My research paper is about why high schools should provide condoms for students, along with comprehensive sexual education programs. I hope to enlighten the reader about sexual education in high school by answering these questions: How will providing condoms keep students safe? Will sexual education benefit kids? And finally, did not having sex ed affect the generation before us? My view is that most teens are going to have sex, it’s natural and instinctual, but making teens less ignorant about sex and provide them with a way to practice safer sex will result in less teenage pregnancies, STDs, and smarter choices regarding sex. The articles I chose are medically accurate and provide reasons to support sex ed programs and why it’s important to talk to teens about healthy sexual choices. Kieffer, Chris. "Sex ed debate: Teaching about contraception is a key divide." Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal (Tupelo, MS) 03 Oct. 2013: Points of View Reference Center. Web. 8 Nov. 2013. The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal uses information from Mississippi to concur more youth are having sex and having babies in their state. Their solution is to install sex ed in their curriculum to reduce these numbers. Another thing it talks about how they have had abstinence-only sex ed for five years, so obviously that wasn’t working. I will use this study to demonstrate the need of comprehensive sex ed in school’s curriculum, not just prude old people telling teens not to have sex and they will go to Hell if they do. I believe this will show the need for real options in a state with the most sexually active and pregnant teenagers. "School Condom Availability." School Condom Availability. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Nov. 2013. This article clearly states condo... ... middle of paper ... ...he article supports my viewpoint and provides new reasons to practice safer sex. Today our youth is overwhelmed to all kinds of hype and rumors about sex, and this article debunks those myths. Also, the headings of all the sections are questions, so you get the frequently asked questions and additional information. "Talking With Children About Sex." WebMD. WebMD, 28 May 2010. Web. 08 Nov. 2013. This article describes how to present sexual information to teens and why you should. It also includes information about the definition of sex and how to spot if a child has unsafe or abnormal sex habits, such as “angry sexual language, gestures, or touching to hurt others.” Most sex ed programs don’t talk about preventing sexual abuse in dating and strangers. I think it’ll help me to paint a clear picture of what goes on in high school, middle school, and how to prevent it.
It has been almost thirty three years since the first federal funding was put to use in “. . . sex education programs that promote abstinence-only-until-marriage to the exclusion of all other approaches . . .” according to the article “Sex education” (2010) published by “Opposing Viewpoints in Context;” a website that specializes in covering social issues. Since then a muddy controversy has arisen over whether that is the best approach. On one hand is the traditional approach of abstinence (not having sex before marriage), and on the other is the idea that what is being done is not enough, and that there needs to be a more comprehensive approach. This entails not only warning against sex, but also teaching teens about how to have “Safe Sex” (“Sex Education,” 2010).
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).
Students should be informed about more than just “don’t have sex” because eventually it is going to happen and they need to be educated on the proper way to handle the situations. Because students are mostly taught abstinence it has created the situation to where researchers find” Abstinence-only education, instead of reducing the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, has made teenagers and young adults more vulnerable to ST...
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.
Based on these statistics, teen pregnancy is obviously a large issue in this county. A possible solution to the issue would be that sex education could to be taught in junior and senior high schools and be taught by parents more often. By the time of sex education, a vast majority of students have already had sex. This may have played a part in Tony, from The Other Wes Moore, being a father at such a young age. The ultimately best solution to help stop teen pregnancy in this county alone is to provide a “sex clinic” to these teenagers. A safe sex clinic is a way of providing teenagers the facts of the real world and even offering various forms of birth control. As other solutions, parents need to have a sex talk with their children, and schools need to provide the option for a sex education more frequently. However, there is no way to mandate what parents teach to students, and it takes far too long to change a state's curriculum. That’s why, through this solution, the rate of teen births would show to decrease for the better.
Anna Quindlen essay about “Sex Ed” had many agreeable points. Like her it is understandable why she would want her kids to be taught about sex. What better place than a place they spend hours at daily. According to her she feel it could help prevent or prepare her kids when she says “ I’d like my sons to know as much as possible about how someone gets pregnant.” Which on one side she should be criticized for that, because it’s her job as a parent to provide that information for her children.
Sex is huge, sex is important; everyone cares and has something to say about sex. Sex sells. Sex is an immense part of life for almost everyone in the nation and the world, including youth. Teens hear about sex from their friends, from the shows they watch on television, from the music they listen to, and sometimes, once in a while, they hear about it as discussed by their parents and teachers in an educational context. In a Center For Disease Control (CDC) report from the year 2000, about 65% of 19 year-old teens were currently sexually active, with another 20% unsure if they would chose to be active or not in the near future, and only the remaining 15% choosing to be abstinent from sex at this age. Obviously the majority of teens are engaging in some nature of sexual activity at a relatively early age, and therefore it is important that they learn about the consequences associated with sex and about safe sexual practices, like using protection and being informed about sexual transmitted diseases and teen pregnancy. It was reported by the Alan Guttmacher Institute that approximately 4 in 10 young women in the U.S. become pregnant at least once before turning 20 years old. It was also reported that in the U.S., one in four sexually active teens become infected with an STD every year. With alarming statistics such as these, it is a given that these teens must be well informed before making a decision that could very well alter their lives.
As human beings we all know that sex is a big part of our lives. It is how we reproduce. Unlike generations in the past, sex is more openly discussed today than ever before. Advertisements, media, newspapers, and celebrities are all promoting sex. In short, most teens become sexually active in high school. They can`t seem to get enough of sex and it definitely inquires our minds, increasing our adrenaline and paralyzing our initial sense. Once you hit puberty your senses are aroused and you began to become very curious. How young is too young to know about sex, or to engage in sex? For my research paper I wanted to go into more detail about sex education being taught in schools and by parents. Who does the responsibility fall under? Should it be taught at home by parents or at school by teachers? Parents attempts at sexual education leaves teenagers curious, misinformed and more at risk to find themselves facing the reality of disease and unplanned pregnancies. Therefore, sex education should remain a part of middle and high school public education curriculums.
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.
Three million teenagers will contract a sexually transmitted disease and one in three women will become pregnant before they are twenty years old. Teens are contracting sexually transmitted diseases and getting pregnant at an alarming rate causing the government, schools, and parents to scratch their heads. America is the country with the highest teen pregnancy rate in the world. Many are wondering what can be done to stop this. A debate has been going on about whether abstinence only education is doing any good for high school students in America. Abstinence only education teaches teenagers to abstain from all sexual acts until they are married. It does not teach about pregnancy or the different types of contraceptives that are available to prevent pregnancy. On the other hand, there is safe sex education. Safe sex education teaches teenagers facts about intercourse they need to know, acknowledges the potential consequences or risks of sexual behavior, and helps them make better decisions to protect themselves and their bodies.
“Sex sells.” This is a common phrase used very often in social media and entertainment industries. Today, the youth generation is highly exposed to social media and products of entertainment industries from music to movies on the big screen. Most of the products produced by these industries are sexually explicit, and they tend to send the wrong messages about sexual behavior. Adolescents almost spend the same amount of time watching television and engaging with social media as they do in an educational environment. Therefore, the best way to tackle the misconceptions of sex among adolescents is to provide sex education in school. Sex education should be taught in school in order to provide a mutual learning experience for adolescents among
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
The condoms display in the Hidden Heroes: the Genius of Everyday Things exhibit is a showcase that would cause an individual to wonder about adolescents’ overall knowledge of human sexuality. In today’s society, children are susceptible to learning about such a delicate topic not only from their families and peers, but through the media as well. These sources often provide misrepresentations of the information due to ignorance and biased views. Therefore, in order to inform individuals more accurately, sex education programs have been created with the intention to be implemented into schools across the country. This has led up to being one of the most controversial issues hovering over educational institutions, where the inclusion of such programs has been hotly debated. However, recently, the dispute is not so much about whether sex education should be taught in schools, but rather what content should be taught and what approach should be taken.
The issue of sex education in schools is going to be there for many years to come. The problem is that people want answers that can’t be talked about until more research is done on the effects of sex education. Parents, teachers, schools and students all have on common goal and that is to find a way to accurately discuss sex education in schools. There are problems with that because of all of the arguments surrounding the issue and all the problems with trying to come to a conclusion about it. Since the teen pregnancy rates have more than double and STD cases are the highest among teens we obviously see a need for it, but don’t know how to go about it. Once we research the long term effects of sex education and then come to agreement on what should be taught in schools the sex education problem in America will diminish. We need to break down the educational borders and try to look at all the perspectives to reach the common goal.
“Forty-one percent of teens ages 18-19 said they know nothing about condoms, and seventy-five percent said they know nothing about the contraceptive pill” (Facts on American Teens). Even if schools taught just abstinence it still would not be enough. “In 2007, a study showed that abstinence only programs have no beneficial impact on the sexual behavior of young people” (Facts on American Teens). Sex education is not taken as seriously as it should be in schools, it is treated like it is not a big deal. Schools should require a sex education class that specifically teaches students about sex and goes into depth of all the possible consequences because of the high pregnancy, abortion, and virus rates.