As a substitute whose favorite grade is 6th in a state that has pretty much gotten rid of most if not all Junior Highs for Middle Schools I see that where the schools keep the 6th grade segregated (lunches and most courses are separate) they are not bad. As a rule the 6th graders STILL act like they're in elementary school. They listen much better than 7th & 8th graders do, they complete their work on time during the class period, follow directions well and just are better overall. It helps them get used to the chaos of the older children without being in the center of it. This is even true in schools of "lesser qualities".

I transfered from a school where 6th grade was in the elementary hallway to a middle school in 7th grade and it was such a shock culturally for me. People were speaking in sexual terms I had never heard of and shaving their legs and going on dates!

I feel like they'll probably explain oral sex/vaginal sex/anal sex etc., not necessarily sexual positions. I'm all for this because I'm 23 and am still shocked at how many people my age don't consider oral sex "sex". Like the fact that you won't get pregnant from it negates any other danger or negative consequence. For some reason a lot of people don't treat STD's as seriously as a potential pregnancy. I had someone tell me two days ago they didn't worry about herpes because "You can just take medicine and it goes away and no one around here has that." Yeah. Ok. Besides the fact that it doesn't "go away"...ever...people do have it and I know some personally who in the past chose to not tell partners before sex that they had herpes. Herpoleerpolies explosion. I blame lack of sex ed.

My parents sent me to a church based sex ed course in 5th grade and we had a VERY basic course in school, but it still wasn't even on my radar at that age. I'm sure for someone in my class, though, it was. And were we in a middle school the next year (we are in elementary school until 6th grade before moving to the Junior High so when I was there we behaved more like elementary school kids than high school kids until Junior High) I think more people would've been experimenting. There's a way to do this without traumatizing anyone and it's necessary, IMO. I am very much in support of better sex ed programs in schools.

You're absolutely right. There have always been "fast" girls who were sexually active in elementary school or early middle school. ALWAYS. There were the ones you knew about, but there were certainly more you didn't know about. I was one of those girls who was late in putting away the Barbies, but it doesn't surprise me AT ALL what these kids do and know.