June 2, 2021
-The Washington Times
New York City parents are reportedly outraged after their first grade children were shown an animated video teaching them about masturbation.
Justine Ang Fonte, a health and wellness educator at the private Dalton School in Manhattan’s Upper East Side, showed a video titled, “Help kids learn that bodies are private,” to 6- and 7-year-olds as part of the school‘s new sex education curriculum, The New York Post reported.
In the video, a cartoon boy asks an adult, “Hey, how come sometimes my penis gets big sometimes and points up in the air?”
“That’s called an erection,” the woman responds in the video.
“Sometimes I touch my penis because it feels good,” the boy says.
Then a little girl in the video says, “Sometimes, when I’m in my bath or when Mom puts me to bed, I like to touch my vulva too.”
The woman explains: “You have a clitoris there, Kayla, that probably feels good to touch the same way Keith’s penis feels good when he touches it. But have you ever noticed that older kids and grown-ups don’t touch their private parts in public?
“It’s OK to touch yourself and see how different body parts feel, but it’s best to only do it in private,” she says in the video.
Another video reportedly shown at Dalton, also created by the organization AMAZE, teaches kids about gender identity.
Ms. Fonte said she does not use the word “masturbation” in class, and that her lessons are meant to teach kids about their bodies, The Post reported. But parents said they didn’t know about the videos beforehand.
“This person should absolutely not be teaching children,” one Dalton mother told The Post. “Ironically, she teaches kids about ‘consent’ yet she has never gotten consent from parents about the sexually explicit and age-inappropriate material about transgender to first graders.”
“We are furious,” a second Dalton mother told the outlet. “We were horrified to learn this was shown to our first-grade 6- and 7-year-old kids without our knowledge or consent. But it’s so hard to fight back because you’ll get canceled and your child will suffer.”
“I’m not against all sex education but it’s not cool to keep parents in the dark about it,” a third Dalton mother said.
A Dalton spokesman told The Post that the videos were approved for children as young as 4.
“As part of Dalton’s comprehensive Health curriculum for students, a lesson on Gender & Bodies included two evidence-based and age-appropriate videos approved for students 4 years and older,” the school said. “These videos align with nationally recognized methodologies and standards. We consistently review our Health curriculum, making sure that the content is developmentally appropriate and, if necessary, we adapt our curriculum accordingly.
“We will continue to listen carefully to parent feedback, respond thoughtfully to community concerns, and develop lessons that are in the best interest of our students, respect our community’s values, and correspond with best practices,” the school said.
