The Education of Shelby Knox (2005)

We follow Lubbock student Shelby Knox through her last three years of high school. Shelby's from a strong Christian background but is active in her town's "Youth Commission," the main focus of which is to get better sex education in schools (the current "education" is to push abstinence only).

The obnoxious and idiotic Ed Ainsworth (aka "sex Ed") is a youth pastor in Lubbock and has a successful conference for teens called "True Love Waits." Shelby attends the lecture and makes the "purity pledge" at the end to remain a virgin until after she's married. From what we saw in the film, it looks like his talk consists of disparaging those who've ever had sex outside the bounds of marriage and giving incorrect information: about STDs (you can catch 'em from a handshake) and condoms (they're only 85% effective). Ed pops up a few other times to tell Shelby how wrong she is for being open-minded about sex education and to ruin the local kids' hanging out time by strutting into the middle of the group to question one kid about why he hasn't been at church while arguing with a gay couple that it's wrong because God didn't "create Adam and Steve." Yeah, that'll work, Ed. I can't possibly put into words how much this man turned my stomach and how very ineffective he was at truly connecting with kids who weren't already in the Christian community.

I grew up going to church and listening to purity sermons and "giving my word to stop at third" (actually, we were told that even holding hands was opening the door wide for Satan. I'm serious). It wasn't until I was in my 20s, however, that I recognized the damage that the church's narrow-mindedness does -- and not only in their outreach to those who don't agree with their agenda -- but to those kids who really want to adhere to them. For the record, my faith in God remains; my faith in the American church does not. Anyway. I said all that to get to my point that I'm impressed to the toes with Shelby. She's not a teenage rebel hellion -- she's got her beliefs and isn't afraid to challenge those of the adults around her.

Back to the movie. It's a strong message. Sexual education is necessary. Keeping kids ignorant isn't the same thing as keeping them pure -- it's simply keeping them in the dark. Information is NOT EXPERIENCE. Lubbock's teen pregnancy and STD rates (well above the national average) should be enough to convince the school board that their way simply isn't working, but apparently fear of a plastic teaching dildo is stronger than the desire to keep the teens of Lubbock as safe as possible. I only hope that when this generation of teens take over the positions of power, they remember and make the necessary changes.

The weakness of the film is that it often loses focus. I was really not interested in the junior prick nominated president of the Youth Commission. We all got it -- he was part of the problem -- but he wasn't an interesting part of the story. We also got way too much of Shelby's family. They were supportive but nervous. They were also momentum killers.

To sum up: the subject's gold and the heroine a true inspiration. The film, however, could've used some work.

B-