“Ms. Colleen, I don’t think population can help with my future,” Ben says to me after their grade 10 science class on Population growth, density, and competition this week. Really? That gave me an idea. The next day I only had a half hour with the grade 10’s, so we spent the class coming up with ideas on how Ben can use population for his chosen line of work…a rock star. It was a blast! We discovered that population and density are so important when it comes to ticket sales and concert locations. We also brain stormed on many other ways to apply population concepts to his rock star status like competition and predation (other bands, writer’s block, band break ups etc.). Fun times! This was the first of random classes with grade 10.
The next came the following day as we were going over homework and looking at parasites and disease. We discussed white blood cells and the immune system and they brought up HIV and Aids. The rest of the class we talked about sex. Yeah, me and 4 grade 10 guys. Its actually something I’ve been meaning to discuss with them as I’ve see them becoming more and more familiar with their girlfriends at school. My goal was to teach them the reasoning and the premise behind purity; physical, mental, and spiritual. The spiritual reasons don’t carry much weight for them but they were definitely interested in the physical aspects when it comes to diseases and the like. They don’t quite understand the idea of mental pain and visual images and how powerful they can be. “But everyone in America is having sex! We see it all the time on TV and on the movies.” Once again I was flabbergasted and dumbfounded at how other cultures see America and Christians through the eyes and pens of Hollywood. Ben, not everyone is like that. Some are, but there are a whole bunch of high school kids that don’t want that kind of life. “I don’t understand. Girls at my other school ask for it.” Man, that made me sad, especially since he left his school at grade 8.
They asked me personal questions and I answered them honestly. I told them that I even close my eyes and ears at movies and TV shows when they show sex scenes. “Why?” Because I don’t want someone else’s ideas to flood my brain and make me think of things I shouldn’t before its time. They shook their heads and laughed and said I was weird. Hmm, never heard that before! =0) I appreciated their honesty and I believe they learned a lot about how intricate sexual activity can be with all the risks. You know, they didn’t even know what a virgin was. So sad.
Then, Friday night another 2 teachers and I went to the movies with these guys, their girls and another couple of kids. We chose Miami Vice not knowing what it was about…I actually thought it was going to be a spoof on it. Lets just say that we put my talk into action as we plugged our ears and covered our eyes as well as the guys. We apologized afterwards for putting them in that compromising position. A huge opportunity for humility. Please pray for these guys, that they would desire to be pure, for God to guard their young hearts in this land of visual sensuality and where “love” is thrown around easily in word and deed.