Sex Education: A Necessity in Public Schools Today
Alice was a normal sixteen year old; she loved school, her family and her boyfriend. She was having a blast during her Junior year, until the day she found out about the "accident". Alice and her boyfriend ,Brad, had been together for over two years, and they planned to get married. Both of them felt they were ready to have sex. However, neither of them knew anything about birth control or the dangers of having unprotected sex. What they knew about sex they had learned from watching television and from what their friends had told them. So one night they decided to go ahead and try it.
Then about six weeks later, Alice noticed that she wasn't feeling well and that she hadn't gotten her period for a long time. Of course, Alice had no idea what was wrong with her, so she told her mother how she didn't feel well and she hadn't had her period. Alice's mother asked Alice if she and Brad had slept together, and Alice had to tell her the truth. Right away her mother knew exactly what was wrong. Alice was pregnant. Alice's mother, Gertrude, immediately called Brad's parents. The teenagers and their parents met and discussed the "accident".
Later that year Alice dropped out of school and gave birth to twin girls. By this time, Brad had graduated and found a job, where he could work enough to support Alice and the twins. This one "accident" changed Alice and Brad's lives forever. Alice never made it to her sex education class her senior year.
Alice got pregnant during a time when most teenagers weren't having sex. However, recently a survey done by Health Initiatives for Youth , showed that more than two-thirds of high school students in the U.S. have had sex by the time they are Seniors ("Sex Education. . .").
The history of sex education goes back to the late nineteenth century. Sex education then consisted of medical and biological information about venereal disease and reproduction. Later, when the Second World War was over, mass media played a large role in making information on sex available to kids. Many people felt this caused a need for sex education in public school ("Sex Eduation," Encarta.). Halfheartedly public schools began teaching minimal sex education, until the late 1960's, when educational and governmental organizations created more developed programs for sex education in schools.
Second, the story line. Although Archibald MacLeish wrote the play based on the story of Job in The Bible, there are many differences in the story line. In The Bible, Job’s misfortune was spawned by Satan trying to show God that Job was not as holy as God had thought. God gave Satan the power to destroy everything Job had, including his health. Job’s children all died together when the roof of the house collapsed on them while they were all dining at the house of the oldest brother. His wife died also, and all of his possessions was taken from him. Furthermore, he contracted painful sores all over his body. As for J.B., his children died separately, one after the other. The oldest had died in the army. Two were involved in a car accident. One daughter was killed by an explosion that also took out J.B.’s millions. And the youngest was raped. However, J.B.’s wife, Sarah, was not killed, but instead she left him. In The Bible, Job is confronted by his three friends. His friends encourages him to turn against God and to curse him, but he refused to do so. On the other hand, J.B. was confronted with four friends, the first three encouraging him to turn against God but the fourth telling him to pray to God and to praise Him.
On an ordinary day, Leslie opens the main door of her house, when she walked inside she saw her mom and sister Islla sitting on the coach. Islla was crying, and Leslie ask her “What happened?’ Why you crying?’”. Islla told her that she is pregnant and that she wants to keep the baby even if her boyfriend will be against the baby, but she will need to drop out from her University. In a few minutes of thinking, Leslie decided and told her sister “You don’t need to drop out I will help you to babysit with my nephew.”
When Alice’s rape is discussed, Jane feels anxious and goes into panic attacks. During these attacks, Jane is in an unstable state of mind, and she cannot function properly. Normally, a teenage girl seeks out her mother for guidance in a time of need. However, in this situation, the mother/daughter roles are reversed, and Alice must comfort Jane. While Jane is having a difficult time with the rape, Alice had to step up and support her mother.
It is Mr. Arthur Birling who starts off the train of events, as he is
encompasses sexual development, reproductive health, interpersonal relationships, affection, intimacy, body image, and gender roles.” Sex education discusses important aspects of reproduction, sexuality, and just growing up in general in a physical and emotional sense. One would have to wonder though; does sex education actually serve its purpose? Does it enlighten teens enough about sex and the consequences, to the point where you can actually tell the difference between those who are sexually educated and those who are not? According to a study done bye Coyle (1999) sex education no matter where, at home or in school, and no matter the program does indeed help decrease the amount of teens having unsafe sex. Based on information from that same study about 3 million teenagers a year get an STD, and roughly 10% of adolescent females ages 15-19 get pregnant every year unintentionally. In an article from The Alan Guttmacher Institute (1999) there has been a 20% drop in female pregnancies between n 1990 and 1997 and the drop has continued, they have stated that the reason for this i...
Getting pregnant at an early age makes a teen mom go through various difficulties. A lot of tragedies occur with family, friends, and even the father of the baby. 91% of teen moms did not plan to have sex or any sexual contact at all until they drank alcohol (Langham, NP). One thing for sure is that it is not easy to raise your own child when you yourself are still a child. It is very complicated for everyone, but in the end the parents of that child become stronger and have more knowledge and their stories can teach others to avoid making the same mistake.
The first book deals with the war in heaven and the devils being sent out into ...
During the party, Sydney gradually became very bored, so Isaiah took her into one of the bedrooms at the party. In the bedroom, Isaiah and Sydney did everything against family life, and she didn't remember a thing, but weeks after the party she wasn't feeling well. Sydney decided to go to the doctors and they told her she was pregnant with a baby. Sydney and Isaiah were so excited to have a kid, but they didn't know if they could raise
A study conducted on teens in Sweden and the Netherlands showed that teens in those countries were just as sexually active, but the teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease rate was much lower. Researchers say this is due to sex education that begins in elementary school and continues on(Bender p.13). Only ten percent of American school-age youth participate in a comprehensive program lasting at least forty hours(deMauro p.89). Teens in America also score low on questionnaires based on sexual knowledge(Gordon p.
The government likes to pretend that if high school students get taught the “abstinence-only” method they would never think of taking part in sexual activities. Statistically this is incorrect. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, “56 percent of high school students are virgins”(Martin). For the 56 percent abstinence only is doing them well, but there are still 44 percent of high school students engaging in sex without knowing the precau...
Sex among teenagers is one of the most controversial topics of our time. The teen pregnancy and STD rates in the United States alone have become a major problem over the years. Despite these skyrocketing sex cases, sexual education is not being taught in some schools, and the ones that do are extremely limited. Parents, the government, organizations, and school boards do not teach the proper curriculum necessary for students to thoroughly understand sexual behavior. This essay will explain the need for proper sexual education in our schools.
First of all, it is the many younger teenagers who are inexperienced that get in to trouble like teenage pregnancy. The experience that is so needed is supposed to come from their parents, but that doesn’t happen because, the parents don’t want to talk about the sex issues. With the strict parents the experience is hard to ...
Though the teen birth rate has declined to its lowest levels since data collection began, the United States still has the highest teen birth rate in the industrialized world. Roughly, one in four girls will become pregnant at least once by their 20th birthday. In addition, young people ages 15 to 24 represent 25 percent of the sexually active population, but acquire half of all new STIs.
Before moving on, one must know that sex education is about, but not limited to the discussion of sexual intercourse. As a Buzzle article states, it involves a multitude of topics that introduce human sexual behaviors such as puberty, sexual health, sexual reproduction, sexuality, and more (Iyer). If formally received in school, these topics are brought up and discussed at age-appropriate times over the course of children’s junior high and high school education. Moreover, as I have introduced earlier, the way sex education should be taught is divided into two approaches. It is between taking either a conservative, abstinence-only approach or a more liberal, comprehensive approach. Abstinence-only education, approaches students by stressing the importance of “no sex before marriage” as be...
The need for sex education is very questionable in today’s society. An article by Pamela DeCarlo, from the Centre for AIDS Prevention Studies, discusses why sex education is needed in schools. She asks why education on this subject is needed and if will help or hurt today’s children. Her view of the issue is that kids do need to have education to help to protect them but that it isn’t enough to prevent them from receiving STD’s and becoming pregnant. “Knowledge alone is not enough to change behaviors.” DeCarlo also says that, “Programs that rely mainly on conveying information about sex or moral precepts-how...