Sex education in the classroom
One day, when asked by a teacher if I supported sex education in public schools, I started to think of my friend Lauren from high school. ... Feeling pressured by her boyfriend and friends, she and Brian had sex one evening. Uneducated about the consequences that could arise from this situation, she was persuaded that it was safe to have sex without a condom; however that night came at a high cost. ... As sophomores, we had not attended Sex Education class in high school, and Lauren never got “the talk” from her mother. A comprehensive sex education program in school would have taught Lauren, as well as other students in similar situations, not only the values of relationships and sex, but also the possible results, consequences, and preventative measures accompanied with sex. ... One major cause of these out-breaks is the lack of education and knowledge adolescences have about sex. It used to be the parent’s obligation to introduce the concept of sex, its rewards, and its consequences; however, this is practiced less and less in today’s society. Parents feel they should be the ones to initiate conversation with their children about sex, yet these conversations are either initiated too late, or not at all. Sex is everywhere; we see it every day in music, movies, television, magazines, books, and the Internet. Because of the amount of sex portrayed by the media as a fun and no-consequence action, comprehensive sex education is absolutely necessary to counterbalance this type of exposure. ... Comprehensive sex education programs should be implemented in every school in the United States. ... In a culture that is saturated with sex, why are parents so embarrassed to talk about it with their children? ... Sex education is not a recently introduced concept; it has been discussed and taught to teenagers for centuries. In the late 19th century, schools began to move the discussion about sex from the parents to the classroom. ... Public Health Service promoted minimal sexual education in public schools. In the years following World War II, mass media made sex-oriented information more available to children (Coeyman). ... The herpes and AIDS epidemic in the early 1980’s irreversibly changed the primary purpose of sex education in schools requesting comprehensive AIDS and sex education in public schools (Pardini).