A Pennsylvania school is standing by a teacher despite graphic lessons on sexuality that, among other things, feature close-up images of male and female reproductive organs as well as a video of a woman ejaculating.
Despite the highly controversial nature of the material in the optional sexuality class taught by Al Vernacchio who, in addition to being an English instructor, is also the private Quaker school’s Sexuality Education Coordinator, school officials are defending their employee.
After a recently unearthed New York Times Magazine profile from 2011 gushingly detailing his unconventional approach to teaching students about the birds and the bees drew attention as more scrutiny is being paid to the sexualizing of children, the school rallied to his defense.
In a statement to Fox News Digital, Friends’ Central School which is located in Wynnewood, Pa., near Philadelphia’s Main Line, staunchly defended Vernacchio and suggested that criticism of his work was beyond the pale.
“Al Vernacchio is a nationally renowned and highly respected educator. It is disappointing that his work and our School are being miscast so thoroughly. Friends’ Central is committed to cultivating the intellectual, ethical and spiritual promise of our students, in a world that needs that more than ever,” the school said in the statement.
According to the Times profile, “The lessons that tend to raise eyebrows outside the school, according to Vernacchio, are a medical research video he shows of a woman ejaculating — students are allowed to excuse themselves if they prefer not to watch — and a couple of dozen up-close photographs of vulvas and penises. The photos, Vernacchio said, are intended to show his charges the broad range of what’s out there.”
“It’s really a process of desensitizing them to what real genitals look like, so they’ll be less freaked out by their own and, one day, their partner’s,” the teacher who, according to his website, is also “one of the faculty advisors” for the upper school Gender and Sexual Orientation Alliance said.
https://twitter.com/AlVsexed/status/1572333355403808773?s=20
“What’s interesting, he added, is that both the boys and girls receive the photographs of the penises rather placidly but often insist that the vulvas don’t look ‘normal,'” the Times profile of Vernacchio continued.
“Vernacchio is nothing so much as a mensch. Gay, with a partner of 17 years, he has ruddy cheeks, a quick smile and a plane of brown hair overhanging his brow, from which he must regularly wipe away sweat during intense discussions. He lectures with plainspoken authority while also conveying a deep curiosity about his subject — the consummate sex scholar,” the sex ed instructor is described by the New York Times Magazine.
(Video: YouTube/TED)
He has also commented on children including the very young in the context of being “sexual being[s].”
“I’m responsible for the sexuality education of all of our students from our youngest students who are three years old in nursery school, up through our 12th graders who are turning 18 and getting ready to leave high school. That’s a huge range, but every single one of those kids is a sexual being. They have been since birth,” he said, according to Fox News. “And at every age and stage, we can offer them age appropriate, transformative sexuality education.”
According to activity on Vernacchio’s Twitter timeline – which is still active as of this time – the teacher has predictably liberal views with re-tweets of Hollywood “woke” whackos including aging, unhinged actress Bette Midler and activist director Judd Apatow as well as apparent support for the quirky failed Democrat Texas gubernatorial candidate Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke.
https://twitter.com/AlVsexed/status/1350590855221030913?s=20
“I’m only a small part of the village that supports them as they grow. It’s not enough that I teach them. We have to teach them. Part of my message today is that we all, no matter what else we do in life, need to find a way to be sexuality educators for the kids in our lives. If we don’t step up, others will. And many of those others don’t see wholeness and freedom the way we do,” he said.
(Video: YouTube/AMAZE Parents)
“One of the things we can celebrate today is how young people have so many more options to consider and simply whether they feel like a boy or a girl, or whether they identify as gay, straight or bisexual. Our understandings of both gender and orientation have greatly expanded in our culture, and there’s an ever-increasing list of labels one can use to describe oneself,” added Vernacchio.
In today’s political climate, parents and watchdogs are paying much closer attention to what their kids are being taught in classrooms and the pushback against overtly sexual content grows more intense by the day.
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