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BY SUSIE WILSON

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

SEX MATTERS

Sometimes I wish I had chosen another profession. When a story breaks that casts adults' attitudes about sex education in a really bad light, I devoutly wish I were involved in an issue that provokes normal reactions in people and doesn't draw lightening, such as sustainable agriculture.

This past week, I was angry and disappointed when I read about Faith Kramer, a 26-year veteran health and physical education teacher with a clean disciplinary record at Intermediate School 72 on Staten Island. She got into serious trouble with city education officials for doing her job properly and teaching honestly about sex and HIV.

The specific "trouble" that Kramer got into concerned a "state-mandated lesson on the various behaviors that can transmit HIV/AIDS." The newspaper story I read was headlined, "Suspended over Naughty Words in H.I.V. Class, Teacher Wins U.S. Ruling.'' (I'll get into the use of the word "naughty," but first the facts of the case.)

While teaching the lesson, Kramer wrote down "the polite words" for sexual organs, sexual acts, and bodily fluids on the board, reports the Times. No problem so far, except I might challenge the reporter's choice of the word "polite" as a substitute for "scientific," "commonly accepted," or "widely acknowledged as proper public language." Kramer took the next – and I would argue sensible – step and asked her 30 middle-school students, most about 12 and 13 years old, "to list any other terms they might know for these words."

Not surprisingly, the students knew quite a lot of terms, or "slang, euphemisms, and vulgarities," many of which they used on the playground or in the bathroom or possibly heard at the dinner table. When the principal opened an investigation into the episode against her, Kramer explained that she "did not ask students to write the resulting slang words and vulgarities into their notebooks."

But alas for Faith Kramer, some students did write down the slang words and took their notebooks home where their parents could see the "off-color words for sexual acts and body parts, including two Yiddishisms for the male sexual organ." According to court documents filed against Kramer, at least a couple of parents called the school to complain.

As unbelievable as it might seem, Faith Kramer was informed by letter from the New York City Department of Education that she was "being investigated for ‘corporal punishment' and was sent to an administrative detention center, known colloquially as a ‘rubber room,' where she continued to receive her salary."

What shocked me about these charges is how any parent or educator could object to a teacher using the correct, proper language for sexual body parts and behavior and then asking students to pair them with more or less slang words commonly spoken or heard by kids in their own homes, on the playground, on TV, in books or in text messages.

I think Kramer was doing parents and educators a real favor by getting all of those words out in the open, so that her students could know the difference between the correct terms and slang, and be serious rather than silly when talking about the dangers of HIV.

When I was part of a group that trained thousands of New Jersey health education teachers to teach about HIV in the classroom in the early '80s, when the pandemic broke, we used the same exercise that Kramer used with her students. It was very effective.

I would ask a class of about 30 teachers to break into three groups and directed each to brainstorm every conceivable slang word they had ever heard and list them under one of three assigned headings: "male sex organ," "female sex organ," and "sexual intercourse." The teachers' lists easily filled many sheets of poster-sized paper. Then I asked one person from each group to read the words aloud to the entire class. Believe it or not, no one laughed or cringed. They simply listened.

That exercise really made a difference in class behavior. Before it, many adult students seemed edgy and embarrassed; after getting rid of all the words that they felt inappropriate using, they relaxed and acted in a more comfortable, accepting way about the information we were giving them – information their students really needed to learn in order to be safe.

Perhaps you're thinking that it's all right for adult educators to use slang words for body parts and sexual behavior as an exercise, but inappropriate for students to do so. I disagree. The sooner parents and educators help young people feel comfortable using proper language when the topic is sexuality or sex education, the sooner they will relax, learn more, and be more mature about this vital part of their lives. In fact, very young children should learn to proper words early in their lives and not use such euphemisms as "wee-wee" for penis.

The good news is that sensible, intelligent Faith Kramer has so far won a couple of rounds in her battle with the city's Department of Education. The city investigation "found that Ms. Kramer violated a regulation that prohibited verbal abuse, or discipline ‘by the use of language that tends to cause fear, physical, or mental distress." When no formal charges were brought forward, Kramer's principal returned her to the classroom.

In March, she filed a federal suite seeking $1 million in damages for "mental anguish, lawyer's fees, and the loss of extra after-school work."

Last week, Judge Jack B. Weinstein of the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn found in Kramer's favor. He wrote that the city "violated the due process clause of the 14th amendment" by not giving her a chance to explain her lesson and to inform her that it was "inappropriate before taking her out of the classroom," reports the Times.

But more importantly, Weinstein said that Kramer was "trying to teach, not punish" students. He went one step further and said that she was doing just what the syllabus was suggesting by having the students use different terms: "If students use different terms, the syllabus says, make sure they understand the relationships between both sets of terms."

But Kramer has to face another appeal from the city, whose senior lawyer handling the case isn't giving her an inch. "The use [of the words] in the classroom reflects unacceptable and extremely poor judgments by the teacher and is plainly not consistent with community values," she said.

I'm all for keeping faith with Faith Kramer, and I hope she keeps on teaching middle school students about HIV the right way: openly and honestly.

And as far as the story's headline is concerned: Isn't "naughty" too cute a word? What is wrong with using "slang," which according to my dictionary means "figures of speech marked by spontaneity and occasionally by raciness"?

Let's all use proper language.

Susie Wilson, former executive coordinator of the Network for Family Life Education at Rutgers University's Center for Applied and Professional Psychology (now renamed Answer), is a national leader in the fight for effective sexuality and HIV/AIDS education and for prevention of adolescent pregnancy. She can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it