The eighth graders at Archway School arrive for their sex education class
in a noisy stampede. The girls clatter into chairs on one side of the room; the
boys grab seats on the other. A few switch seats until they find the right
place. All of them, in the throes of puberty, fidget and joke while they wait
for the lesson -- they're not sure what it will be -- to start.
That is when Ivy Chen turns to introduce herself. "I teach about sex," she
says. "I love teaching about sex. I've always wanted to do it."
"Wow," says a boy in the back. She is used to being a surprise to her
students, she said in an interview a week earlier. A fresh-faced 33, and Asian.
After a quick introduction -- Chen teaches "puberty education" at public
and private schools around the Bay Area and is a "professor of sex" at San
Francisco State and UC Berkeley -- and discussion of ground rules, respect,
confidentiality, scientific terms when possible, she turns to the day's event,
a game of Sex Jeopardy. The categories are male and female anatomy and
physiology, with questions offered for varying points. Other than that, the
rules are similar to the game show.
Chen could be a game show host. She has the voice and the presence. And
she is unflappable. When students in a younger class at Archway, a small
private school in North Berkeley, were yelling out body parts, generally by
scientific name, she had a way of encouraging the enthusiasm without giving in
to chaos.
"Ball sack!"
"Testosterone!"
"Erection!" They yelled out, answering questions to a game called "What Am
I?" Laughing is good, Chen reminded them, but falling out of your chair is not.
It should be fun, but respectful, and nothing is off limits. She'd prefer
"scrotum" to "ball sack" but took either as answers, which made the point that
after yelling names of body parts for 20 minutes you might as well be screaming
"breadbox" or "Volkswagen."
California has guidelines for sex education requiring public schools to
offer information that is comprehensive and accurate. The state, which
continues to turn its back on federal funding for abstinence-only programs,
stipulates that students get an introduction to puberty by fifth grade and to
HIV prevention by middle school, with a follow-up in high school. But schools
-- particularly private ones that are free to develop their own guidelines --
have great leeway in how to handle the subjects.
"They can invite a specialist or have a 30-minute movie one day and say,
'We've done it. Let's check that off the list,' '' Chen said. Some offer only a
cursory discussion. But many schools in the Bay Area -- both public and
private, including one where she teaches in Cantonese -- are turning to sex
educators such as Chen to teach a class that not only covers biology and
physiology, but also, for the older kids, decision-making, romance,
relationships and pleasure.
"One of the key things I hit is healthy relationships," she said, between
classes at a school in San Francisco. "Sex education has to be relevant.
Statistics and scare tactics don't work. I don't show scary pictures with sores
and ooze. I try to talk about sexual decision-making as part of a healthy
relationship, about ways to negotiate with a partner."
Chen finds her calendar so booked that she sometimes teaches all grades at
one school in a morning, then travels to another one in the afternoon. Many of
the schools ask her to talk to parents, which she considers a key component of
sex education. She also teaches human sexuality and reproduction at UC Berkeley
and a class at San Francisco State University on sex and relationships that is
so popular that more than 500 kids get up at 8 a.m. to attend. She gives
students in all her classes her e-mail address, then spends time at night and
between classes answering queries.
The middle schoolers may seem savvier than their counterparts in previous
generations, she said, but she thinks they possess an "ersatz sophistication."
While kids may no longer be segregated by sex and shown movies financed by the
feminine hygiene industry, they still encounter a "sex negative" environment.
"Obviously they are fascinated with sex," she said. "But still we are not able
to talk in an open way. There is a fascination and fear."
You can see it in the responses of the kids at Archway. When the seventh
graders come for their session, she gives an overview of what she'll be
covering during the week, anatomy, birth control and sexually transmitted
diseases. "We'll be doing a condom relay," she says, adding they will be using
something "shaped like a penis."
"Isn't that illegal?" says a boy, to laughter.
He follows that up with, "Did you want to be a sex ed teacher when you
were a child?"
"Good question," says Chen. "I wanted to do this ever since I was 12.''
Born in Hong Kong, Chen moved at age 7 to San Francisco, where she
attended Catholic schools. She remembers helping high school friends with
relationship problems. Then as a biology major at UC Berkeley she worked in a
sexual health peer education program. She later graduated from the UC Berkeley
School of Public Health.
She admits that teaching sex education wasn't always what her parents
hoped for her. "No Chinese mother says I wish you would grow up to be a sex
educator," she said. "But she sees it's a financially solvent career. I think
she's proud of me."
The seventh graders seem satisfied with her credentials, although they
giggle while she leads a game of "What Am I?" She begins with questions about
male anatomy -- the next day will be female -- to test their knowledge. She
reads definitions, from "I make sperm" to "I am two tubes that transport sperm"
and "I am what it's called when a guy ejaculates in his sleep," then asks
students to write the words or terms on note cards.
"Why do they have a co-ed sex class?" a girl wants to know.
"This is science," says Chen, and proceeds to give the scientific terms
for body parts and functions, stopping to acknowledge slang, which the kids are
happy to share.
The eighth graders, later, have no trouble naming three teams for Sex
Jeopardy -- the Horny Hornets, the Orgasm Tornados and the Sexually Confused
Panthers. The Hornets are first, choosing female physiology for 20 points. "How
many days are in a typical menstrual cycle?" Chen asks.
A Hornet slams her hand on the table, a replacement for a buzzer. "28,"
she says. "Correct," Chen says. "The Hornets control the board."
She leads the game for another half hour, stopping to show illustrations,
answer questions ("Why do men have nipples?" and "Does an abortion hurt?") and
make suggestions. "Teenage girls can have irregular cycles," she says. "Keep
those pads and tampons with you."
"I always keep pads and tampons with me," says one of the boys.
"Well, you should," says Chen. "If you get in an accident, a pad will come
in handy. And if you get a bloody nose, a tampon can work."
"Nose tampons!" several kids say at once.
At one point, when Chen holds up the illustration of female anatomy, a
girl slides off her chair and sits on the ground. Another hides her eyes behind
her scarf. But otherwise, they seem to be soaking up everything Chen says. Over
the next few days, when she's finished with the anatomy, she will be covering
the real substance of the eighth grade program -- relationships and
decision-making.
Students in the last class of the day, sixth grade, seem worlds younger
than the eighth graders. There is the usual sixth grade disparity in size and
maturity. Some look like they'd be dating and others like they'd be happy
playing with Legos.
Chen reviews with them the basics of body changes -- sweat glands, acne,
body hair, growing taller and what she calls the "sexy tingly feelings" that
are new to them.
They take turns reading paragraphs of a story about a fictional kid's
entrance into puberty, then try to decide if "Chris" is a boy or girl. They
conclude it doesn't matter because girls and boys go through a lot of the same
changes. They ask questions and, surprisingly, no one laughs.
"Can you get a zit when you're 80?" a girl wants to know.
"Why do girls shave their legs?" another girl asks.
"If you pull out a gray hair will two grow in its place?" a third girl
wonders.
Chen answers the questions, then talks about upcoming topics before the
kids leave to go home, where she hopes there will be discussion of what she
covered in class.
"One thing I tell parents is that the way to protect kids is to inform
them," she said. "I tell them they have a short time to help kids make good
decisions and then they are on their own."
E-mail Katherine Seligman at kseligman@sfchronicle.com.
