Choosing the Best

5th Edition Now Available!

For Lower High School – 9th-10th Grades

Covering topics that are highly relevant to lower high school teens, this eight-lesson curriculum powerfully communicates the value of committing to sexual delay. Videos that open each lesson lead naturally to discussion. Each 45-minute segment balances information about healthy choices with activities and role-plays that help guys and girls practice saying “No.” Topics include:

• Setting Goals
  Teens learn the importance of having goals, including three steps to setting goals, as well as how the consequences of teen sexual behavior can keep them from reaching their goals.
• Making the BEST Decisions
  Engaging in-class activities illustrate that making good decisions requires a thoughtful process and that there are three main barriers to making good decisions. Teens learn facts about alcohol that demonstrate how alcohol impairs good decision-making and increases risk for unplanned sexual activity.
• Avoiding Pregnancy
  A powerful video introduces students to the consequences of teen pregnancy and a creative in-class activity helps teens realize the financial impact of being a teen parent. Students learn that only sexual delay can eliminate the possibility of a teenage pregnancy.
• Avoiding STDs
  Medically accurate, up-to-date information is provided about the most common STDs, including how they are transmitted, and why teens are particularly susceptible to getting STDs.  Teens and young adults featured in the video share their life-changing consequences of getting an STD, including HIV. The lesson concludes with teens learning the benefits and limitations of contraception, including why “safe sex” does not completely eliminate their chance of getting an STD.
• Developing the BEST relationships
  This fascinating lesson presents teens with five steps to help build the best relationships, including how to avoid common relational traps. Teens learn that being the right person is important to having the best relationships and the lesson includes an exercise on building self-esteem.
• Choosing The Best Journey
  Teens learn about the negative emotional effects of casual sex and how sexual delay provides freedom: freedom from physical and emotional risks and the freedom to pursue dreams and personal goals. After evaluating the options for themselves, students are given the opportunity to consider how sexual delay will positively benefit their health and future. Finally, students learn that compatibility, character, and commitment are all important elements of the best relationships.
• Overcoming the Pressure
  The lesson opens by addressing the pressures in the media and from peers to be sexually active, including a discussion on the problem of pornography and sexting. Teens learn the importance of respect and setting sexual boundaries as a way to overcome these pressures.  A separate discussion about preventing sexual violence teaches students how to recognize sexual violence, including teen dating violence, the five key components of consent, what is meant by “sex trafficking” and most importantly, how to get help if you or someone you know is a victim.
• Being Assertive
  Teens learn and practice, via role plays, specific assertiveness skills to overcome sexual pressures, including the very effective “Set It, Say It, Show It” and “Yes-No-Yes” techniques.

Each lesson in JOURNEY begins with a video to engage students. Below is a sample of some of the video clips from JOURNEY.  Please note this is only a portion, not the complete video, of the lesson(s) featured.