Our Whole Lives Overview
Our Whole Lives curricula is available for six age groups: grades K-1,
grades 4-6, grades 7-9, grades 10-12, young adults (ages 18-35), and adults.
Our Whole Lives helps participants make informed and responsible
decisions about their sexual health and behavior. It equips participants with
accurate, age-appropriate information in six subject areas: human development,
relationships, personal skills, sexual behavior, sexual health, and society and
culture. Grounded in a holistic view of sexuality, Our Whole Lives not only
provides facts about anatomy and human development, but also helps participants
clarify their values, build interpersonal skills, and understand the spiritual,
emotional, and social aspects of sexuality.
Our Whole Lives uses approaches that work. The curricula are based on
the Guidelines for Comprehensive Sexuality Education produced by the National
Guidelines Task Force, a group of leading health, education, and sexuality
professionals assembled by the Sexuality Information and Education Council of
the United States (SIECUS).
Our Whole Lives covers topics and skills that both parents and students
want to have available but schools are less likely to cover. The Kaiser Family
Foundation has an interesting report on this subject called "Sex Education
in America: A View from Inside the Nation's Classrooms." New national
surveys are challenging the convention that Americans are reluctant to have
sexual health issues taught in school, the surveys show that most parents,
along with educators and students themselves, would expand sex education
courses and curriculum.
The Our Whole Lives values are:
- Self Worth
- Sexual Health
- Responsibility
- Justice and Inclusivity
Each level of Our Whole Lives offers:
- Up-to-date information and honest, age-appropriate answers to all
participants' questions
- Activities to help participants clarify values and improve
decision-making skills
- Effective group-building to create a safe and supportive peer group
- Education about sexual abuse, exploitation, and harassment
- Opportunities to critique media messages about gender and sexuality
- Acceptance of diversity
- Encouragement to act for justice
- A well designed, teacher-friendly leaders' guide
- Parent orientation programs that affirm parents as the primary
sexuality educators of their children
- Sexuality and Our Faith, an optional religious component for Unitarian
Universalist and United Church of Christ settings.
