A bold curriculum: Exploring topics from sex education to Pokemon

Colleges across the country offer unique and questionable classes for students to explore. At Columbia College in Chicago, there is a course dedicated to zombies and media. University of California, Berkeley is offering a course that talks about garbage and the garbage crisis happening around the world. 

Students are required to take classes that correspond with their major and get more complex as the years go by. Not to mention the repetition of the content. But with unique classes, they can broaden their perspective and maybe be inspired to change their career field. 

Photo by Braylan Enscoe, Staff Photographer

At Chapman, some courses are considered to be experimental courses, or courses that test if the subject of the class is favored by students. Courses such as Humanities 229: What Pokémon Know: Japanese Mythology & Culture through Pokémon and Sociology 329: School to Prison Pipeline. These courses are not guaranteed every semester and if favored by students, might be added to the catalog. 

However, some unique classes are now repetitive classes that have been added to the course catalog, such as Psychology 340: Human Sexuality. This unique class discusses topics such as porn, BDSM, pornography and its deeper meaning. 

“I cover research on what sexually satisfied couples do differently than sexually dissatisfied couples. We talk about factors linked to infidelity, impacts of pornography consumption, experiences of stigmatized minorities, individual differences in openness to casual sex and much more,” said David Frederick, the professor of the course. 

Frederick thinks that there is a deeper scientific explanation of human sexuality topics, where students are learning correlational studies and how experiments are to be conducted in the human sexuality context. 

“The new perspective I have learned is understanding evolutionary theories and how they impact our sexual behaviors,” said sophomore psychology student Nikoline Smart. 

The class also brings in speakers who work in human sexuality fields, like Jessica Drake, an adult film director and free speech advocate. She discusses with students important and crucial topics that are not usually discussed but need to be addressed, such as consent negotiating and sexual harassment or assault prevention resources for people who have experienced it. 

“Some of these speakers are scientists who share their research. Some are therapists, who discuss their experiences working with couples or LGBTQ clients. Some are community advocates, who address issues facing stigmatized minorities, such as gay men and lesbian women, transgender women, people in the adult film industry and people who practice BDSM,” Frederick said. 

Toward the end of the semester, Frederick surveys the students on whether the speakers should lecture in the class again. According to Frederick, about 90% of students state that the lecturers should return due to the meaningful impact the speakers left. 

A new class that is being offered this upcoming spring semester is Humanities 229, What Pokémon Know: Japanese Mythology & Culture through Pokémon. This class will be new to Chapman and will be taught by artist and art history professor, Mano Takegami. 

“This course includes religion, history, art, culture and entertainment. Students or other people might see the title and perceive it as a fun class but it is a serious course. Because Pokemon characters represent Japanese mythology and gods, we can incorporate entertainment with history and art history,” Takegami said in an interview with The Panther. “We Japanese people respect nature very much, so Pokemon symbolizes many key Japanese artifacts. I want students to grasp through Pokemon characters about how Japanese people think and feel, the ideology on how they learn and view things.” 

A majority of the students who have signed up for this waitlisted course are juniors and seniors. Takegami hopes in the upcoming semesters, many freshmen and sophomores will have the chance to register for the course and learn about the representation of Pokemon in Japanese culture. 

“I hope I can connect students with Japanese philosophies, because many people who either travel to Japan or want to learn more about the Japanese, they always say how kind we are and how clean our country is,” said Takegami. “These are attributions that come from ancient times and somehow have stayed within the Japanese people and culture. I want to teach students an in-depth understanding of the Japanese people and culture. I want to use Pokemon to connect them with this history.” 

Another new course that is being offered this upcoming spring semester is Sociology 329 , School to Prison Pipeline, taught by sociology professor, Victoria Carty. With a focus on California, Carty plans to help students understand the fundamentals of how and why many young students develop a link to the justice system at such a young age and change the course of their lives. 

Photo by Braylan Enscoe, Staff Photographer

“We will be discussing basic theories of crime and deviants and the evolution of the courts dealing with young people and how it has changed over time,” said Carty in an interview with The Panther. “These two categories used to be seen as a very separate category, but now 12 (and) 13 year olds are being tried as adults so we want to see what that means and how it has changed over time.”  

Students will be able to see firsthand how the justice system has changed over time during a field trip to the Project Kinship offices. They will be able to analyze data that incorporates socioeconomic class, race and ethnicity in different school districts across the state. 

“Students will interview people who either work in the program or participants in the program, who spent time in jail and discuss their experiences. I hope students will be able to understand the root causes of these institutions and how they are linked, not to all but to some and why this happens. And it’s lifelong consequences,” said Carty. 

Based in Orange County, Project Kinship is a program that supports and coaches those who have experienced violence, incarceration and experience with gangs. Students will be able to visit the Project Kinship offices and interact with people who are in the program, as well as participants in the program who have served time in the justice system.  

Carty hopes that students will understand the core beginning of the criminal justice system in schools and how home life has incorporated a link to the school. 

“Trying to backtrack that and understanding the link between schools and the formal current justice system is the main point of the class, and how very early on they are being connected to the justice system and then spiral out of control throughout their life,” Carty said.