First Parish OWL classes offer valuable lessons for teens

Dear Editor:

I am thinking about the teens who are going off to college. I have heard the comments: no one teaches the youth about becoming an adult. We do live in a digital age and conversations are more important than ever. This is why I am writing you this letter. Let’s just say, as an educator, I believe parents are our best teachers, especially when it comes to relationships and life. We learn by the things they do and say, and how they love.

At our recent OWL (Our Whole Lives) parent orientation, I put on a seven-minute TED Talk by Sue Jaye Johnson about what we don’t tell our kids about sex. Essentially, this is really about respect of ourselves and others — how we raise children to expect to be treated with respect and love, so when they are out in the world they should expect nothing less!

The book I am reading is called Blurred Lines: Rethinking Sex, Power, and Consent on Campus, written by Vanessa Grigoriadis. As director of religious education at First Parish UU Canton, I believe that this can be a very important conversation for youth who plan to go into college. We want to give our kids tools to navigate their waters.

I also think that our older youth who will be going into college need to know about what happened at Duke University with members of the lacrosse team, who were wrongly accused of rape. This is now a documentary film.

I think the OWL class we have planned at FPUU Canton will be an important piece to what happens when our children are 18. As Neil Young said, “You can’t be 20 on sugar mountain, though you’re thinking that you’re leaving there too soon.”

We have a couple of open spaces for our OWL class for teens in 10th through 12th grade. The first class is the last Sunday in February. For detailed information, contact me, Melissa Sturdy, at dre@fpuucanton.org.

Thank you,

Melissa Sturdy

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