As you've probably noticed, the editors at feministing tend to be pretty fascinated and outraged by the state of sex education in this country. Well, so is sociologist Jessica Fields, and she's done an amazing, comprehensive, visionary study of the ways in which our pedagogy on sex shortchanges all of us. Her book, Risky Lessons: Sex Education and Social Inequality, is the best I've read on the subject--excelling on both the nitty gritty level (she's really in classrooms, really observing teachers and students wrestling with poor curriculum) and the big picture level. Where the latter is concerned, she basically lays out a liberation philosophy for sex education. You think I'm kidding?:
...if education is an opportunity for students and teachers to face and reimagine those constraining definitions, then sex education insists upon the importance of young people's desire, pleasure, and power in that reimagining. Young people's desires and pleasures have the potential to remake the world.
It's enough to make you want to stand up and cheer. What's more, she's thorough in her examination of the ways in which sex education is heteronormative, racist, and classist, and brings a much-needed geographical diversity to her analysis.
Warning: Fields is an academic, so there are times when the prose doesn't exactly sing, but I was actually pretty transfixed the entire time. She doesn't do any insecure academic posturing (big words, over-referencing of Foucault etc.) and she seems to really emotionally engage with this material. There's even some personal narrative sprinkled in.
Thanks Jessica Fields. I hope this book is read far and wide.
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Not Oprah's Book Club: Risky Lessons.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.feministing.com/cgi-bin/movabletype/mt-tb.fcgi/8814
Hey! I'm in academia and my prose sings like it's going out of style!
...no, you're right, it doesn't. But Fields' book sounds great. I'll pick it up next time I need a break from performativity and strategic essentialism... man, I'm a nerd.
I just added this to my Amazon wish list. ;)
I just added this to my Amazon wish list. ;)
I just added this to my Amazon wish list. ;)
Is it *really* possible to over-reference Foucault?
Thanks for posting this! I am checking this book out for my thesis- it sounds perfect!
xocoatl- nope! :-D
amen, xocoatl! :)
Just ordered this, Thanks for the suggestion Courtney
On a typical day in June, a gentle rain falls incessantly. Leaving the glass and shoji doors open, Doctor Shoei Sasao of Hadano City in Kanagawa Prefecture sits quietly in a very special room and looks out at the landscaped garden and the fresh, vivid verdure of rain-washed green leaves and lichen-covered tree trunks. Moist wind blows through the room, and faint sunlight and subdued light coming through opaque Japanese paper screens seem to mingle. The beauty of this traditional tatami room can be understood from such a glimpse into a day in the life of Doctor Shoei Sasao who savors these contemplative hours to the full. He spends most of his free time in the room where he reads books and meditates in deep repose. After enjoying a splendid day, he sleeps here at night.
Doctor Shoei Sasao partly reconstructed his house ten years ago in order to customize this room for his personal use. His old acquaintance, Shun Kakinuma, who studied under the famous architect, Seiichi Shirai, designed this traditional room. Japanese architecture is in general very simple, therefore sensitivity to detail is all important. For example, the shop doors made of thin wooden strips arranged in various rectangular patterns, are pasted with paper on the outside so that the beautiful latticework can be seen from inside the room. The sizes and proportions of frames, doors, brackets, and nifcite (door handles) have all been designed to balance the space in the room.
Traditional techniques of decoration are also of utmost importance in a Japanese-style room. In this room Kakinuma employed a special method for the ceiling which is covered with splints made of Japanese arborvitae. beautifully woven to form a striking pattern called ajiro. If the pattern had been made on a flat surface, the ceiling would have looked convex. So the central part of the ceiling was raised by 20 millimeters to compensate for the visual distortion. The floorboards of the tokonoma alcove are of lacquer layered in a manner referred to as fuh urushi, in which the applied lacquer is wiped and dried before the next layer is applied, rendering the layers of lacquer translucent enough to allow the wood gram underneath to gradually show through.
Doctor Sasao's private garden is an integral part of this room, and an extension of the interior. While he often relaxes here in solitude, he occasionally invites his friends for conversation over some sake. In order to delight his guests as well as for his own pleasure, he arranges cut flowers from his garden in his favorite vase. This vase and the other items in the room were bought in antique shops or during his travels, and are aptly suited to his traditional room. Although he used to be very fond of going to Japanese inns, he has lost interest in them now, for nowhere does he feel more comfortable than in this very special room of his own.