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Introduction: Sex Education in the Public Schools
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16833 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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9 / 1989 |
777 Words |
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While there is little debate among American adults on whether sex education should be taught, there is much disagreement over what should be taught. Americans are further divided over other related questions: Who should do the teaching, how should it be done, and whose values should be conveyed? This month's theme is entirely devoted to exploring the controversial issue of sex education in the public schools
--a subject much in the news.
According to a recent survey, four-fifths of the state now require or encourage the teaching of sex education in the public schools, and nearly nine in ten large school districts support such instructions. This means that by the time young people graduate from high school, almost all of them will have had sex education. Yet, when we examine the sexual lives of American teenagers, there is little evidence that sex education is accomplishing its votaries' stated goal of reducing teen pregnancy. Studies show that one out of every two boys and one out of every three girls has had sexual intercourse by the time he or she is seventeen. Teen pregnancy rates are at or near an all-time high, despite a drop in the birthrates. Last year more than one million unmarried teenagers got pregnant. Over five hundred thousand had their babies out of wedlock, while more than four hundred thousand underwent abortions. These statistics do not even begin to reflect the full cost in human suffering produced by such relations. While sex education may not have caused these figures to increase, it clearly has not reduced sexual activity among our youth.
Faced by growing criticism, advocates claim "Sex education has never truly been implemented in America's schools. What's needed are new and more relevant curricula." They say that the old programs focused too much on the reproductive system, puberty, dating, marriage, and the responsibilities of parenthood and not enough on preventing pregnancy. Faye Wattleton, president of Planned Parenthood, recently noted, "We've got to be more concerned about preventing teen pregnancy than we are about stopping sexual relationships." Whereas the stress on abstinence in sex education deals with the problem of sexual activity, "comprehensive sex education" focuses only on two side effects of teenage sex: pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Supporters of the second approach propose more contraception education and abortion referral in order to control what they see as the primary problems. Hence, their push to install school-based clinics.
What most parents favor, according to recent studies, is teaching sex education from
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