Actress recalls her surprise about what kid learned in sex ed

Actress Gwyneth Paltrow admitted during a recent podcast interview that she wasn’t prepared for how much her children’s school in Los Angles, California, taught preteens about sex. 

The Hollywood star and founder of the newsletter Goop, which also sells beauty products and sex toys, said during a May 3 interview with host Alex Cooper on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast that her children’s school taught sex education to sixth graders. 

The starlet remembered her daughter, Apple, now 19, sitting in the kitchen one day with her friend Emily; the color drained from both of their faces, and both appeared to be in shock after what they had learned in school.

“They taught them everything. Everything. Anything you’re thinking, they taught like the 11, 12-year-olds,” she said. “They’re like, ‘Do people do this?’” 

Paltrow told the story in response to a question about how she discusses topics such as dating and sex with her children, revealing that she believes parents should “tread lightly and let [their children] come to you.” 

The actress has two children, Apple and Moses, from her marriage to Coldplay frontman Chris Martin. As Glamour magazine reported in 2013, the pair moved back to Los Angeles after living in London for 10 years. The couple later announced their breakup in a 2014 Goop blog post titled “Conscious Uncoupling.” 

The Oscar winner’s surprise regarding the content her pre-teens were exposed to at school appears to have become increasingly more common with parents throughout the country, as several controversies about the materials taught in schools have gained attention in recent years. 

As The Christian Post reported in March, the Churchill High School in Eugene, Oregon, placed a health teacher on leave after parents objected to an assignment that asked students about their sexual fantasies. The teacher, Kirk Miller, asked students in his Health 2 – Human Sexuality course in January to write at least one paragraph on the topic.

In the assignment, students were told not to write about any fantasies that included any form of penetration or oral sex and to exclude all forms of intercourse that result in a sexually transmitted illness. 

“You will choose three items (romantic music, candles, massage oil, feather, feather boa, flavored syrup, etc.) to use in your story,” the assignment read. “Your story should show that you can show and receive loving physical affection without having sex.” 

The Eugene 4J School District, which oversees the high school, launched a third-party investigation, as The Register-Guard reported on March 17. The district began reviewing the “OWL” curriculum used in the health class, which stands for “Our Whole Lives.” 

The OWL curriculum was originally published in connection with the United Church of Christ and the Unitarian Universalist Association and was first implemented in the 1990s. In response to an inquiry from CP at the time, a spokesperson for the UUA directed the outlet to a statement it had released addressing the controversy. 

The UUA asserted that the assignment provided to the ninth grade health class was an “unapproved adaptation that was taken out of context from an out-of-print version of the curriculum.” In addition, the UUA claimed that the health class teacher was not trained by one of its certified OWL trainers. 

Another assignment in the class called “With Whom Would You Do It?” involved a spinning wheel labeled with various sexual acts. When the wheel was spun and landed on a sexual act, students would write the initials of a male or female classmate they wanted to do that sexual activity with. 

Justin McCall, the father of a female student in the class, told Oregon-based news outlet KEZI that his daughter felt “very, very, very uncomfortable in the classroom.” The same outlet reported on March 9 that the district superintendent approved replacing the curriculum by the end of the year. 

As CP reported, parents at another school district in Florida objected to the content included in a sexual education curriculum. The Hillsborough County School Board held a hearing in November after opponents of a sexual education curriculum adopted in September filed over 3,000 petitions. 

Bay News 9 reporter Angie Angers shared a copy of the petition in a Twitter post last year. Parents objected to the use of graphic drawings of genitalia intended for discussion and the curriculum connecting seventh grade students to Planned Parenthood for abstinence advice. 

The parents also noted that amaze.org is included in the materials, which they pointed out has videos about gender identity. However, Health Education Supervisor Ashlee Cappucci clarified during the hearing that the gender identity videos are not included in the lesson plans. 

In July, the Miami-Dade County School Board reversed its initial decision to adopt two sexual education textbooks following objections from parents. The books, Comprehensive Health Skills for Middle School and Comprehensive Health Skills for High School, were intended for the 2022-2023 school year. 

The textbooks reportedly contained a section on sexually transmitted diseases, gender identity, contraception and abortion.

Parents opposed to the material claimed it violated Florida’s “Parental Rights in Education Act,” which prohibits schools from teaching lessons on gender identity and sexual orientation from kindergarten through third grade. Under the law, schools must also inform parents about relevant changes to their child’s well-being.

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