Sex Education

There are different types of sexual education and different elements are involved.  The purpose of sex education is to provide our youth with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to deal with the outside world and contribute to the well-being of the individual, the family, and society.  With each generation, authority figures have the responsibility of properly educating and helping to develop a mature and healthy attitude towards sexuality.  Parents and guardians are responsible for teaching their child moral values.  This should be facilitated at school by supporting and supplementing these efforts.

All of us in high school have had the “wonderful” experience of sexual education, and often undermine its value. For those of you who aren’t “fortunate” enough, there are many elements involved.

First of all the right teacher must be chosen to teach the subject. Ideally the teacher has had extensive training in the subject and can accurately provide credible information to students. Most of us feel awkward about “the talk” and find it hard to cope with the knowledge that our parents are aware of our “activities” or lack thereof. So schools help by having their selected teacher make it a friendly and less stressful environment for the education. Two ways to teach sex education are: abstinence and comprehensive. Comprehensive has been proven more effective to us, but what does that even mean?

Comprehensive sex education is where the teacher stresses on the subject of using protection. Abstinence is when the teacher censors important information, and often makes the kids use improper precautions. In all honesty, I would rather have the blatant truth than excuses of why not. What about you? Did you have to listen to why you shouldn’t, or how to be safe when you do? I had the comprehensive and was taught the safe way in public school, but private religious schools usually teach the abstinence way.

The two methods have been fought over for the longest time by the government, and the views are very polar, in that there has been no consensus to it yet. In the beginning, the 1920’s, there was no formal sexual education and only the study of biology touched upon it. In 1940 the U.S. Public Health Service strongly supported the addition of sex education in school. Then in1953 the program started and opposition was there from the beginning. When the Bush administration came into play they only funded the abstinence-only sex education, but now under Obama the funding has stopped. Obama deemed that it was a waste of tax payers’ money and that honesty was the only way to teach the subject.

What it boils down to is the church versus the states. Segments of religious groups argue for abstinence-only education, and in that way they believe they keep their kids clean and safe; but that doesn’t necessarily work because we young adults often become rebellious. When told the truth, we feel less of a need to find the truth and can make better informed decisions. We are being molded all the time, and better it be by facts than opinions.