As children grow, they accumulate knowledge over the years about a variety of subjects to prepare them for the future. Children learn from parents, schools, life experiences, what they watch and other influences around them, and it can be either positive learning or negative learning. There is one subject that is difficult to teach and have control over because of misunderstandings, lack of teaching, and publicity. Sex education has been a major debate for children under eighteen, because there are some parents that want it taught in schools and others that do not because of different reasons. There are currently eighteen states and the District of Columbia that require schools to provide sex education and thirty-two that do not require sex education. “There is no federal law that requires public schools to teach sex education or what should be taught” (Glander). While the parents and schools are debating whether sex education should be taught, children are out participating in sexual activities without any knowledge of protection and consequences, such as pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases (STD)s. “Sixty-six percent of American high school students have had sexual intercourse by their senior year” (Masland). Sex education should be taught in schools, because some parents do not talk to their children about sex, schools can possibly teach it better and make it easier to understand, and there are too many things in the society that is sexual based and confuse the children if not taught to them early. Parents are supposed to talk with their children about sex and sexuality as they grow. Over time it has been known as “the talk” or “the birds and the bees,” but no matter what it is called, the talk about sex is not happe... ... middle of paper ... ...ptember 2010. Web. 4 December 2011 Blick, John. “Does sex education in schools encourage teens to have sex?” helium.com. n.p. 18 February 2011. Web. 21 November 2011 “Facts on American Teens’ Sources of Information About Sex.” Guttmacher.org. n.p. February 2011. Web. 21 November 2011 Glander, Becky. “Parent Talk: Should Sex Education Be Taught in School?” roseville.patch.com. n.p. 20 November 2011. Web. 21 November 2011 Jones, Eliot. “Sex Education.” idebate.org. n.p. 17 May 2009.Web.21 November 2011 Masland, Molly. “Carnal knowledge: The sex ed debate.” msnbc.com. n.p. Web. 4 December 2011 Park, Alice. “Parents' Sex Talk with Kids: Too Little, Too Late.” time.com. n.p. 7 December 2009. Web. 4 December 2011 Phillips, Anna and Fernanda Santos. “New York City Will Mandate Sex Education.” The New York Times. n.p. 9 August 2011. Web. 21 November 2011
Today’s young Americans face strong peer pressure to be sexually active and engage themselves in risky behaviors (Merino 100-109). Anyone deciding to have sex must first think about all the risks involved. Kekla Magoon, author of Sex Education in Schools, says that “half of all teens aged 15 to 19 years old in the United States have had sex” (Magoon 64-65). It is currently not required by federal law for schools to teach Sex education and those few schools that do teach Sex education have the decision to determine how much information is allowed. Advocates from both sides of the Sex education debate agree that teens need positive influences in order to make practical decisions (Magoon 88-89). Opponents of Abstinence-only education believe it fails because it does not prepare teens for all the risks of sex (Magoon 64-65).
Every parent gets nervous when it comes time to have the “talk” with their child. Some parents choose to just be upfront with their child, and others choose not to say anything at all but, sex education is a very important thing. Everyone should inform their children and not rely on others to do the job no matter what the situation may be.
From a young age, children are bombarded by images of the rich and the famous engaging in torrid public affairs or publicly discussing their increasingly active sex lives. No longer is sex education left to teachers and parents to explain, it is constantly in our faces at the forefront of our society. Regardless of sex education curriculums and debates about possible changes, children and teenagers are still learning everything they think there is to know about sex from very early on in their young lives. However, without responsible adults instructing them on the facts about sex, there are more likely to treat sex in a cavalier and offhanded fashion. According to Anna Quindlen’s essay Sex Ed, the responsibility of to education children about sex is evenly distributed between teachers and parents.
White, Valerie. "Sex talk." The Humanist Sept.-Oct. 2012: 5. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 18 Mar. 2014.
"New Poll: Parents Are Talking With Their Kids About Sex but Often Not Tackling Harder Issues." Sexual & Reproductive Health. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Apr. 2014.
about the outcome, whether or not it would cause students to be more or less likely to engage in sexual activities and intercourse.( 2.Keen, Cathy. Florida Teens Get Inadequate Sex Education; 1999)
...ildren for experimenting with their sexuality; to discover who they are once they become of age, because in their rebellious phases they might decide to do this just to spite you. As research indicates and from personal experience, parents who are able to talk honestly to their kids about sex tend to be those with open family communication styles and whose parents talked with them about sex. Adolescents who feel close to their parents and who believe that their parents support them are likely to adopt sexual attitudes similar to their parents’ and to limit or delay their sexual activities. There are many things that can be learned from Randa Jarrar’s A Map of Home, and the importance of sexual awakening is just one of those themes.
What is acceptable when it comes to teaching kids about sex education? “What Schools Should Teach Kids About Sex” by Jessica Lahey uses more of a logical approach to the issues of sexual education given to adolescence, compared to “Sex Education Is One Thing” by Anna Quindlen which tells more of her personal story and opinion using pathos to connect to the audience. After reading both articles about sex education, it is clear that there are many different interpretations of what qualifies as sex education, who is qualified to teach it, and what should be included in the curriculum. Both writers believe that there should be more sex education taught to high school kids but they go about it in different ways, using rhetorical appeals of logic versus pathos.
In the past, sex was something that people tried to avoid talking about it, neither less teaching. Sex became a mystery, and a mystery would always trigger people’s nerves, especially teenager’s curious minds. That leads teenager at that time, who had no idea about sex, wanted to have sex to know about it. And when they had sex without any protection, they easily got STDs or HIV or even pregnancy. The case awakens society that sex education must be taught for students at the very first when they enter middle schools. But the way sex was taught those days was very much different from today. In the article “What the sex educators teach” posted on the Opposing View Point in Context website, Dana Mack has written about her experience when taking sex education class when she was a teen: “At the age of ten or eleven, girls and boys were herded into separate rooms - usually in the company of a parent. There, in industrial-gray pictures and solemn monotones, they were introduced to the world of gametes, ovaries, and menstruation. Not exactly titillating material, this reproductive information.” (Mack). Back in those days when sex was a newly revealed topic and sex education program had just been operated, people are still very shy to talk about sex and they often avoid having this kind of
“Each year, U.S. teens experience as many as 850,000 pregnancies, and youth under age 25 experience about 9.1 million sexually transmitted infections (STIs)” (McKeon). These shocking statistics are conspicuous to any ordinary American, yet the United States schools have taken little initiative to teach effective sexual education. Sex education programs in the U.S. mainly fall under two categories – comprehensive or abstinence-only. Abstinence-only sex education programs present abstinence as the only effective means to prevent teenage pregnancy and sexual transmitted diseases and infections; whereas comprehensive sex education programs teach abstinence as a secondary choice, while also informing students about birth control and contraceptives. Comprehensive sex education should be the only sex education method taught in schools because it is the most effective technique to keep students well-informed, prepared, and safe.
There has been a heated debate over the years on whether sex education should be taught at schools instead of abstinence-only. Many believe that talking about sex in the classroom raises the initiation of such behavior, and by stressing discipline, self-control, and self-respect, advocates argue, abstinence-only programs build character in students. Others believe that ignoring the subject keeps teens in the dark which leads them to make unsafe decisions when they become sexually active. In order to fix this problem schools should teach Sex Education, but emphasize that abstinence is the only 100 percent effective way to prevent pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases.
In the United States, there is a rising problem that is not going anywhere anytime soon, that is if we, as citizens, don 't change it. This problem is causing billions of dollars and people 's futures all because schools would rather teach ignorance than the truth. What’s the problem? Sex education. Although sex education may not seem like a rising conflict, it is actually one of the top controversial topics in our country regarding education. According to Brigid McKeon, “Each year, U.S. teens experience as many as 850,000 pregnancies, and youth under age 25 experience about 9.1 million sexually transmitted infections (STIs)” (McKeon). This number is so unbelievable to any sane person, but somehow schools still won 't take the initiative to teach realistic sex education. Sex education can be taught in two different procedures- comprehensive or abstinence only. The difference between the two methods is that comprehensive sex education teaches abstinence as a secondary choice, so that teens who decide not to wait are well educated on how to keep themselves protected. Comprehensive sex education should be required in every single public school because it is the most effective method on how to keep teenagers well informed and prepared.
Martinez, Gladys, Joyce Abma, and Casey Copen. “Educating Teenagers About Sex In The United States”. CDC.GOV. Center of Disease Control and Prevention, 15 Sept. 2010. Web. 09 Feb.2014
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...
Sex education in our schools has been a hot topic of debate for decades. The main point in question has been whether to utilize comprehensive sex education or abstinence-only curriculum to educate our youth. The popularity of abstinence-only curriculum over the last couple of decades has grown largely due to the United States government passing a law to give funding to states that teach the abstinence-only approach to sex education. But not teaching our children about sex and sexuality is not giving them the information they need to make well educated decisions. Sex education in our schools should teach more than just abstinence-only because these programs are not proven to prevent teens from having sex. Children need to be educated on how to prevent contracting sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies and be given the knowledge to understand the changes to their bodies during puberty. According to the Guidelines for Comprehensive Sexuality Education: Kindergarten-12th Grade from the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS), comprehensive sex education “should be appropriate to age, developmental level, and cultural background of students and respect the diversity of values and beliefs represented in the community” (SIECUS).