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Exemplary Abstinence-Based Sex Education Programs
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16841 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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| Issue
Date : |
9 / 1989 |
7,007 Words |
| Author
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Dinah Richard
Dinah Richard serves as a consultant and researcher on
abstinence education. She resides in San Antonio. |
Most policy-makers agree that an adolescent-sexuality problem exists in our country and that additional measures are needed to confront it. Moreover, most would like young people to learn about human sexuality for the purpose of creating a healthier life, not simply for alleviating a crisis. Yet when it comes to the question of how to teach sex education, decision makers begin to part ways. In the past, the debate was simply over whether sex education should be taught at all. Now the concern is over what type of sex education to teach and who should teach it.
As parents, school officials, clergy, legislators, medical workers, and other concerned adults are faced with the task of deciding which approach to choose, they need to understand the underlying educational and philosophical perspectives that distinguish the approaches to sex education. Only with those bases in mind will decision makers be able to realize which approach is superior and why it is important to formulate programs founded on successful principles.
The most rudimentary forms of sex education in the 1950s and 1960s contained basic information about anatomy and reproduction and were often covered in either physical education or biology. At that time, little concern was placed on a discussion of values because the family, church, school, and other institutions gave a clear and consistent theme about morality. Though the message sometimes lacked sufficient factual information from which adolescents could gain a more complete understanding about sexuality, young people nevertheless had a moral basis from which they could recognize right and wrong. While the form of instruction was not perfect, it was adequate.
Today many sex education courses are "facts only," but some have added more information on, for example, the consequences of sexual activity (i.e. pregnancy and sexuality transmitted diseases), contraception, and other topics. The assumption underlying this approach is either that information is all that teens need or perhaps that information is all that schools are allowed to disseminate.
The limitations to today's type of "facts only" approach is that teens are barraged with messages from peers, television, movies, music, and advertising to become sexually active. These negative influences often outweigh the moral instruction that adolescents receive elsewhere. Without consistent moral training from all social institutions, these facts do not transfer adequately to life. Knowledge alone does not produce wisdom.
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