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Relativism / Risk Taking

 

Demo #17: Brownie / Corn

Often, students live in a world of moral relativism. You can help them understand the danger of relativism with this demo. Tell them the story, or bake some luscious brownies. If you have actual brownies, carry the tray around as you tell the story. "I baked these brownies myself from scratch, using the finest flour and sugar and chocolate. Don’t they smell good? It really doesn’t matter; it’s not a big deal. But I added one more ingredient: dog poop. But don't worry! I dried it, and ground it up
to a very, very fine powder, and added just a pinch to the brownie mix just before I baked them! Here, try one!" You may get a smart aleck who will try them; but most will not even look at the brownies again! This is a powerful demo to drive home the understanding that even a little of a bad thing is bad!

Corn

You can do the same type demo with rat poison: 99% of rat poison is good corn. It’s the 1% that kills the rats!! That’s how "safe sex" / relativism can kill – there may only be a "small chance" of getting the HIV or HPV virus. However, a person who gets infected is 100% infected – poisoned for life…

 

Demo #18: Knives / Calculus

[Check with the principal and the classroom teacher first regarding the knife!] Tell students, "When I leave here, I'm going to a preschool and give this knife [show them a large butcher knife] to the little kids so they can play with it"…[hopefully, someone will say something or at least looked shocked, then continue] "What's the matter? Why shouldn't I give them a knife?" [they should answer that they are too young to know how to handle a knife and might get hurt or hurt some other children] "Little kids are not ready to handle knives, are they? They need to grow older and have adults teach them important information they need so they will not get hurt. It's the same with sex. You may think you know enough to get sexually involved with someone. But, what you don't know can kill you!!"

Calculus

"Would you be excited if you had to take a test about calculus and trigonometry today? Why not?" [they should say that they have not taken the course and don't know how to do the work] "So, you know how to add and subtract, but you don't know enough yet to handle calculus and trigonometry. You need to get to high school and take more math courses before you're ready for that. You need to grow older and have adults teach you important information you need so you will be able to deal with these things. It's the same with sex. You may think you know enough to get sexually involved with someone. But, you could "flunk" — what you don't know can kill you!!"

 

Demo #19: Cup Sex

"[Yesterday] you saw a chart that illustrated how many actual people you are exposed to as the numer of sexual partners increases. Some of you may have looked at that chart and said 'That's just numbers and dots on a paper and I don't buy it.' So, today,  we have a little experiment called 'cup sex'. I need your participation for this experiment.

"Each of you will now receive a cup that contains 'fluids', like body fluids."
[Instructor:  Cups are to be filled less than half full of water. All the cups will be the same, except that one cup contains sodium carbonate.   —  Keep your Eyes on That Cup, and make sure it is handed to a "social" student, one who will "get around" the room. Sodium carbonate  is a colorless salt that represents sexually transmitted disease (STD). You cannot see the salt in the water; you cannot see the STDs by looking at a person.]

Now ask the class:
"For the average student here at —- high school who chooses to become sexually active during high school years, how many different sex partners would you say that person would have had by the time he/she graduates?" [Most classes agree on either 3 or 4.]

"OK. Each of you has received a cup. Please don't drink it. When I say 'GO', you can get up and exchange the cup fluids with (3 or 4) other people in the class.  It is important that you move around the whole classroom, because in the real world, people don't just have sex with their little group of friends. They meet people from other areas of the town, like one sex partner may be from school, another from work, and they  may meet a sex partner from  a mutual friend."
[Be sure you use "they" and not "you". We don't want to give the perception that we expect these students to have sex partners!]

"To exhange fluids, pour all the contents of your cup into your 'partner's' cup, and then they will pour the entire contents back into your cup. You do this exchange 3 times, then move to your next 'partner'. When you have exchanged with (3 or 4) 'partners', please come back to me.

"Because time is limited, it's important that we do this rather quickly.

"Ready? Go!"

[As they finish and approach you, put one drop of phenolphalein in their cup. Some will turn bright pink, others will remain clear. The students will be confused and you can explain:]

"When we began this demonstration, you all started out with pure 'virgin' water in your cups. Only one student had a chemical called sodium carbonate in the cup. You could not tell by looking, just like you can't tell by looking at a person whether that person has an STD or not.

"So, the sodium carbonate in that one cup symbolizes STDs, because 80% of the people who have STDs have NO VISIBLE SYMPTOMS of the disease — you cannot tell by looking at a person that they have a sexually transmitted disease. Almost all the damage from the disease takes place INSIDE the body, not outside.

"That original cup containing the sodium carbonate — and all the fluids affected by it —  turned bright pink when this second chemical was added. Everyone with a pink cup was infected by this ONE PERSON, whether they exchanged fluids with that person or not!

"When people have sex, they have sex with all the people they have ever had sex with before! It's all connected…"

[The students always want to know who had the original cup…it gives them something to think about!!]
[Graciously donated by D.H., Community Pregnancy Centers, Silicon Valley]

 

 

UNFORGETTABLE YOU 

Demo #20:  Whole Person

This is a good visual to
use for helping students to understand that there is more to MATURITY than sexual development. Ask them if they know "adults" who still behave like teenagers. Most will acknowledge that they do…

Whole Person 

 

 

*** IMPORTANT NOTE TO ALL ABSTINENCE INSTRUCTORS:

[‡‡ please do NOT use photos or slides of genital STDs in your presentations! There are 2 major reasons to not use genital STD media: 1) sexually active students wrongly assume when they see STD photos that since they don’t have anything like that, then they don’t have the disease. 2) photos of genital areas, regardless of how "innocuous" they may appear, have a de-sensitizing effect on students; in some way, these photos burn on their memory and violate the innocence of the students.]

TO BE ADDED:

  • Parent Match Game
  • Bake a Cake
  • Treasure Hunt