‘How do you teach sex education and health to Catholic schoolgirls?’ I ponder and scrutinize my class. The private catholic school has a full-year lesson plan, but the worksheets of ‘Sex equals Evil,’ ‘Abstinence till Marriage,’ and ‘You need to please your husband,’ do not help my students learn and grow.

The curriculum, random and disjointed, on thirty-year-old photocopies, can never overstate the danger of pregnancy for a young catholic girl. However, modern contraception does offer trustworthy protection.

Unwed myself, and after a few close calls, I intimately know the dangers of unprotected sex. I use two types now, and while I ask, men do lie about getting fixed. So, pleasurable accidents still happen in lust and loneliness.

The back corner shadows have grown in my old classroom, as another light has burnt out. I must make a note to pick up another fluorescent light bar at the store. Only PhD-level academics can figure out the church’s requisition forms.

The ‘Jesus on the Cross’ appears more oppressive in the shadow. His selfless act of dying for our sins remains a cornerstone of my life. I gladly give my students sleepless nights and long weeks.

Behind my grand mahogany desk, I contemplate my class. Sixteen girls, hunched over the old, small, one-piece combo, desk and chair, clumped in groups of two or three, spread out over five rows of four desks. The desks remind me of the ones I had as a catholic school girl. The current white brightens the room better than the puke green of my past. They are all innocent to the fact that the great big world will greet, use, and discard them if I can’t teach them.

I snuck out of the house for my first love to take my innocence in the back of a big red Cadillac. He also took my idea of maturity when he claimed my best friend’s innocence and her sister’s before their father chased him out of town.

Now, social media steals innocence and wraps the girl’s maturity on the phones they hold in front of parents, teachers, and friends. The magic age grows younger every year, from sixteen in my day to thirteen or even twelve today.

I pray for the innocence of these girls and the knowledge to reach and teach them. In my day, only one or two girls from the public system became teenage moms. Now, with so many social media posts extorting the benefits of teen motherhood, public schools no longer shame young mothers. While maybe old-fashioned, babies do not belong in teenagers.

They work on a worksheet about how sex before marriage hurts, until after marriage, and then sex magically becomes wonderous. Girls have filled out this exact sheet since I began teaching, and I have often wondered who created it. The curriculum, like the classroom, desks, and much of the church, remains firmly rooted in the glory days before women voted, worked, or had opinions.

Sixteen girls, aged from fifteen to seventeen, grades ten to twelve, work, heads down, on the often-photocopied lesson. The grade twelve students fill out the sheet for the third time.

Does short, messy-haired, Morgan believe the message anymore? Did she ever? She questions everything, seeks, and often finds, loopholes. Persuasive arguments will not heal her father or return her adulterous mother.

Or Teagan, tall, elegant, with braided brown hair draping across her shoulder and into her lap. Will the rigid rules help her navigate hormones and budding sexuality? Or will the sheets draw lines she cannot help crossing?

The curriculum, unfortunately, doesn’t prevent this gaggle of girls from experimenting and having sex. It doesn’t prevent pregnancy or venereal diseases. It shames them. It makes things worse and forces the girls to hide in embarrassment.

The harsh fluorescent lights shine down and give each girl a halo. However, the same light causes haunting shapes to appear and disappear as they write and move in their desks.

Two years ago, a lovely young girl killed herself while attempting an abortion. A girl I taught with this curriculum. The death shocked the community, school, and church. Not me. The girl’s life ended when the sperm met the egg. Abandoned by the boy, outcast by everyone and everything she loved, she didn’t want to die, but how does an unwed, pregnant, young catholic girl live?

Many girls, over many years, have had their potential destroyed by nature’s cruel timeline. Each commits the ultimate and irreversible sin.

What can I do?

I love my students, and I want to support them. Do I keep my job and teach the approved curriculum, knowing a girl will die because of it?

After each funeral, Principal Campbell and I go for drinks. We silently sit in the pub and sip our dark red wine in the comfort of the other’s presence. Beyond belief, girls still get sacrificed for our way of life, a necessary by-product of our God’s love.

Since the last funeral, the glass of wine before bed has become a bottle, while my sleep has shortened to four hours on a good night. At confession, I talk to the priest about my concerns and questions. Did God want me to do this? And if so, why? I received only silence and absolution.

I contemplate sweet, young, Sarah, blossoming into a beautiful, brave girl. Little wrinkles cross her nose like when she stared at me as a baby. The image of her funeral bursts in front of me. Flowers, crying parents and friends, and questions why? How do I offer condolences to my closest friends, her parents, knowing I failed Sarah? Can I hold her father’s hands and lie about how the world will go on? Hug her mother while her tears soak my neck and black dress. Could I show up on Monday and not rip up the useless curriculum? Or do I just continue to teach like every other time?

What about Mary’s funeral? Her dark personality joined us in the fall. How do I do the same with her parents? Eyes down, hands clasped together in front, sympathy for their loss, while my heart burns at the injustice. Why didn’t I know? Why didn’t she confide in me, the priest, someone, or anyone?

I scrutinize the class. Will one of these girls, or one from my younger class, cause another night of wine and solace with my principal?

If I quit, a different teacher will teach the useless curriculum, and another senseless girl’s death will still happen every couple of years.

To stop the sacrifices, I have tried different approved tactics over the years. I put the fear of God into them, but the message rang false - God means love.

I talked about the pain of sex before marriage. That worked better before social media. Furthermore, I enjoy a night of sweat and body fluid exchange. I explained about how boys will use and abuse them, how men don’t love them, and only their husbands can love them properly, a lesser sin for the greater good. Yet, every four to five years, a young girl leaves this world by her hand or one of her well-intentioned friends.

How can I keep doing this?

The volume in class grows as girls finish the useless worksheet. I wait for just the right level before calling everyone to attention. The next lesson instructs about God’s love and how all teenagers remain nasty and devil-infested creatures until marriage. I scrutinize the useless message. Can I hand this out?

In dismay at my failing faith, and failure as a teacher, I ask in exasperation, “Does anyone have any questions about sex, your health, or anything involving boys?”

I haven’t asked that question since the first day, of the first class, I taught. The same silence answers me. Then, I accepted it meant no questions, but now, I knew the embarrassment held their tongues.

Still desperate to do anything to change the outcome for the poor sacrificial girl in this class, I bend the rules, “Grab a blank sheet of paper and write a question about your health or sexual health. You do not have to put your name on it. I will collect, read, and answer them.”

Instantly, the noise level rises with pens writing on paper. This excitement reminds me of why I began teaching in the first place.

I study my girls, my beautiful teenagers, hunched over their desks. Long blonde, brunette, and black hair cascade down over the desks. Such a pleasing sight, diligent, confident, impressionable girls, all writing questions.

Vivian appears confused as she tries to write her question. Her thin body hunches awkwardly, while her tongue sticks out, she carefully prints on the page. Does Vivian know anything about sex? Does she know the meaning of the word sex? She must, at seventeen, she must know.

Wait, what if they ask questions about obscure sexually transmitted diseases or specific anatomical structures of the male reproductive organ? What have I done? I know the basics about sexual health, but not everything. I suppose I can search for answers on my phone.

What if I contradict Catholic doctrine? Oh, I may have made a grave mistake.

As the girls finish, no one speaks. The bright classroom stays silent like church during silent prayer. Typically, after completing a worksheet, girls turn to talk, but now, thirty-two eyes stare at me. Even impulsive Samatha remains quiet, and she never sits still.

I nod to our class suck up, Martha, to collect the sheets. Martha quickly, and quietly, moves around the room, collects the papers, and proudly deposits them on my desk.

The girls sit taller, expectant of my sage answers. I worry about what they wrote, strange sexual positions or exotic sexual dysfunctions.

The first question shocks me, and without forethought, I answer immediately, “You cannot get pregnant by kissing a boy.” Judith, Sally, and blond-haired Isabella, visibly relax.

Martha shoots her hand up!

“Yes, Dear?”

She sticks her small chest out in pride, her pink lips form an ‘I told you so’ smirk, “But you can if he sticks his tongue in!” our class want-to-be-genius, Martha, states with great authority.

“No, Stupid, he needs to use his dick and squirt into your mouth to get pregnant!” Sarah, our actual class genius, sneers at her.

“Sarah, Martha, girls, you can only get pregnant if a boy, a man, ejaculates into your vagina.”

‘How do they not know this?’

“You mean pee?” Sam shouts out.

What?

“No, Sam, ejaculation does not mean peeing.”

Her head, with a small grease stain under her left ear, tilts to the side, and she opens her mouth to ask another question before closing it.

I squint around the class. How? Instead of difficult questions, they do not know the answers to the basic ones. The lesson plans have failed them. I have failed them!

Now what? Do I ignore the curriculum? It will help this group until the board fires me. What happens to the next group?

Our star gymnast, Taylor, vibrates in her seat and leans forward. She always struck me as intelligent and thoughtful. How does she not already know?

I inspect the stack of questions. I will answer these while I ponder the problem.

The next sheet emphasizes my fear.

“You cannot get pregnant if a man ejaculates in your anus. Only in your vagina.”

Next question.

“You cannot get pregnant from a sex dream.”

Sarah sighs, which causes me to want to comfort her and explain I had sex dreams at her age. I heed the anonymous trust the girls placed in me and give no hint I know who wrote each question based on their handwriting, spelling, and grammar.

“Class, sex dreams happen at your age,” I hope the general statement helps Sarah enough.

Wait, did I contradict doctrine? Many girls have sex dreams, especially when hormones flood the body. But does the church condone sex dreams? I have to ask before I say anything more.

I scan the rest of the questions. All but one follow the same theme.

Glancing around the room, everyone silently waits for me to speak. In most classes, Amara, our exchange student, habitually stares out the window at the trees, not paying any attention, but now, her mocha skin flushes, and she nods at my answers.