Breaking news from Asia1
(snipped and pasted from Asia1)
MOE has examined AWARE's "Comprehensive Sexuality Education: Basic Instructor Guide". The Guide contains some positive aspects, like the accurate information provided on STIs/HIV and role-play practice for students to say no to sex.
However, MOE's assessment is that in some other aspects, the Guide does not conform to MOE's guidelines. In particular, some suggested responses in the instructor guide are explicit and inappropriate, and convey messages which could promote homosexuality or suggest approval of pre-marital sex.
In view of this, AWARE's programmes in schools will be suspended and subjected to the new vetting processes.
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24 comments:
Hi! Gigamole
I'm relieved for the time being (at least its a right response)but still not satisfied. In fact, I think MOE seems to be trying its best to water down the 'censure' to Aware - given the intensity of parents' anger.
I think there should be a public inquiry as to how MOE has allowed this to happen. Looking at the CSE trainers guide, there are like 11 auditors (both external and internal) who are supposed to have 'audited' the program.
If they have done their job, how is it possible such blatant material be passed through - even if its a trainers' guide. Who are the trainers? What is their accreditation? What sort of moral/values do they bring with them? As its a experiential learning type of module, facilitators play an important role.
Its not the end yet - because the old Aware ladies are not going to take this lying down. I am sure they are going to justify with various reason why their program is like that and at the end, probably just say its an oversight.
They will only stop if someone tells them that what they are doing is despicable and shameful.
Good morning Glassbox.
Well......if I know the MOE, I think you are probably not going to get the public inquiry you want. But this does not necessarily mean the MOE isn't going to do something about it. There are a lot of face saving gestures no doubt, but if you read between those cryptic signals I think you may get a sense that there will be a lot of internal soul searching. Methinks some heads will be 'relocated' but there will be no public executions.
And yeah, I think the gay militant lobby will regroup and try and find an alternative means of promoting their philosophies. Whether the 'old ladies' were real conspirators or just being made use of...I really don't know. But perhaps after this incident, if AWARE is allowed to recalibrate its mission to really focus on women's issues, and not allow itself to get hijacked into gay issues, I think we would all be better off.
Hello hello,
This is interesting news, although it should be noted that MOE has suspended all 3rd party organization sex education programs and not just AWARE.
Look at the news though it is rather mortifying since it suggests that MOE has NOT been vetting stuff all this while for all groups and not just aware.
Hello Leon
I don't know if you remember my earlier post about the strategies used by Josie and gang to choose to remain calm. Her opponents dug their own graves, didn't they? And as they are being buried by the public, they still have the audacity to shout out from the pit "MOE is bringing us back a few centuries". My goodness! Where have all their brains gone?
Its easy to criticize MOE and I think we as citizen certainly should. BUT more importantly, this whole episode has highlighted to very many complacent parents not to assume that our experts in MOE knows what to do or will teach what is right to their children. Just like MAS (with the Lehman fiasco), MOH (with Mas Selamat) and MOEv (with the rats in the sewers) - all these point to someone sleeping on the job, being too presumptous (another word is believing in rhetoric) and trusting the wrong person or group. Yes, it all starts with a small mistake or slip up which on hindsight one would think some of these mistakes can be quite incredulous (sawing off the handle of the tiolet window will lock that window?)
In a way, these issues reflect the state of intellectual thinking of the public and the obvious lack of public accountabilty by the supposedly smarter group i.e. the government scholars who are paid so well. I think its time we as citizens start taking back the control. Things always happen in insidious ways. Empires and fads don't jump at us and take over in one day - they creep in - hence my earlier example of weeds in carpet grass. They infiltrate various sectors and by the time they are ready to rear their ugly heads - it becomes too late.
I really hope to see a public inquiry - not so much because I want heads to role but because I think its very important that the public be better educated about the insiduous workings of this bunch of people.
yeah....
"MOE has reviewed the internal processes for selecting and monitoring vendors and found that they can be improved. "
I think that is very telling.
Glassbox has brought us a little out of the AWARE discussion to more general issues about the quality of work in our civil service... :)
This will be perhaps be less consensus that civil service is one big cock up anyway...
But perhaps we need to consider if perhaps some of these we see nowadays are perhaps a consequence of better visibility and awareness with respect to mistakes. I think to some extent, there has been a movement towards less of a 'protection' for the civil service when mistakes are made. Letters are published. The press takes a swipe. I had wondered if perhaps in the past more and bigger mistakes had been made but we were just not aware(oops...) that a major cock up had occurred. Or when it did occur, we were more content to shrug it off since we could do precious little.
What do you think? (Will try post something more specific related to this later....when I can wrap my mind around some of these issues better.)
sorry second para meant to say:
"This will be perhaps be less contentious as more will be of the consensus that civil service is one big cock up anyway..."
There was a devil in the detail.
Hi Giga: Just thought u may be interested to read wot Dana Lam sent out to Aware members (not to me ah, but many of my frens are members):
We stand by our CSE programme. As I’ve said to the press, we’ve been running the programme for two years without complaints. The Ministry’s statement of April 28th confirmed it had not received any complaints from the students, or their parents, who have been through the programme.
What is currently at issue, as revealed in the Ministry’s statement yesterday, lies specifically with some of the suggested responses in the Instructor Guide that it found to be “explicit and inappropriate”. We are prepared to review these and make any necessary changes so long as the principles and objectives of the CSE are not compromised. Yesterday’s statement from the Ministry has also noted that the CSE carries accurate information on STD and HIV and role-play practice for students to say no to sex.
What is important is that the CSE programme, and similar programmes that other organisations may have, continues to be available to students in Singapore . We hope to be able to resume the CSE programme before too long.
AWARE's response shows no remorse, no shame and no soul-searching. These women truly believe that they are doing the RIGHT thing!
It sends shivers down my spine to hear these rabid feminists remaining adamant that they ARE the progressive voice of society. We, the conservative majority can certainly expect more mayhem from these elements of society.
Anonymous,
Agreed. They have made themselves pariahs. Its sad to see this organisation degenerate like that.
I want to share with you all an extract of a letter that was written to the Rev Dr John Chew by a lady (whom I shall not mention because I don't really have her permission to reproduce this). But I am pasting an excerpt from it because it is so powerfully written and also quite casts some light on the situation. To the author of the letter, please forgive me for doing this without your permission. If you wish me to take this off, I will gladly do so. Just drop me a note.
"Our mainstream media, though they tried to be objective, was unfortunately not. From the start, they already knew which side they wanted to support. Why was the coverage on the event so skewed towards the winning party? Why carry so much of the winning party’s voice and why interview so many of their supporters? I did not see them going around just as excitedly in seeking the opinions of Josie’s supporters yesterday.
When Dr Thio was asked by MOE to validate and substantiate her statements on Tuesday, my PR team fought against time to issue a statement to the press only to be told that they don’t intend to carry her side of the story.
When Josie and her team wanted to send the media their vision and philosophy that they have crafted for AWARE, the media told them that they are not interested. Why run the churches’ stories two days and even the eve of the EGM?
Are we aware that the AWARE story was the number one world story in twitters? The other camp was made up of generally young people who are savvy with social media and they leveraged on those tools. Ninety-nine percent of those on twitters were dead against Josie and her team. Are we also aware that they have set up hate websites to hit out at Christians and all on Josie’s team? We all know that Josie received death threats. Do we also know that everyone on that team had letters or calls written to their employers asking their employers to justify their presence in the organisations? Why is it that no one spoke up about such tactics? Further, how aware are we that the other group’s supporters comprised mainly of relatively young people? These are going to be our children’s leaders or counterparts. Josie’s camp was made up of middle aged men and women who did not dress, behave or even speak the same “language” as our young today. What happened to our young Christian people? Shouldn’t they be interested in what is happening?"
I posted this on Solo Bear's blog and I thought I share the same here looking at how we cherish our children. I would also like to learn what else I can do as a parent.
"How should parents provide a concrete response to the government on family values, which include sex education. The online community is not a representative voice and until we come out of anonymity, we would not be credible in the eyes of the government.
Aware has discredited itself, so that is old news already. And we know the gay/lesbian communities around the world petition tirelessly to increase their pool of 'members' to feed their sexual appetite so this is an ongoing battle. They are winning the war in many places and we are only seeing early signs of change.
There are enough evidence to show that gay/lesbian is a choice as the tendency is formed developmentally, through a variety of environmental factors growing up, but of course they will deny it as it nullifies their argument and moral position. Showing them facts don't work either as they select what they want to read/know, which is consistent with their innate rebellious nature in response to abuse, neglect, apathy and so forth.
In this context, what can we do? I am a parent and I see the need to inculcate wholesome family relationships, so that my children feel safe to talk to me about all things, feel I have the credibility to guide them through hurdles in their life, including sexual orientation, and be able to impart wholesome values to them.
I was talking to a friend the other day, and we conclude that we are a privileged generation (I am in my early 40's). We are feeding off the hardwork our parents invested: we don't have to fight world war II, fight for survival after independence, be involved in nation building that resulted in some much financial progress. I know we feel stressed, economy is not good, we are not making as much money as before, but compared to my parent's generation I have so much more.
What should our next steps be? In my mind, these are:
1. Reconciliation with yourself. I hated my father for a long time, but in the past 2 years I had a rare insight into the environment he grew up in - orphaned by World War 2, needing to drop out of school to work and help with family finances, a mother who was illiterate and did not know how to raise up 11kids on her own (2 died from malnutrition). Knowing that helped me realised my Dad loves me despite his own pains led to reconciliation with myself and him. I was told good families are in the minority in Singapore, and my personal story is pretty common. There are many of our generation out there whose parents were uneducated, past triad members, chinese educated and denied equal opportunities in civil service and so forth. There is a lot of bitterness out there. We need to deal with our inner woes.
2. Reconciliation within our own family. Showing all our family members love and taking the leadership to build each one up in his/her potential, focusing on interpersonal relationships. Reconciliation with my Dad also helped reconcile his relationship with my children. He thought I did not want him near them, and I thought he did not want to be around them. I am glad this vicious cycle was broken.
3. Coming together to help Singaporeans understand wholesome, constructive and happy families do exist in Singapore and everyone can do it also. This is when we step out. I am exploring what my options are and would be willing to hear suggestions.
This is my way to provide a concrete response to Aware's insidious attempt to change my children's sexual orientation (yes, it can change if someone is persuaded as a lot of our young do not know what they want and lack the moral fibre to do the right thing. I have seen it happen to a girl in her early 20's, whose lesbian friend badly needed a lover as she was from a rich family and cannot be seen hanging out in gay bar in case she loses her inheritance). Sorry, I digressed, but it is more than just gay/lesbian issues. Other issues include promiscuity, lack of integrity, unprincipled living, aimlessness, and so forth.
Just my piece."
Dear Anon,
Thank you so much for sharing so sensitively about the issue. I agree wholeheartedly with your comments. There is a whole lot more we can do in our own lives and families, than just griping and sniping against AWARE.
The problem with most conservative and mainstream causes is that they tend not to have that sense of urgency, and thus are much less organized in getting their act together. Also they have very little of the 'cool' factor.
I think one way we can help redress the balance of philosophies/values in the public is perhaps just to be bold about endorsing wholesome responsible attitudes towards sexuality.
The attempts at sexuality education is good and should continue, but we need to be more organized in putting forward an alternative plan for incalcating wholesome values in association with this sexuality education. And we need to say homosexuality is wrong, we should not have to fear saying it.
Saying homosexuality is not normal and not healthy is not discriminatory, and we should not let the gay right lobbyists insinuate that it is similar to racism and other forms of discrimination.
Hi gigamole and anonymous
I think we have to take to tackle these aggressive LGBT group like how we tackle religious cults. From one angle, we need to get the government to ensure they don't promote activities that are detrimental to the long term moral fabric and peaceful co-existence of our multi religious and multi ethnic society. So, there must be demonstrated rules and enforcement of remarks made to incite and in a seditious manner. This will at best, prevent their emboldened behaviour.
Secondly, as a community, we should understand the mentality of these people. Many have a painful background which over time grows into anger and resentment to society. The answer to that is not tolerate the behaviour but love the individual. I believe it would be more effective to draw out each of these persons individually than to try to tackle them as a group. Members of cults who want to leave the cults find that they cannot leave only because the emotional attachment is just too strong. Likewise, you will find that many LGBT members have lots of hurt in them and they feel that only their 'own type' are prepared to listen. 'Rescuing' them has got to be a organising effort. I'm not too sure how this can be done on an organised basis but I do know at least one organised group doing it and that incidentally is the Choice ministry under the Church of our Saviour.
Thirdly, we should always remember that nothing ties better than wonderful family relationships. Helping our children understand their heritage and where they came from helps reinforce the message that they don't live for themselves only but also for family and for nation. All this has to be done in a loving manner. Sad thing is as parents, sometimes we get so caught up with economic achievements that we forget that imparting wisdom and principles is more important than academic achievements. And that comes from our own personal balance in life - so we need to definitely check ourselves regularly.
I really don't know how to personally do something more than to write and highlight to anyone who would care to understand what is going on.
Hello again,
I have written a lengthy letter to the MOE and I've posted an unedited copy on my blog, which I would invite all of you to read. Primarily because I owe in small part to the discussions on this blog of the crystallization of my views on the topic.
The letter is rather conclusive, but as i was writing under time constraints, I have added in another paragraph, marked appropriately.
Leon
Dear Leon,
I think you missed the points Gigamole made. It's about context and appropriateness of sex education, not homosexuality per se even though it is concern.
You might want to check out what Aware's CSE trainer actually taught. This is a pretty specific account of what happened.
http://voices.todayonline.com/letter/EDC090507-0000091/online_only_cse_speakers_veered_off_track.html#Letter
Printed in full below.
Online Only: CSE: Speakers veered "off track"
08:45 PM May 7, 2009
Letter from Susan Foo
I refer to “Don’t skirt the issue by shielding children” (May 6).
Has Mr Joseph Wong himself sat in for any of these talks conducted by Aware? How did he conclude that Awarehas the funds and resources to engage “experienced professionals” to conduct such sexuality education? Is he able to enlighten the public what kind of training or qualification Aware’s Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) programme conductors are equipped with?
I am a mother of a 15 year-old daughter who was on the receiving end of one segment of a CSE program conducted by Aware last year. According to the school authorities whom I approached, the speaker was expected to touch on the topic of teenage pregnancy and discourage premarital sex. But instead, she veered away in her delivery and told the students how she grew up on a diet of pornographic movies, having watched them together with her parents and grandparents at home! She also casually let on that she was an unwed mother with a school-going son. When my daughter recounted to me what she learned from the CSE programme in school, she sounded both alarmed and confused that her school seemed to condone an immoral lifestyle.
I queried my daughter’s school principa who revealed that the speaker was roped in from Aware, and that the school had contacted them immediately after the talk to express their displeasure with her shocking “off track” delivery.
I am highly doubtul about the qualification and experience of Aware's CSE programme trainers, apart from the controversial areas of the programme guidelines. Such a delicate subject, when delivered by rookie trainers, is doing more harm than good to our young and impressionable minds.
No, I think i have read Giga's comments very thoroughly, but I am taking point with that statement in particular. I am uncertain as to how homosexuality is not being discriminated against when a large part of their lifestyle is being labeled as unhealthy. It would be in the same way a policy that religion is irrational, hence the analogy.
Further with regard to your extract, I would think then clearly the problem is not with the CSE (which i have read) per se, but the implementation of the CSE via the trainer. If the trainer is indeed at fault, then let us bring her to task. Alternatively if the process of selecting trainers is wanting, let us address that. Mixing up these operational problems as symptoms of systemic failure is like cutting off a whole limb when you get a paper cut.
Leon,
I don't think I've ever said anywhere that religion, Christianity or others) are necessarily 'rational' as traditionally defined (there are obviously all kinds of debates of what rationality means). Simply, religion is strong on faith and less so on 'reason'.
In fact, the power of Christianity and the Cross falls almost entirely on confounding the wisdom of the world:
"For the word of the cross, to them indeed that perish, is foolishness: but to them that are saved, that is, to us, it is the power of God. For it is written: I will destroy the wisdom of the wise: and the prudence of the prudent I will reject. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For, seeing that in the wisdom of God, the world, by wisdom, knew not God, it pleased God, by the foolishness of our preaching, to save them that believe. "(1 Cor 1:18-21).
Don't mean to 'preach' here... (I am not born to be a preacher)...but just to provide an explanation to your question.
For that reason, the Christian value system should not de facto be the national value system. Neither should the Buddhist, nor the Islamic. In fact one could argue that since religion being the antithesis of secularism, neither should secularism, since by being secularist you are predefining a value system biased on being 'non-religious'.
There are Christian schools for Christian families, and madrassahs, etc. Should national schools be secular, and have secular (pluralistic) values?....yes. But should it be pro-gay....or gay-'neutral' ?..... no.
BTW, there is really no such position as being gay-'neutral', because no-objection, in this case implies consent, and is really being supportive. One can split hairs, but in reality that is the situation.
Are we being discriminatory by making the point? If gays feel so strongly about their lifestyle choice, go set up a gay-association and run a gay school. Let the public know this school promotes or supports a healthy gay lifestyle. I wouldn't object to that.
What I would object to is surreptiously passing gay values off as mainstream normal, and sneaking into the school curriculum. Just as we object to Christianity or Islam being the driver for sexuality education, so also should we object to gay-values being in the driver's seat.
Dear Anon,
Thanks for sharing the specific example of teaching gone wrong.
I have expressed the same sentiments before....that it is going to fundamentally about the teaching....and less about the bullet points on on curriculum. The training guide to a large extent gives an idea of what is being taught...but what is fundamentally going to kill the programme, is what is actually being taught, off slides.
Hence, the teachers are so very important.
If the teachers are recruited by AWARE, with hidden 'pro-gay' philosophies, then we can expect that the value systems being propagated will be pro-gay, no matter what the slides may say.
The MOE/schools should now be very very wary of any further association with AWARE. Dana Lam has gone on record that her solution would be to remove whatever offensive bullet points the MOE objects to so as to make the programme acceptable. To me this kinda misses the enitre point.
Let's put in place a good respectable sexuality education program, and have a good auditable way to select teachers with appropriate wholesome values systems to teach these programs.
Hmm but surely some value system will have to be the basis of any education system, else the system will be amoral, leading to failure in the sense of that wonderful quote from glassbox in our previous thread. In that worse case scenario, if the MOE is truly sex ed neutral then it can't teach anything at all, which would leave sex-ed solely to parents. And with respect to the present company, the birds and the bees might not be something all parents are readily capable of talking about.
Further, the use of "gay values" is confusing. Such a term is as useful as "straight values." Homosexuals have as differing value systems as straight people do, the most easily discernible being how gay men prefer brief sexual encounters while lesbians prefer long term relationships. (okay I admit this is nit picking, but the misuse of the word "values" is a pet peeve, especially "asian values" which despite supposedly being Asian, really only is adopted by Singapore and Malaysia).
Aren't religious groups already in danger of taking the steering wheel for sexual education? AWARE's CSE reaches 20 schools, and they are only one of many 3rd party organizations doing this. Organisations such as Focus on Family (a very pro christian group with backing from overseas) also run their own programs. On top of this, keep in mind how many religious affiliated schools are there in Singapore?
If AWARE is being pointed to as a gay offensive on our moral values, then surely all the religious schools and religious outreach programs and subject to the same criticism. If I were a parent i would certainly object to the idea of Creationism being passed off as scientific fact in my child's school.
In fact i would suggest that the best way to remain neutral on the issue of sexual education is for the MOE to continue to allow various programs to run concurrently. If we remove AWARE, then surely religious back programs are in danger of "taking the steering wheel" as you put it. If this means that we need to scorch earth the whole policy and have no sex ed in schools at all, surely that is unsatisfactory.
Certainly, I can understand that the premise of any religion is based on faith, but I'm trying to make a point on that. Factually that is true, but if i were to go around telling the religious that they are all inherently irrational and not making sense (but stopping short of insulting their religion), that has all the social grace of say, calling homosexual sex as unhealthy (which factually is true, but the same could be applied to anal sex between heterosexual couples as well as oral sex, or for that matter any sex that is not reproductive in nature) but stopping short of actually insulting the homosexual lifestyle.
You've touched on a whole lot of related issues there, Leon. Not sure I can deal with all of them satisfactorily. But here are just some thoughts on some of them.
Yes, I think we can all agree that education has to come with some value system tagged to it. In fact that is the definition of education, is it not? Definitely something more than the mere transmission of facts.
The question is what value system. In a 'secular', non-theocratic environment, I guess this will be based on some sort of 'community consensus', whatever that means. And I guess this is the very nature of the debate... how various groups try and shape the community consensus. Unfortunately for the gay community, the consensus is apparently positioned pretty conservatively. At a personal (closeted) level people may engage in all kinds of variations and 'sins', but the public position that most people would take is a pretty conservative one. So I guess that's the position education would have to accept. And MOE is right to publicly acknowledge this conservativeness.
You are right about my loose use of 'values'. This can be taken to mean just about anything to anyone. More specifically I think we would probably be referring to homosexual sexual practices versus 'straight' practices. I know that even that is open to debate.
I think the clear consensus is this - the only true norm is consenting penis-vagina sex occuring between consenting partners who are married. Things that happen between married partners are private and consensual, and the public has no right to intrude as long as it remains private. This is what I imagine is what the government means when it refers to promoting pro-family values. The hetero-sexual married couple as the basic family unit.
Things that happen between people who are not married - are extra marital. I think the public has a very broad tolerance for these situations, and would not overtly condemn or discriminate, but would hesitate in seeing these promoted as healthy alternatives.
Likewise homosexuality.
With regards to your point about Christianity vs AWARE with respect to values etc...
I am quite clear in my mind that this is really not Christians vs AWARE but rather conservative versus liberal values (there we go about values again!). Conservative values unfortunately (or fortunately)has been best articulated by Christian sponsored. They are not exclusively Christian, but because the Christian groups have been best sponsored and organized they have been easily demonized (oops)as being the enemies of liberal ideas. It's not difficult to understand why most of the conservative pro-family projects out there are Christian based. This does not mean that Christianity out to be in the driver's seat. If there are secular groups out there who can provide the necessary leadership for this, let them step forward. I think that would really be good, the it would really prevent the debate from being distracted by accusation of religious takeovers etc. AWARE was in a position to do that, until it got colonized (or was it always that way) by a very pro-gay lobby.
Bye for now. Have a good weekend.
"....that has all the social grace of say, calling homosexual sex as unhealthy (which factually is true, but the same could be applied to anal sex between heterosexual couples as well as oral sex, or for that matter any sex that is not reproductive in nature) but stopping short of actually insulting the homosexual lifestyle."
You know Leon, from a pure biological point of view, what you say may possibly be correct. There is no right or wrong in such a system. But even so rightness or wrongness may be determined by survivability of the species, and the correct means is, whether you like(enjoy) it or not, penis vagina sex where sperm gets to meet egg.
From a commonsense sense point of view, it is difficult I think, to persuade many people that it is somehow 'normal' to want to stick the penis into an orifice that is associated with defaecation. Or stick a plastic simulant of a penis into the vagina for gratification. This is not to say that we don't acknowledge that some (?many) may derive pleasure from some of these variations. But let's be honest and call them variations, and not norms.
In reference to AWARE's CSE, I agree that what is important is what is actually being taught.
Short of a video or tape recording, we would not know what was the actual message imparted during these workshops ... which might have been more than or less than what is in the Instructor Guide. The only objective basis for evaluating AWARE's CSE is their Instructor Guide. You can read my critique of the CSE Instructor Guide.
I've chosen to leave Christianity out of the critique i.e., not to appeal to Christianity for argument or support. In many blogs and forums, emotions run high, judgment is clouded, postings misunderstood or misinterpreted - leading to insinuations, accusations and name-calling.
G'day Alan.
You're absolutely right. And I fully support your efforts to de-link Christianity from these discussions. As I have pointed out before, it is always too easy to demonize your opponents with 'labels'.
One can be a Christian, and subscribe to Christian value systems, but that does not mean that any public discussions on secular issues by Christians are automatically irrational.
Likewise we should also be careful about lumping everything under an evil pro-homosexuality label.
BTW, I like your 'critique' of the CSE.
Have a good weekend.
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