A quick look at the news, filled with #MeToo allegations and nude photo scandals, makes it clear why kids need to be taught about sex, and everything that goes with it. And while parents certainly play a role in this conversation, so does the education system. ?Schools are really good at making sure that, as a community, kids have access to facts that they can then use to help them protect their sexual health,? says Nadine Thornhill, a Toronto-based sex educator. She says that arming kids with fact-based information in school is crucial for everything from understanding consent to avoiding sexually transmitted infections.
Ideally, Thornhill says, sex ed should be rooted in the idea that sex and sexuality are natural and highly variable experiences. She says the curriculum should start with basic steps, such as normalizing words like ?vulva.? By the time kids are teens,  ?it would move into talking about sex as an experience,? says Thornhill, explaining that it should move away from the idea that there is a ?normal? and instead focus on how everything from body types to puberty to sexual preferences can vary from person to person. Of course, ?There are still parameters,? she says, noting that consent should be at the foundation. Unfortunately for Canadian kids, no province or territory?s curriculum quite meets that vision for sexual education. Even Ontario?s more progressive 2015 curriculum, which recently made headlines when the provincial government announced that it wou...