The Importance Of Sex Education In Schools

During 1920s, U.S. schools began to incorporate sex education to their courses. A 2002 study conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that “58% of secondary school principals describe their sex education curriculum as comprehensive programs provide factual information about birth control, sexual transmitted disease, and continue the message to children about waiting to have sex.” (Johannah)

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.

Of the fifty states and the District of Columbia, only twenty-four states require sex education, thirteen states require that any information given must be medically accurate. (“Sex and HIV Education”). Sex education in America is abysmal and horrific compared to other first-world countries. Many states do not give comprehensive sex-education, typically resulting in less use of safe behaviors during sex and a lack of awareness of STD and/or pregnancy prevention. Furthermore, sex-education is not held to the same high standards as math, english, or science, resulting in medically inaccuracies and biases to be slipped into the curriculum. Therefore, I believe it is in the best interest of America’s youth to require medically accurate information, give them a comprehensive education, and require higher standards of education.

Sex education has been an ongoing debate for decades. In the early 1970’s, twenty states voted restricting sex education from the school curriculum, leaving the District of Columbia and only three states (Maryland, Kentucky, New Jersey), requiring schools to teach sex education. By the mid 1980’s, a deadly disease permitted through sexual intercourse was recognized; the fear of catching a disease sex education quickly became accepted. In 1986, Surgeon General C. Everett Koop felt sex education should start as early as third grade stating, ‘“There is now no doubt … that we need sex education in schools and that it [should] include information on heterosexual and homosexual relationships. The lives of our young people depend on our

People argue that sex education is not being taught the way that it should be these days and besides kids being told not to have sex, they are being told how to have sex without getting diseases. Which in some cases is true, but you never know until you look deeper into how sex education and how it is really being taught in schools around the United States today. After doing research I found two examples of approaches to sex education currently being used in the United States today. The places that I found how sex education is being taught are North Carolina Franklin County Public Schools and Texas Public School District. These two states alone teach the concept of sex education in a very different way. Texas takes an approach at it that everyone wishes every state would look at sex education, and North Carolina takes an approach that everyone thinks all states take in teaching kids about sex. After reading these two article I will take and compare them to some of the experiences that I have had with sex education, tell you which one is more comprehensive, and also get a deeper look into what sex education is like in Texas from one of my fellow classmates.

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

The controversy surrounding sex education in schools has been talked about for many years. In this day and age, sex education in schools is not as helpful or informative due to the maturation of adolescents. Rather than scaring teenagers with sexually transmitted disease(STD) slideshow presentations, school systems should be teaching teens how to protect themselves from STDs. Health programs all around the country deprive teens of fundamental knowledge when it comes to intercourse. According to Advocates For Youth, “Just as it is important to enhance a child's physical, emotional, and cognitive growth, so it is important to lay foundations for a child's sexual growth”(Advocates For Youth). Adults who teach safe sex education have an important role in helping teens and preteens discover themselves, therefore improving these programs will be improving their growth.

Sex education is a program that can teach students about multiple facets of sex, the anatomy of male and female bodies, and relationships leading up to sex. Unfortunately, more often than not, sex education does not cover over all of these topics. Depending on the school or program certain elements of the education process may be withheld from students. In her 2008 book, Risky Lessons: Sex Education and Social Inequality, Jessica Fields discusses how the North Carolina school board chose to omit three chapters from their sex

Most of the sex education during the nineteenth and early twentieth century were based on religious and moral values. As we learned in class, teachers were supposed to have the best morals that were around, so it makes sense that talking about sex during this time was not an accepted thing to talk about or much less teach young students about. But in the early 1900s people started seriously considering what students needed to be taught in regards to sex (History of Sex Ed…). In the 40s and 50s are when things really started to take off. STDs were spreading substantially and so finally a bit of sex education was taught in the classroom. There were issues with this however because there was not an agreed method of teaching Sex Ed across the nation or even across the states (History of Sex Ed…). After contraceptives were made available, and after many debates about material and what we should be teaching kids about sex, there finally was some stability when it came to Sex Ed in the 1980s when the surgeon general made it mandatory for all public schools to teach Sex Ed (History of Sex Ed…). However, there were really no clear rules on how it would be taught, which is why we have such a big problem with it today. So why is this still an issue? Shouldn’t we have this figured out by now?

All states within America require some version of sex education. Whether that be abstinence only education, comprehensive sexual education, Holistic sex education, and abstinence-plus or abstinence-based sexual education(opposing viewpoints). The social and political climate of sex education over the last two decades has dramatically changed, with

Our parents have a big role in our lives because from the moment that we are born to even up to the day we are fully grown up to make decisions on our own they still influence us. Young people who are barely starting puberty don’t feel comfortable talking to their parents about anything sex related because this topic may or not be sensitive on the person. So, many parents even though they are the ones who influence us the most will agree that their child highly needs this information through schools. According to an article written by Leslie Kantor and Nicole Levitz, “In middle school, 74.9 percent of parents felt it was very important to have sex education, and an additional 18.6 percent felt

Sexual education in public schools has been a controversial topic for many years in the United States. Sexual education began in the 1920s, it was inspired by sexual education programs in the military. These programs were mainly based on religion they stressed the usage of abstinence and frowned upon masturbation (Cornblatt). Over the years sexual education has evolved and now covers topics such as contraceptives, sexually transmitted diseases, healthy relationships, and parenthood. While the topics covered may have changed on thing that has remained the same is the opposition to sexual education in schools. Many people believe that sexual education is a personal topic and should be taught by the students guardian at their own discretion. However, sexual education should be taught in schools because it educates teens on how to maintain a healthy lifestyle and decreases the amount of sexually transmitted diseases and unplanned pregnancies.

First, schools need to make sure that the information being taught in sex education is medically correct. Many teenagers will go through sex education, but it is a different experience for all of them because of “lack of standardized curricula at the federal, state, and sometimes district level” (Hamilton). As of right now, sex education is mostly based on the importance of abstinence and the types of sexually transmitted infections. Although schools are trying to promote no sex in teens, that does not mean that teens are not in sexual relationships. Teens who are engaging in sexual actions need to know about safe sex because that exists although people say it does not. According to the National Conference of State Legislature, “38 States do not require mandated sex education and another 41 do not require sex education to be medically correct” (Marinelli). Most sex education programs do not teach true facts because

Today, sex education is taught based on the states’ decision that it be necessary. Nineteen states’ laws require abstinence-only sex education in public schools. The Guttmacher Institute further reports that twenty-nine states do not require sex education at all, and thirty-seven do not require sex education curriculum to be medically accurate (Palmer 2). This means that if sex education is taught in schools, it is either about staying abstinent or the information given does not have to be correct. This is not only immoral, but it is messing with the lives of teens when they go out

There are many states that do not provide the kind of sex education that New Jersey strives to convey to its students. It more often than not ties in with the religious right proclaiming that students are too young to be exposed to sexual material, and thus sexualized as a result. These fundamental groups oppose any suggestion towards a comprehensive approach. Instead, they ask that their children be taught after grade school and additionally, they steer towards ‘abstinence-only’ education. Instead of teaching students how to protect themselves, they teach that the only way to protect oneself is by abstaining from sex. The problem arises, then, when these students decide to have sex. They are unaware of how to conduct themselves responsibly, how to take precautions to prevent against unwanted pregnancy and disease. What kind of ‘education’ are students receiving when they are withheld crucial information?