On March 19, Jessica Colvin, founder and director of the Tamalpais Union High School District (TUHSD) Wellness program, and Sophia Kauffman, Wellness Outreach Specialist at Tamalpais High School, held the Affirmative Consent in the Age of HookUp Culture workshop for parents and caregivers. The workshop detailed the idea and importance of sexual communication and consent in relationships, how to navigate laws that can potentially affect students and how TUHSD Wellness and staff is approaching this topic within the community.
“Affirmative silence is not consent,” Colvin said. “The best thing we can teach our students is to ask first.”
Colvin began the meeting by covering ways to educate students on consent through simple examples, such as asking permission to take someone’s food. Kauffman continued this idea by defining sexual consent as an affirmative, conscious and voluntary agreement at every stage of a sexual activity. The meeting also touched on communication in sexual encounters such as boundaries, desires, dislikes and deal breakers.
“[Consent] is something that is always an ongoing conversation, it’s not a checklist of, okay, I’ve done this, I’ve done this, I’ve done this, I’ve done this, so we’re good to go. [It is important to] recognize that these are complex human relationships and every encounter, whether it be with a different person or with the same person, is different,” Kauffman said.
At TUHSD, students are required to learn about consent in their Social Issues class. Many students go into the workshop with preconceived notions about their understanding of consent.
“[Consent] is not something just to kind of know about. It’s actually [something] you need to know to keep yourself and your people safe,” Colvin said.
Kauffman added to this idea, bringing up feedback students often give after consent presentations.
“Something that I hear from students is that they come away with the practical information of how to reframe questions to make a ‘no’ easier,” Kauffman said.
The overall goal for these consent presentations is to help students understand and use consent in their interpersonal relationships, as agreed upon by Colvin and Kauffman.
“Our goal is to get more kids to know about and understand consent. Consent is cool. And consent has to be cool. It’s the law and so understanding from students what they need to understand consent, to practice consent, for them to know where to go if they were involved in a non-consensual sexual experience [is our goal],” Colvin said. “I want students to feel supported around this topic. We want to help [students] learn and make smart and healthy decisions.”
Colvin ended the presentation by asking parents and guardians to talk with their students about consent and what that means to them.
“We encourage you to ask your students what they have learned about consent, what they see in the media surrounding consent and just reminding them how important it is to use, practice and understand consent,” Colvin said.
For more information on consent at TUHSD, Wellness has many available resources in person and online for students to utilize when wanting to know more. For additional information, visit: https://sites.google.com/view/tuhsdremotelearning/virtual-tuhsd-counseling-wellness-center
