School faces backlash for asking students to use pizza toppings to share their sexual desires

School faces backlash for asking students to use pizza toppings to share their sexual desires.


A SCHOOL in the US faces backlash from parents after asking its students to share their sexual desires by using pizza toppings, in a metaphor exercise “mistakenly” leaked.
A Connecticut middle school is under fire after it said an assignment asking eighth-graders to compare their favourite pizza toppings to their sexual preferences was sent out as a “mistake.”
Eighth-graders (13-14-year-olds) at John F. Kennedy Middle School in Enfield were recently given an assignment titled “Pizza & Consent.” The assignment talks about consent and asks, “What’s pizza gotta do with it?”

The assignment states: “We can use pizza as a metaphor for sex! When you order pizza with your friends, everyone checks in about each other’s preferences, right? Some people might be vegan, some might be gluten-free. Others might love pineapple, while others prefer pepperoni. Some might not like pizza at all. If you’re a vegetarian, but your friend is a meat-lover, sharing a pizza is going to bring up a lot of issues. You don’t know who you can share pizza with unless you ask!”

“The same goes with sex! You have to check in with your partner(s) and ask for their preferences. Your partner(s) might be comfortable with one sexual activity, but not another. Maybe your partner(s) only want to be touched a certain way, or maybe your partner(s) prefer to use certain language. Or maybe they don’t like or want sex at all. You’ll never know if your wants, desires, and boundaries are compatible with theirs unless you ask,” it continues.The worksheet then asks students to draw their favourite type of pizza, equating their favourite topping to their favourite sexual acts.“What’s your favourite style of pizza? Your favourite toppings? What are your pizza no-nos? Now mirror these preferences in relation to sex! Here are some examples: Likes: Cheese = Kissing Dislikes: Olives = Giving oral,” the worksheet states.
However, despite the school stating it was a “mistake” many parents from the school were furious at the assignment. An Enfield group of parents contacted Brie Quartin, the district’s Health and Physical Education Coordinator, to complain about it.

Quartin responded in an email by apologising and blaming it on a technical error.

“The incorrect version, as opposed to the revised version of this assignment, was mistakenly posted on our grade 8 curriculum page, and was inadvertently used for instruction to grade 8 Health classes,” Quartin wrote in the email, which was posted on the parent group’s website. “I caught the error after our curriculum revision in June but failed to post the intended version.

“The correct version of the assignment is for students to work in small groups to craft a pizza with toppings (no behaviours associated with said toppings) that would make everyone happy/comfortable using non-verbal communication only,” Quartin added.

“Students are then asked to reflect and discuss how thoughts or feelings can be confusing or misconstrued [sic], if we rely on non-verbal cues/communication alone. The parallel to be taught here is that when discussing pizza topping it is important that your preferences are clearly communicated to avoid any misunderstanding. This discussion then leads into how students can identify when consent is either present or not.”

Giselle Moore, the group member who corresponded with Quartin and previously had two children in the district, said this was more than a mistake.

“This went all the way down the chain of command,” Moore told DailyMail.com.

“I find this all very disturbing,” she continued. “This is stuff that would normally be discussed in a safe place in the home. This is not the school’s job to talk to children about explicit sexual behaviour. The school is just normalizing this behaviour, hyper sexualizing children.”

Sophia Arel, the mother of a JFK Middle School eighth-grader, told DailyMail.com that she decided pulled her own daughter out of the health class this semester after learning about the pizza assignment.

“They removed that part of the assignment, but I don’t know what else is going to slip through the cracks,” she told DailyMail.com. “It’s vulgar and it’s just inappropriate. First of all, you’re 13, and you don’t even know your sex preferences yet. And when these kids answer these questions, where does that information get shared? Who’s interested?”

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with learning about sex and consent at all,” Arel added.

“When I was young, we learned about the basics like contraception and things like that. But we weren’t being asked what our preferences were and do we dislike giving oral. It’s just so weird. My husband, when he learned about this, he was like ”I wish there was the pizza assignment when we were kids.” He was joking, but was actually really pissed.”

Many people online have agreed with the parents, calling the assignment a form of “indoctrination” and “pure wrong”.
However, Enfield Public Schools Superintendent Christopher Drezek told Fox News that although the assignment’s content was “inappropriate,” there was no “hidden agenda.”

“There was no secret cabal to indoctrinate kids on something. They sent the wrong document,” Drezek said. “And I’m not going to perpetuate this story any longer on their behalf. So that’s what happened. And none of us are happy that it happened. No one feels worse that it happened and the person that did it.”

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Written by

Matthew Roscoe

Originally from the UK, Matthew is based on the Costa Blanca and is a web reporter for The Euro Weekly News covering international and Spanish national news. Got a news story you want to share? Then get in touch at editorial@euroweeklynews.com.

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