The Loving Well Curriculum, developed at Boston University, uses selections from the classics, folktales, and the best of contemporary adolescent literature to examine relationships from family love to infatuation and early romances to commitment and marriage. A program evaluation finds that of those students who were not sexually active when they started the Loving Well Curriculum, 92% are still abstinent two years later, compared to 72% abstinent in a control group not exposed to this curriculum.
Facing Reality, developed under a grant from the federal Office of Adolescent Pregnancy Programs, was designed for high school students by James Coughlin, a teacher in Chicago inner-city schools for more than 12 years. The curriculum addresses not only abstinence from premarital sexual activity but also the larger issue of how to live free of disease, addictions, and social and media pressures.
Sex Respect, also developed with grants from the Office of Adolescent Pregnancy Programs, offers curricula for both the middle and high-school levels. It teaches chastity as true sexual freedom -- "the freedom to grow up without the pressures of sex." It also promotes parent involvement through a guidebook with family assignments for enhancing parent-teen communication about sex and the value of chastity. A five-year evaluation conducted in 26 schools found that the pregnancy rate for girls who had taken the Sex Respect program was only 5%, compared to 49% for girls who had not taken the program.
Teen S.T.A.R. (Sexuality Teaching in the context of Adult Responsibility is currently used with more than 5,000 teens in the United States and other countries. It teaches that fertility is a gift and a power to be respected. Its premise is that "decisions about sexual responsibility will arise from inner conviction and knowledge of the self." More than half of teens who enter the S.T.A.R. program sexually active stop sexual activity; very few initiate.
Sexuality, Commitment, and Family, for high school students, features themes such as developing dating and friendship relationships that will serve as the foundation of a lasting marriage, the need for strong families as the foundation of a healthy society, and the importance of parent-teen communication. A recent report by the Institute for Research and Evaluation, "Predicting and Changing Teen Sexual Activity Rates," found that Teen Aid's directive approach was superior to a non-directive program ("Values and Choices") in changing teen attitudes to be more positive about abstinence and more critical of premarital sexual activity.
Known pregnancy rates in San Marcos schools have continued to remain markedly lower than they were before the program. Other positive program effects have also endured.
Comments then Assistant Superintendent Joe DiDiminicantanio: "Some schools have tried to adopt just the abstinence part of our program and not the parts on how to be successful in school and life. We think that's a mistake. Our program worked, we believe, not only because of the Teen Aid abstinence course but also because of all the character-building lessons we did, teaching kids how to set goals, work hard, and feel good about being responsible persons."
Decision Making: Keys to Total Success been cited as an exemplary program by the U.S. Department of Education's AIDS and the Education of Our Children and the National School Boards Association's handbook of 100 outstanding school programs.
Jefferson Junior High: A Schoolwide Intervention. The most powerful form of integrated sexuality and character education is a schoolwide intervention. This approach infuses character-building into all aspects of school life and thereby maximizes support for the character lessons taught in the sexuality curriculum.
At Jefferson Junior High School in Washington, D.C., 12 to 15 girls used to get pregnant each year. In the past two years, there have been only two pregnancies.
The reduction in student pregnancies is only one improvement that principal Vera White attributes to the school's character education effort. "Ninety percent of our students," she says, "come from single-parent homes. When I arrived, parents and the community felt they were losing the children.
We met -- administration, faculty, parents, and students -- for a year. We decided we needed a 5-year plan. Year 1 focused on planning the objectives and strategies of our character education program.
Year 2 had the theme "Attitude Counts." We wanted students to have the idea that wherever you are -- in school, at home, at the mall -- your attitude makes a difference.
Year 3 focused on conflict resolution training. Year 4's theme was community service. We did this to counteract vandalism in the community on the part of some of our students. Now every student does community service.
Jefferson Junior High's character-building effort also incorporates three sexuality education programs, all of which teach students the value of abstaining from sexual activity. One of these programs, called Best Friends, is just for girls:
Designed for girls grades 5 to 9, Best Friends emphasizes self-respect and responsible behavior. It provides an eight-week curriculum dealing with friendship, love and dating, decision-making, alcohol and drug abuse, physical fitness, nutrition, and AIDS and other STDs. In its seventh year in District of Columbia schools, Best Friends has helped hundreds of adolescent girls to postpone sexual activity and reject drug use.
"Our overall theme," principal White says, "has been how to be responsible.' We stress and teach responsibility throughout the day. For example, our students have to have assignment notebooks and use them in every class.
"We also set high expectations for our parents. Our parents must come to school for Back to School Night and for teacher-parent conferences during the year. Our parents are also asked to volunteer 20 hours of service to the school each year."
Jefferson Junior High School now has a waiting list of 400-500 students. It has won two U.S. Department of Education awards. In the city of Washington, D.C., it has been recognized for having the highest student academic achievement, the greatest academic improvement, and the highest attendance rate.