I first heard about Pastor Andrea Kraushaar’s faith and sexuality curriculum for United Methodist teenagers from Rep. Donovan Olson, D-Boone, whose son participated in the classes. Kraushaar, a married 32-year-old mother of two, said she decided to introduce the Good Sex faith-based curriculum to her youth groups after she heard the young people in her parish talking about how many kids in Boone were having sex.
Before you leap to conclusions about Kraushaar, the Methodists, or the people of Boone, know that people in communities across the state are starting to look for ways to engage young people and their parents in conversations about safe and healthy sexual relationships. People are worried about the high rate of unintended pregnancy among teenagers and young adult women trying to become economically secure in first jobs or by accessing a college education.
Kraushaar, a youth pastor for more than 10 years, decided that the conversation needed to happen in church as well as at home and school. While she doesn’t consider herself qualified to teach sex education, she has discovered a faith-based curriculum that she’s comfortable with, and she’s used it with teenagers in religious settings in Kansas City and Sioux City.
She is content to let schools in partnership with local pregnancy-prevention programs handle the basics of medically correct sexuality education. However, she likes to think that some day, schools, parents, and churches will work more closely on the issue of sexuality education.
How did she persuade a congregation in small-town Iowa to adopt a seven-week, faith-based sexuality curriculum? Historically, the United Methodist Church has been an advocate of these kinds of sexuality and body-image classes, Kraushaar said. Plus, she had done this before in a low-income area of Kansas City and in an upscale congregation in Sioux City.
First, she let the 12 members of her parish staff know what she intended to do. She enlisted the support of the senior pastor with whom she shares the responsibility of shepherding the congregation. He supported the class, but decided he would only be involved as the parent of a teenage daughter. Kraushaar assured the parish staff that she would be the lead teacher for the class with assistance from the college-age youth associates who normally take responsibility for these classes.
Each lesson in her curriculum is Biblically based. In every lesson, there is some aspect of sex, Kraushaar said. The next week focuses on the media and sexuality. Another week focuses on self-esteem, peer pressure, and setting boundaries.
The curriculum for sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-graders who take the class together is different from the lessons for senior-high students.
Parents were not invited to the classes, but they were told ahead of time what topics were being covered in each class. They had access to the books and the teacher guide. She wanted parents to be in a position to continue the conversation at home.
If they had a problem with a particular class, they could keep their children home. But most of the teens came to every class.
Christie Vilsack is executive director of the Iowa Initiative to Reduce Unintended Pregnancies.