Previously, sex education in the United States has been taught using a variety of scare tactics and questionable metaphors. A favorite that teachers across the country use is to compare a person’s virginity to a piece of tape. The tape is passed around and stuck to the arm of every student in the class, gradually becoming dirtier and losing its stickiness, in order to show “ that the more people you get “stuck” on, the dirtier and less valuable you become” (Smothers). The abstinence-only method of teaching “is one of our worst enemies because of the overwhelming shame and fear that it attaches to healthy sexual behavior” (Sanoff). Of course teachers should not promote unrestrained sexual activity, but neither should they “make everyone feel disgusted about sex” (B. Sharpe). Adolescents are taught throughout their lives that sex is “a dirty and damaging trait that must be controlled” and that is greatly harmful to their mental, emotional, and physical health (Sanoff). They grow up not understanding that their urges are completely healthy and natural and not knowing how to cope with…
Their views on sexuality education for elementary children were very apathetic and largely opposing, whereas, when asked about sexuality education in middle school and high school, they were more neutral and favorable to the idea. The audience has yet to be able to envision the significance of why sexuality education is so important in society today. To persuade the audience we will inform them about the prevalence of teen pregnancy and STIs, and how they can be prevented by simply giving youth and adults the proper education they need to make responsible decisions. The audience is so against sexuality education for elementary, we presume, because they are focused on the idea of it causing those young children to consider having intercourse. We believe that the audience is targeting an idea, and distorting it. Through audience analysis, we determined that the audience themselves have not undergone comprehensive sexuality education, or experienced any actual sexuality education. Their inexperience in this field is likely clouding their judgement, as they may not have investigated the subject further. We will acquaint them with the information that comprehensive sexuality education focuses on age appropriate material. Our delivery choices include fear and positive appeals, and a great use of ethos, logos and pathos. Statistical data inflicts a fear appeal, and assists in the extension of logos. To achieve pathos, we will bring up the audience’s possible children or younger siblings, and even a couple of accounts of people who had to deal with the consequences of not being sexually…
Parents always seem to agree on education being a vital aspect of life. Knowledge of literature, math, and philosophy can help students go far beyond their expectations; however this process starts with awareness at a young age. One topic that is widely neglected in education is sex. Sexual education classes vary tremendously across the nation; while some schools insist on hiding the facts from children, others are much more open with discussion. Abstinence only classes are popular among educators, but statistically they are highly ineffective. As sex becomes a reality for younger aged students, it is necessary for schools to provide suitable sex ed classes to reduce teen pregnancy and STD rates. This has turned into an ethical problem, with educators hiding information from students; they are also sheltering them from reality.…
Legal and /or Ethical IssuesThe state and federal government implemented sex education in schools in order to provide students reliable and accurate information needed to make a responsible decision to stay healthy (SEICUS, 2014). The integration of sexuality in the school curriculum presents an ethical and legal issue in the academic community. Ethical issues are about questions of right and wrong; it cannot be settled by an appeal to facts alone; and it should be distinguished from values. Legal issues arise as a consequence of not providing a positive, safe, and encouraging learning environment to students. Courses on topics of human sexuality might make some students uncomfortable while also being necessary for…
When I think of the word “sex” I think of intimacy, privacy, and discretion. For most teenagers sex is just what is popular at the time. They don’t understand that it is not like any other fad. Now that sex has become popular it is the parents’ job to do something to change it. Children are taught how to interact with others and the difference of what is right and wrong by their parents from birth. If parents don’t teach their kids that no amount of popularity is worth the burden of a child at a young age then no one will. In Anna Quindlen’s essay “Sex Ed” she sat with six 16 year old girls at a family planning clinic in New York, the girls knew a lot about sex but were also pregnant. Where were their parents? Schools are wasting their money on sex ed classes. Do you really want a stranger to teach your child about sex anyway? It is important for our children to be educated about sexuality, but it is not the schools’ place to teach it.…
fullness of love between a man and a woman and the means through which a child is conceived” (1). Human sexuality is much more than an ordinary physical activity; it is an exercise that impacts the minds and hearts as well as the bodies of the participants. With the rate of teenage pregnancies (or our awareness of it) is on the constant increase, teaching human sexuality in schools and colleges has become a very important task. Teaching human sexuality to children and adolescents is necessary for them to have rewarding sexual relationships in order to grow up to have healthy and happy lives. Teaching human sexuality to adolescents and children is an ongoing process. Children at different stages of their lives need different lessons on healthy sexuality.…
References: American School Health, A. (2012). National Sexuality Education Standards: Core Content and Skills, K-12. A Special Publication of the Journal of School Health. Special Report. American School Health Association.…
Over the last decade, the issues around sexual diversities in the school community have increased. Although there has been raised awareness around the topic, pre-service teachers and current school educators continue to be inactive in their approaches to addressing sexual diversities in the classroom and broader school population. This shows that educators and pre-service teachers are not being provided with enough support and knowledge in this controversial area and therefore, it is critical to implement strategies that will help encourage and support teachers in addressing this topic to young people in the school environment.…
If you discovered your child had taken up cigarette smoking, how would you respond? Would you simply accept it as typical teenage behavior and supply him with the safest brand of cigarettes available--those lowest in tar and nicotine--or would you respond in a manner that would relate to your child that smoking can cause serious diseases and even death? What if you found out your newly licensed teenage child was drinking alcohol? Would you check that off as "just stuff that teenagers do" and supply him with the safest car possible . . . just in case he decides to drive home from a party drunk?…
A heated topic of debate among many parents and public high schools is sex. Further, what message would distributing condoms at high school say about sex? A majority of parents would agree that it sends a negative message out to impressionable teenagers, that being sexually active is socially acceptable and even expected. In Seventeen Magazine the article “Sexual Reality” by Anne Fearon it states that most school officials, and even doctors agree, that it does not send that message at all. It promotes safe sex. Two-thirds of all STD’s occur in people 25-years-old and younger. Some people say this startling statistic is caused by teaching any objectives in health classes that are not abstinence. They believe that making condoms available upon request and teaching different forms of contraception promote sexual promiscuity. I agree with Dr. Victor Strasburger, of the New Mexico School of Medicine, who claims “Until Americans get over their hysteria about giving teenagers access to birth control, we will continue to have the highest teen pregnancy rates in the western world. If we want to attack this problem, we must not be afraid to fight it. Each year, an estimated 3 million adolescents are infected with STDs, accounting for 25 percent of the estimated 12 million new STDs occurring annually in the United States. In 1997, one-half of all new HIV infections in the United States occurred in people under the age of 25. One in four new HIV infections in the U.S. occurs in people under the age of 22. Making condoms available in public high schools would help to lower both pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease rates among teenagers.…
Zhang, Y. (2010) Sex Education in Schools Should Toward Moderation and Harmony. The Chinese Journal of Human Sexuality, 19(2), 40-42.…
“By teaching children about sexual relationships, the educational system encourages young people to experiment sexually, leading to an increase in teenage pregnancies.”…
Adolescents have an unlimited access to all media through television, internet, movies as well as their favorite magazines. Fifty-four percent of children in the U.S.A. have a television set in their bedroom, children spend more time learning about life through media than in any other manner ("Facts about media violence and the effect on the American family," 1998). When it comes time to learn about sex in school, too often the "human" issues are passed over because the teacher may feel uncomfortable or find the topic objectional making sex education the redundant experience of learning about what sexual parts are made up of (Steele, 1999). Adolescents should be taught in school the consequences of not being careful and taking precautions when it comes to being sexually active, they should not be learning from fictional characters. Adolescents who identify closely with…
Children and teens need good information about sex, sexual relationships, reproduction and birth control, sexually-transmitted diseases, and sexual abuse. Information is power, and in this high-risk day and age, children and teens need all the information they can get. To deny information about sex and the possibility of sexual abuse, as well as information about reproduction and disease, puts all children at risk. Refusing to talk about sex does not mean that children are safe, that nothing bad will happen to them. Only by opening up the discussion about sex, and beginning to talk to children at young age, will we ever be able to protect them from abuse. Ultimately it will only be when sex and sexual abuse are commonplace topics of conversation will perpetrators being held accountable. Only then will our society ever truly be able to prevent one of the most tragic things that can happen to a child.…
In the bygone days, most adults considered sex as a taboo topic and refrained strongly from discussing about it, notably to their children. The typical conservative view on sex education is that it shall never be the role of schools to teach it. They believe that schools need to focus solely on academic teaching and leave the rest such as emotional, physiological matters to a child’s parents. Although it is undoubtedly true that certain parents without adequate open-mindedness will not allow any discussion regarding sex at home, conservatives generally believe that the choice to or not to discuss sex with children shall be left to the discretion of parents (Warren, 2007). Slowly but surely, the entire idea harkens back to the days of young girls being married off to older men without being told what a wedding night entails, thus leading to the ruin of any girl’s youth. Too little information given can be just as bad as delivering faulty information to kids, regarding overall sexuality (Regina, 2007). Nowadays, with all sorts of sex-related problems seeing the red light in adolescent, the pendulum seems to have swung the opposite way. News about teenagers performing one-night stands, young ladies becoming unmarried mothers, people in the state of adolescence being infected with sexual diseases such as AIDS etc., has unceasingly bombarded our society. Therefore, the new generation has increasingly demanded for sex education to be taught during adolescence. It is emphasized that the younger generation, sexually-open yet sexually-ignorant, have to be instilled the appropriate principles and values of sex into their mind which lacks maturity (Samuel, 2011). Different authorities have different sayings regarding sex education. For example, (Haffner, 1990. pp. 9) states that sex education is education which increases the knowledge of the functional, structural and behavioral aspects of human…