A look inside the curriculum!

Throughout the Teacher’s Manual, these three components of the Curriculum are woven together:

• Teen Resilience 

• Sexual Health 

• Boundary-Setting and Personal Safety

The Teacher’s Manual includes Introductory Curriculum Sections for each Grade, complete Lessons, self-contained Modules, Illustrations, and Sample Scripts for presenting materials and facilitating discussion among students.

Definitions, Fun Facts! and Suggested Reading are highlighted throughout.

Below are just a few selected excerpts from the Teacher’s Manual:

In Fifth Grade, we create the foundation for Middle School lessons on Teen Resilience, Sexual Health, and Boundary-Setting.

The material for each Grade begins with a summary. The topical focus of the lessons for the Grade are highlighted with example questions the students will explore, discuss, and gain the ability to answer.

I begin the Resilience curriculum simply by asking the 5th-Grade students, “What qualities make a good friend?”

After this question is put to the class, the students generate a list of qualities they think make a good friend. We then compare our list to dictionary definitions of “friend” and engage in a conversation about the difference between admirable qualities in an individual and how those qualities can be utilized to be good community members.

This discussion creates a bridge to the subsequent lessons on healthy boundaries.

In Sixth Grade, students contemplate the concepts of respect and compassion and learn about the wide range of human emotions.

This prepares the class for discussions about the differences between consent, compliance, and coercion.

By Seventh Grade, we are ready to frame Teen Resilience in terms of romantic feelings, attraction, and consent. By now, the students are aware of, curious about, and exploring these issues on their own – and this material provides them with context from which to make healthy decisions.

I begin the Sexual Health curriculum simply by asking the students, “What is health?”

We discuss Balance as a concept where our mind, our bodies, and our emotions are working well in service of our “self." Problems and challenges come when we are out of balance in one or more areas. The goal is not perfection, but rather to understand these things enough to know when help or extra support is needed, and that an internal sense of kindness for oneself is helpful. 

This creates a foundational understanding of health in this context which provides a backdrop for all of the other physical, emotional, and mental health strategies they will learn during our lessons in the next years – including sexual health lessons. 

In Seventh Grade we learn about reproduction, reproductive sex, pregnancy, and birth. By Eighth Grade, the students receive factually accurate information about pregnancy prevention and sexually transmitted disease and infection.

Anonymous Question sessions and group discussions carefully crafted to be gender inclusive provide opportunities for students to learn and inquire about topics in well-held spaces.

In 8th Grade, all three components of the curriculum weave together as we discuss teen responsibilities and freedoms, personal choices around sex, the realities of potentially unsafe acquaintance situations, and more advanced personal safety and physical self-defense skills.

As middle school concludes, we deepen the students’ understanding of embodied consent, consent-focused language, and challenges they are likely to face regarding consent. We discuss values as they relate to personal behavioral choices, family and friend relationships, and sexual choices. We discuss mental health awareness and challenges that adolescents are likely to face in others or within themselves and bring awareness to alcohol and drug use and abuse with attention to dangers, choices, and boundaries regarding substances.

By the end of 8th Grade, the class is well prepared for the transition to high school.