A controversy is brewing over the content of the social personal and health education (SPHE) curriculum and materials intended for use in the junior cycle post-primary years for young teenagers. Some commentators are extremely concerned about the underlying value system that is, or is not, present in the teaching of the subject.
The SPHE courses are closely connected with relationships and sex education (RSE). Early adolescents are undergoing profound peripubertal development, physically and psychologically. The SPHE programme is stated to be non-judgmental, supportive and empowering.
Inevitably, the whole area of what is now termed “gender ideology” is engaged. What early adolescent children are taught in this area is a matter of legitimate concern. The perspective of such education is important. Are there values involved, and what are they? Can such a programme of education be value-driven and non-judgmental at the same time?
Is gender identity a matter of choice in whole or in part? Are early adolescents in a good position either individually or in educational groupings to evaluate their choices? Is pedagogical affirmation of choices considered a necessary or helpful aspect of school education?
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Is group study of sexual activities in the context of classroom SPHE needed? Are 12- to 15-year-old children all in the same position of maturity to address such issues? What should they be told about gender identity?
Are there, as the Department of Justice now seems to believe if the hate speech Bill is proceeded with, a multiplicity of genders? Are children to be taught that such a multiplicity of genders exists and if so, what are the main genders other than male and female? Regina Doherty, then a Senator and now an MEP, suggested to a Scottish parliamentary committee in 2022 that there were “probably around nine genders”, but nobody has defined or described them.
These are areas where parents have a legitimate concern and interest in relation to their children’s education. That much is stated to be part of our fundamental law – in the Constitution. Article 42 of the Constitution lays down some important principles that need to be borne in mind. Parents are stated in that article to be the “primary and natural educators” of the child and to have an “inalienable right and duty” to provide for the religious, moral, intellectual, physical and social education of their children.
Since parents are also assured under Article 42 of their constitutional right to provide for the education of their children “in their homes or in private schools or in schools recognised or established by the State” and not to be obliged “in violation of their conscience and lawful preference” to send their children to State schools or to “types of school designated by the State”, it seems to follow that they have a right to be consulted, at the very least, as to the nature of SPHE programmes to be followed in relation to their children.
Of course, there is an irony that such constitutional guarantees coexisted with a virtual Catholic monopoly for most families in post-primary education for a century of post-independent Ireland. Many were exposed to a very graphic picture of an eternity in hell for adolescents who died in a state of mortal sin because of their impure thoughts or actions. The terror and shame that posed as SPHE education in those days was undoubtedly deeply harmful to young adolescents. Catholic parents had no real choice to protect their children from such harm.
The issue is not one where schools must either say or do nothing in the areas of SPHE or RSE, on the one hand, or teach a curriculum to which many or most parents profoundly object on the other. As I see it, schools receiving State assistance owe parents a constitutional respect as to what is or is not taught to early adolescent children in the SPHE or RSE areas.
One family should not be able to veto what is taught to the children of all other families. But it does seem sensible and, indeed, constitutional that schools reach out to parents to seek a broad consensus on the approach adopted in these matters.
If individual families wish to opt out of such programmes, their reasonable wishes should be accommodated or respected. That is why we must be careful that an agenda is not set by activists or ideologists on a “one-size-fits-all” basis for schools across the nation. The State is not all-knowing or authoritative in these matters in the 21st century in the way that church educators claimed to be in the 20th century.
Arguably, parents wrongly abdicated their inalienable constitutional duties for the most part in relation their children’s RSE teaching to religious denominations in the past. In an increasingly post-denominational, secular society, there is a need for parental involvement to reassert itself and be respected. A level-headed public debate on these issues is badly needed.