School trustees to consider including consent in sex ed curriculum

Trustees with Edmontons Public School Board willconsider whether students should learn what constitutesconsent as part of sex education class.

Ward C trustee Orville Chubb will introduce a motion at next weeks school board meeting asking ifthe board should recommend Albertas education minister include information on consent as part of the provincial curriculum.

"This is the missing link, in my opinion, in what makes acomplete rounded, informed student about sexual activity," he said.

The idea comes from Cristina Stasia, a lecturer in Gender and Womens Studies at the University of Alberta, and her group Accessing Information Not Myths (AIMS).

[Its] kind of like teaching drivers ed ... without ever teaching them the rules of the road, Stasia said.

Its really important that students not only receive sex ed and information about healthy relationships, but that they learn how to identify stop signs, yield signs and a green light.

She said it was an oversight that kids are not taught the information now, and that age-appropriate lessons on identifying consent should begin as early as Grade One.

Stasia said children need to have an understanding of consent to recognize if they have been victims of sexual assault.

Kids need to know that they have a right to say no to hugging or kissing or touching by relatives and others, she said.

It is an idea that has gained traction in other provinces. Last month,Ontario premier Kathleen Wynne said students should begin learning facial expressions and other aspects of consent in grade school.

Students CBC spoke with on Thursday said they learned nothing about consent when they were students at Edmonton public.

"All we were taught is what sex is and how you cannot get pregnant," said Noa Yevtushekno, a first year student at the University of Alberta.

Stasia started AIMS last yearafter hearing frustrations from her university-aged students about the gaps in their sex education.

She investigated the Alberta curriculumand said she was shocked to find consent was not being taught to students. She worries that uninformed students might unwittingly break laws, such as those surrounding alcohol.

If kids dont know what the legal meaning of consent is, how will they know if what they are doing violates [that]?

Chubbs motion will be debated at the public school boards next meeting on Feb. 17.