Parents Should Raise The Bar For Their Kids: Article Analysis

Sexual education in schools has become a highly controversial topic over the past few years. Some people believe students should be taught abstinence-only education, while others believe students need the full on “sex talk”. While the sex education controversy may seem silly, it is very important that students receive the most efficient education possible. When it comes to education parents want their children to receive the most effective kind. This is also very true in terms of sex education. Sex education is very debatable right now as to whether students should be taught abstinence-only education or comprehensive sex education.

In Quindlen’s essay she talks about when she was sitting in a clinic in the poorest neighborhood in New York City. She sat with a group of young teenagers who amazed her with their knowledge of sexuality. Quindlen talks about someone mentioning the thought that sex education in school would lower or prevent teen pregnancy, but students will do whatever they want to do. Even though it is good to teach young teenagers about sex and possible risk of the act, it could create confusion in students, wondering the class is teaching them about contraceptives or abstinence. The essay explains how half dozen young teenage girls show off that they are having sex, getting pregnant, and having babies.

Did you know that 24 states in the US require their public schools to teach sex education and HIV education to their students (NCL.org)? Do they even need to understand sex or STDs? Well of course not. That’s why schools should not even teach these students sex because it’s just going to be too much for the high school students’ young mind, sex education will definitely motivate the students to have sex—regardless of their sexuality--, and it’s up to their not so busy parents to explain sex—and all its glory—to their children who are attending high school.

The teenagers and children of today read about, listen to and watch all sorts of information about sex. While most adults have had some form of sex education, we must ask if this new generation is learning anything new or helpful from their sex education classes. The American culture and way of living is so absorbed in sex that children should be taught about it, people just can not agree on how to teach them. In her article New Sex ed Funding Ends Decade of Abstinence-Only, Kelli Kennedy proves that abstinence-only sex education classes and programs are not as good as regular sex education classes better than Shari Roan does in her article Teen pregnancy rates rises. Are abstinent-only programs to blame?

Other supporters think that sex education should not deviate from other teachings of other health curricula such as drunk driving, tobacco use, drug use, alcohol consumption, gun use, fighting; all things which are taught to just not do (Collins, Alagira, and Summers 12-13). They believe that it is the responsibility of a public institution which serves kids to teach them risk avoidance rather than harm reduction (“WebMD: Better Information. Better Health”).

Schools should educate students about their bodies, and how to protect them. “The point of this kind of sex education is to inform teenagers about the possible risks of being sexually active and to educate them about methods of birth control and sexually transmitted infection protection.” Students deserve the basic human right live freely, and if their choice may be, considering about 70% of the national teenage population usually make this decision anyway, to be involved in sexual relations than there needs to be a basic knowledge of safety

Human nature has shaped and developed many different social norms in our society, however, they also create many social problems when conflicting views come under scrutinization. Sexual education in America has been problematic since the late 1900’s because there is simply a lack of it. Sexual education has transformed over a hundred years, abated by the effect of religious upbringings and conservative outlooks. However, as evolved as it is today, it is still a national issue because of the ongoing struggle of comprehensive sexual education against abstinence, and in the midst of the two, students are still not being exposed to proper sexual health.

The school leads the sex education and has the curriculum to first educate students. It is not only the responsibility of the school or government; the parents also have responsibilities to teach their children at home. According to A Parent’s Guide, it says, “Parents help their children form values about relationships and behaviours and their sexual health.” (Ontario, 2015) The schools, parents, and communities are responsible for educations of children to feel involved in the changed and new concept society has developed. Most parents tend to avoid this kind of communication with their children. Parents are the most important role models to give the proper ideals on the issues. The results and conclusions depend on the children, not the parents or communities. Parents should give the right for the children to decide about the issues without forcing any specific opinions on them. Society should give the opportunities to the children to face the challenges that come ahead, and make decisions to solve problems based on the education they had in their childhood. With the decisions, children or students can develop their ideas of the sexual issues and topics by themselves. Through this stage, they are able to grow up further with

Sex education has always been a controversial topic, especially to the extent that it is taught to. Under the early years of the Reagan administration, the Adolescent Family Life Act was passed for abstinence-only education based on the presumption that talking about sex in school would promote sexual activities among teenagers. The two-point act was quietly passed in 1981, as it was not voted on by the House and was coded under Title XX of the Public Service Health Act. The first point was to provide at least two-thirds of funds to support pregnant teenagers, while the second point’s purpose was to use the remaining one-third or less to discourage sexual acts until marriage. Lawrence (2007) asserted that teenage pregnancy rates at the time of passing were rising, so the government wanted to stop everything all together. Since then, billions of dollars have been spent and more laws have been passed to promote abstinence-only education. Pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in the U.S. actually continued to rise, despite what was believed that the acts and funding could accomplish (p. 2). Though scientists and accredited researchers saw this coming, they continued with research to finalize conclusions with the majority hypothesis that comprehensive sex education would show the greatest improvement among teenage pregnancy. Comprehensive sex education

Sexual intercourse is considered to be between two people that love each other very much. It is romanticized in movies and books, and is alluded to everywhere. As the age for sexual experimentation grow lower many question whether or not have sexual education in our school systems. Many argue that by educating the children at younger ages about sex, it promote the early experimentation. Also that it is not the school 's job to teach about sexualatity and that what they would teach would be against their religion, beliefs, or values, but should promote abstinence. Others argue that the experimental rate is grong and if teens will have sex it is better to educate them on how to be safe. They also arguer that sex is everywhere and children will learn about sex in some way shape or form, whether it be from friends, family, or the media.

In addition to the invaluable and timely intervention that most parents can provide in the prevention of teen pregnancy, public schools should be directly required to play a similar role as sex educators, given the time they spent next to the students. However, according to Patricia Donovan, in her article, "School-Based Sexuality Education: The Issues and Challenges", "Today, many public schools in U.S. only have low effect programs regarding sex education; most of them based on Abstinence-Only, rather than working programs to promote healthy sex education." By way of explanation, current programs seem to have failed in providing adequate information to the sexually active students; and moreover, many of them promote incorrect guidance regarding of critical and sensitive subjects, such as the

Sex education, most commonly known as family life, is any information about sex and sexual relationships taught to maturing young people as a part of a school’s curriculum. Currently, there is a constant political and ideological debate in the United States over the merits of abstinence-only and comprehensive sex education programs in the teaching of our youth. Abstinence only sex education has been the primary sex education taught in the United States. Although different in their approach, the overall goal is to help them build a foundation to be able to make healthy informed decisions as they mature into adults. The objectives of sex education programs are to help adolescents develop a positive view of sexuality, body image and make responsible decisions in relationships (Knowles, 2012). Ultimately, any sex education should be a partnership between parents, guardians and school personnel. However, in recent years, a large amount of information about sexuality is acquired through friends, music, books and the media instead of from their parents. For some individuals,

According to Pastor, the double standards arise from the false belief that female-assigned individuals are primarily concerned about having a good provider for their offspring (132). Therefore, Koepsel would agree that the Wisconsin sexual health curriculum is actually not unique in its requirement for educators to address the positive connection between marriage and parenting (141). Even back in her native homeland, TR explains that sexual health education is no different. In fact, there is a religious belief in her culture that discourages female-assigned individuals from engaging in discussions about sexual activity. Students in India generally do not even receive formal sexual health education until they are “mature” enough, which is not until high school. When female-assigned adolescents do learn about sex, it is often in terms of the reproductive system. In these cultures, people are advised to practice abstinence until marriage (TR). The belief is that females should only engage in sexual activity after marriage, which is when you are mentally, physically, and financially prepared to raise a child. As depicted here, formal sexual health education is no different across cultures. Why does society place such a huge emphasis on marriage, reproduction, and parenting as part of the sexual health curriculum? Given these points, it is evident that formal sexual health instruction often ignores the pleasure aspect of sexual

Often, sexual education can go against an individual's moral or religious beliefs. Many schools do not teach abstinence only but teach safe sex, whereas many religious groups and families do not value intercourse before marriage. Teachers may input their own beliefs or morals into the subject matter rather than stick with the facts if they are not properly trained on how to conduct a sex education course. Sex education classes are briefly focused on during a health class or physical education. This is not a long enough period to educate students on such serious material. These arguments does not take into account the fact that students will be taught on subjects such as, sexually transmitted diseases, the reproductive system, sexually and birthing issues rather than the stuff they learn through peers, television or the internet. Many of the myths learned by students about sex swill also are discussed, such as not being able to get pregnant the first time. Classes for those of a younger group are separated by gender, saving embarrassment amongst students and teachers. Teaching sex education can have a major impact on preventing unplanned pregnancy and other sexual problems in adulthood.

Coinciding with the onslaught of the new millennium, schools are beginning to realize that the parents are not doing their job when it comes to sexual education. The school system already has classes on sexual education; these classes are based mainly on human anatomy. Most schools do not teach their students about relationships, morals, respect, self-discipline, self-respect, and most importantly contraceptives. Everyday students engage in sexual activity, many of them with out condoms. This simple act jeopardizes these students' futures and possibly their lives. An increasing amount of school systems are starting to combine messages involving abstinence from sexual activity,