Parents were perplexed after a school teacher handed out a bizarre assignment to 13 and 14-year-old students asking to compare favourite pizza toppings to their sexual preferences.
Sex education can be a tricky subject to teach young teenagers and pupils at John F. Kennedy Middle School in Enfield in Connecticut were certainly handed an assignment with a very different approach.
Eighth graders (Year 9 in the UK) were given a 'Pizza and Consent' assignment, and parents were not best pleased, reports The Mirror.
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The strange assignment, which was uploaded then deleted shortly after, read: "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, 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 a 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 wants to be touched a certain way, or maybe your partner(s) prefers to use certain language. Maybe they don't like want sex at all. You'll never know if your wants, desires, and boundaries are compatible with theirs unless you ask.
"So start a conversation! It's the only way sex (and pizza) can be comfortable and enjoyable for everyone."
Things got significantly stranger when pupils were asked to draw and colour their favourite type of pizza and 'mirror these preferences in relation to sex'.
The assignment read: "Here are some examples. Likes: Cheese = Kissing. Dislikes: Olives = Giving oral.
"Obviously, you might not be able to list all of your wants, desires and boundaries, but hopefully you'll feel more comfortable about discussing them.
"For those of y'all that don't like pizza or sex at all, feel free to draw out another food favourite or include non-sexual activities."
One angry parent wrote: "The assignment was crude, it lacked good taste."
Another added: "Youth don't even know how to navigate platonic relationships, so why introduce sexual relationships?
"We should not be encouraging youth to explore each other's bodies with multiple partners in an open environment for any reason. If somebody is doing that or asking them to do that they should tell a responsible adult, who then reports it.
"I understand we need to teach kids boundaries. But you are giving them way more information than they are psychologically ready to handle at this age."
In an email to parents, teacher Brie Quartin wrote, according to Parents Defending Education: "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.
"I caught the error after our curriculum revision in June but failed to post the intended version. I own that, and apologise for the error."
Superintendent Christopher Drezek added at a school board meeting: "The truth was it was a simple mistake. And I know that there are some who may not believe that. I know there are some who don't necessarily maybe want that answer.
"In this particular case, I didn't even get a chance, because the person who made the mistake jumped ahead of it before I was even notified that it had happened.
"So that's what happened, and none of us is happy that it happened. No one feels worse that it happened than the person that did it."
LADbible has contacted John F. Kennedy Middle School for a comment.
Topics: Education, Sex Education
Anish Vij