WATCH: Father gets teacher put on leave for demanding sexual fantasies as health 'education'
A father in Eugene, Oregon expressed his outrage that Churchill High School had not yet fired football coach and health teacher, Kirk Miller, after he required students to complete a sexual fantasy assignment after a spin-the-wheel exercise as part of his Health 2 - Human Sexuality class. The student had to spin the wheel on a large screen in the front of the classroom. The wheel would land on one of various sex acts as the rest of the students and Mr. Miller watched. The story went viral and the school placed Mr. Miller on paid administrative leave, but has not fired him.
Not just a rumor
The unnamed father provided additional details after first correcting a school board member who had claimed that the assignment was only rumored to have taken place.
I want to first say you're a liar. It's not a rumor. I have the proof right here in my phone of the . . . “with whom would you do it with” [assignment] and my daughter specifically stated that the teacher put up a wheel on the class board and it stated, “anal penetration, oral sex, licking of ear, kissing. And he wanted them to write down the initials of a boy or girl that they would do these ”activities" with.
The father went on to demand that the school board explain what Mr. Miller was doing with the assignment responses, since his daughter never got hers back.
Now I don't know what's worse; wanting to know my child's sexual fantasy or who they're gonna have anal penetration and oral sex with. What is he gaining from this? What do you gain from this information? Why has my daughter that naively did the assignment, because she's scared, she wants to get good grades . . . and so she does this assignment. Where's the assignment? Why hasn't she had it turned back to her with her grade on it? What is he doing with it? . . .
He then claimed that the assignment matched the definition of sexual abuse and demanded immediate action from the board.
He . . . verbally sexually abused every single child in that classroom . . . so where's the criminal charges? Why is he still teaching? . . . This sexual deviant needs to be removed. If you do not remove him I'm giving you my word today that tomorrow morning I will go down to the county clerk's office and I will file for the removal of every single one of you.
More inappropriateness
A separate assignment, which may have been meant for students who were not present in class to spin the wheel, involved a less explicit sexual fantasy, but required students, remotely, to respond with a fantasy essay, not just the initials of the person with whom they would engage in a sex act.
One parent posted a screenshot of that assignment to Facebook asking others to imagine being a child in that teacher's class.
Can you imaging [sic] having to look your teacher or coach in the eye knowing he has knowledge of your most intimate imaginations.
Teacher or curriculum to blame?
The Register Guard reported that while the focus of the complaints has been Mr. Miller, the sexual fantasy assignment was not designed by him — it was from a state approved curriculum.
The assignment was part of the OWL: Our Whole Lives health curriculum, a state-approved program [that Eugene School District] 4J implemented in 2018 . . .
OWL was developed by the Unitarian Universalist Association and the United Church of Christ in the 90s, but its program is not specifically faith-based . . .
The superintendent [of the school district] and 4J board members denounced the assignment, saying it was not appropriate for students.
Nevertheless, they chose to leave the curriculum in place, simply removing this one lesson option from the health course.
"To be clear, the teacher does not create that lesson themself," [Superintendent] Dey said.
Dey said the assignment was taken directly from OWL for grades 10-12. The curriculum offers lesson options for teachers . . .
We'll make it clear to our health educators that this is not a lesson the district endorses or supports delivering.” The assignment has been removed from the course.
Similarly, the creator of the curriculum, the Unitarian Universalist Association, defended the curriculum itself, blaming anything inappropriate on the teacher's adaptation of it to the classroom.
A recent assignment in a 9th grade health class at Churchill High School in Eugene, OR, which has been reported on in the news as based on the Our Whole Lives (OWL) curriculum, was an unapproved adaptation that was taken out of context from an out-of-print version of the curriculum . . .
The Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) and the United Church of Christ (UCC) developed OWL to help children, youth, and adults understand and affirm themselves and others . . .
the teacher in question was not trained by certified OWL trainers. [Emphases added].
The UUA failed to explain how the sexual fantasy was taken “out of context” or otherwise “adapted” or how teacher “training” would have made it a more appropriate assignment. It also failed to explain how being required to write to an adult teacher about sexual fantasies, or spinning a wheel about them in front of an entire class, was “affirming”.
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