptive then the 16 mm films we saw in elementary school. The only problem is they do not discuss homosexuality. And that pisses me off. Maybe they discuss it in the high school Family Life Education. I’m not sure. I just know that when I was in 5th and 6th grade, I was already thinking about liking boys. So surely there are other boys out there who thought about or think about boys at that age. Maybe in another 30 years things will have changed and the videos will include something about homosexuality. I sure hope we have evolved enough by that time to include homosexuality at the 5th and 6th grade level. My life would have been easier had I known at age 12 that it was okay to have feelings for other boys.