The Plainsman Press - South Plains College

Ray Buffington, editor-in-chief

In the state of Texas, junior high-schoolers and high-schoolers are taught that “no sex is good sex.”

The State Board of Education chooses, and is funded by Congress, to condone an “abstinence-only” education curriculum, leaving hormone-driven teenagers in the dark to vital information about being sexually active. With the high rates of sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancies among teens in Texas, many people have been questioning and challenging the effectiveness of the current sexual education programs.

Shelby Knox, a Lubbock native, has become one of the most well known of these more-thorough-sex-education-samurais, influencing the public by not only standing on her soap box at the age of 15, but also letting her own change in her education of life as a teenager be filmed, edited, and projected onto the big screen.

“The Education of Shelby Knox” is a documentary set in Lubbock that follows Knox through her high school years as she battles board of education officials, youth pastors, peers, and her parents for support and changes in the sex education program offered in schools, leading her to an even uglier fight for gay rights.

The film was brought to Lubbock last summer by the hard work and sweat of Maggie Seymour, coordinator of special services at South Plains College’s Reece Center.

A member of the American Association of University Women, an organization created to promote the education of women and reproductive freedom, Seymour said she believed it was her responsibility and role as a member to bring the documentary to Lubbock, not only because it was shot there, but also to educate those who were unaware of the failing sex education program and the repercussions the students were facing.

“I’ve known Shelby for many years,” Seymour said. “She has been friends with my daughter since elementary school, and to see her and what she has done… I’m just so proud of her.”

The film portrays Knox as an outgoing, outspoken young women who, when she sets her mind to something, refuses to back down. Seymour says she was not always like that.

“Shelby was very shy when she was younger,” Seymour recalled. “She was so quiet that I always thought if I went up to her and went ‘boo’ she’d disappear. She has really changed, though. It is evident in the film that she has grown up,”

While the idea may have been tempting, Knox didn’t randomly grab a camera and begin shooting her ventures, nor was the documentary originally intended to be solely about her journey.

“Education” filmmakers Rose Rosenblatt and Marion Lipschutz, both of New York, had received funding from their company to shoot a documentary on sex education, but didn’t know who or where to film. They placed an ad on their website requesting any kind of leads that would fit their criteria of interest.

They soon received an e-mail from the Lubbock Youth Commission, a committee of Lubbock teenagers who had a taste for politics and the urge to do something about their passions. The current issue they had voted to work on happened to be sex education in public schools. The majority of the members had friends who either had an STD or were pregnant, showing exactly how well the current program was working.

Rosenblatt and Lipschutz came to Lubbock shortly thereafter to scope out the situation, hoping to find gold and possibly an award-winning documentary. After a few weeks of talking with the Lubbock Youth Commission and following them around, they decided to go forth with the project.

In the beginning of filming, Rosenblatt and Lipshutz shadowed all 35 members of the commission in their daily routine. After a couple of weeks, they noticed something different in one of the members, Shelby Knox.

“Rose and Marion had followed everyone around during the first few weeks, but they saw me and noticed that I was changing,” Knox told the Plainsman Press in a recent interview. “They could see that I had Republican views and was from a Republican family, but that I was slowly shifting to a more liberal way of thinking.”

The two filmmakers began concentrating their focus more specifically toward Knox and her home life, creating longer hours and longer camera time.

“At first, I was very self conscience about having the camera on me all the time,” Knox said. “But after awhile, I blocked it out and began acting normally, as if the camera weren’t there. We would film once a month for a week at a time for a total of three years. Each of the weeks were intense.”

Knox wasn’t the only one caught under the lens. With Rosenblatt and Lipshutz invading her house to capture home-life shots during her sophomore, junior, and senior years in high school, Knox’s parents had plenty of their own camera time and played a big role in the documentary.

“My parents were very supportive about the sex-ed issue,” Knox said. “I think they were slightly [confused] as to why it was so important, but then they noticed it was important to me and began to support me.”

Throughout the film, Knox is confronted by many obstacles, including negative feedback from those in charge of sex education in high schools and a not-so supportive youth pastor. Even with the criticism from people she cared for, she still managed to keep her chin up and sword out.

“I did get discouraged, but I also knew if I was doing good things that was the only reason I was getting opposed,” Knox said. “The opposition gave me strength.”

Toward the end of the documentary, Knox became involved with GAP, the Lubbock High Gay Straight Alliance, in the struggle for equal rights for gays in high schools.

“I saw a lot of qualities in the problems with sex education in the battle for gay rights,” Knox explained. “So I joined up with the gay/straight alliance and have been helping that cause ever since.”

While documentaries are supposed to be about real people in real incidents, there was some behind-the-scenes material that couldn’t be shown or explained in the movie.

“What people don’t really see in films is the relationship between the subject and the filmmakers,” Knox said. “It is really important. We have spent so much time together while the film was being made and since the film came out. I’m really close to them.”

Knox recalled a funny incident that occurred during filming.

“They ruined everything in my refrigerator twice,” Knox laughed. “They had to turn it off because the noise was covering up the sound, so twice we had to refill our refrigerator.”

The documentary won many awards, including Best Cinematography of the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, the Audience Award from SXSW, the Jury Prize from the Miami Gay & Lesbian Sonoma Valley, and the Henry Hampton Award for Excellence in Film & Digital Media from the Council on Foundations.

Even though Knox had a camera in her face the majority of the time during her last three years in high school, she claims she wouldn’t have traded the experience for the world.

“I’m glad that I’ve become the face of sex education,” Knox said. “So few people get the chance to do something like this, especially when it is as important as this.”

In between political science classes at the University of Texas, Knox, now 19, still continues her fight for sex education and gay rights. She is currently involved with the University Democrats in their goal to stop Proposition 2, the proposed Texas Constitutional amendment to deny any rights to any couple who are not a man and woman and married with a certificate given by the government of Texas.

For more information about Knox and the documentary, see the website at shelbyknox.org.