Sex Education...Oh Yea.

This video amuses me, and I agree with it completely. Use condoms people. This commercial has been out for awhile, and I remember showing it to friends in high school. We would all laugh and say everyone should use a condom. Everyone should use a condom.

Now here is where it gets funny and sad. Even though these people are saying this, I know for a fact some of the people who saw that commercial have no idea how to use a condom and they are misinformed about sex. It usually results in me having to sit down with them and dislodge some of their perceived "facts" about sex.

Why is this happening? Most schools do receive some sort of sex education. NPR reported that only 7% of Americans think that schools should not teach sex education (aka sex ed). This means 93% agree to the teaching. But what is being taught? I received sex education in the 5th grade. It was taught by the religion teachers and a sister and we were separated by sex for the classes. I remember getting green handouts of the sexual organs and such. I think everyone, almost, knows the basics behind how a baby is formed, but the process of actually becoming pregnant and the ways to prevent it were rushed over and inaccurate.

The Guttmacher Institute has some statistics about sex education:

• More than nine in 10 teachers believe that students should be taught about contraception, but one in four are prohibited from doing so.
• One in five teachers believe that restrictions on sex education are preventing them from meeting their students’ needs.
• By 2002, one-third of teens had not received any formal instruction about contraception
• Approximately 14% of the decline in teen pregnancy between 1995 and 2002 was due to teens’ delaying sex or having sex less often, while 86% was due to an increase in sexually experienced teens’ contraceptive use.
• Despite the decline, the United States continues to have one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the developed world—almost twice as high as those of England, Wales and Canada, and eight times as high as those of the Netherlands and Japan.

Graph provided from the Guttmacher Institute

 

The sex education students are receiving is not good enough and only marginal. Yes, it is a difficult subject to talk about. I worked with 5th graders, remember? They would never out right ask the questions, but I knew they were lurking in the background of their minds from some of the things they would say. That changed though. They are in 6th grade now and all they want to talk about is sex. In the one day I got to spend with them at school as 6th graders I could tell they had a very different perspective in sex education and the school needed to catch up with their questioning minds.
Sex is a taboo subject to talk about in schools, but it needs to be discussed in a serious atmosphere with all the different possibilities for preventive measures taught. The responsibility needs to fall on the school to provide accurate information, but the majority needs to fall on parents. If the school can not teach the curriculum to their students, then they need to provide the correct information to the parents so they can inform their children. I have talked to women from 15 to their mid 20s who do not know some of the basics and are sexual active. Every time I hear some of their stories I cringe on the inside because for the next hour I will have to reteach sex education for them.

Website:
NPR
Guttmacher Institute