Sex Education in Schools

Sex Education in Schools

By: Ashley Hardy

If you went to a public school sometime during your middle school or high school years, you probably remember when sex education was taught. The boys and girls may have been split up to talk about different things regarding growing up and puberty. Or you may remember being in one big class discussing STIs and seeing some pretty graphic pictures of  oozing, swelling, or bumps. It is no hidden fact that unwanted pregnancies and STI rates have risen in our generation. About 19 million sexual transmitted illness are reported every year and the really horrible part is that half of those statistics are from teens and young adults (1).

With these high statistics why wouldn't anyone not want to allow sexual education to be taught in public schools? Well it goes back to the debate over teaching abstinence or teaching protection. People, especially those with religious backgrounds, believe that teaching anything other than abstaining will just encourage teens to have sex out of wedlock. But what should be done about the kids who heard the abstinence talk but still choose to have sex. Without any education on the forms of protection and how it is used they could become victims of STI’s or an unwanted pregnancy. Unknown to a lot of people, most guardians believe that there should be a form of sexual education given to kids, about 89%-95% to be precise (1).

I read an article in the New York Times that stated that sexual education was now being taught to Kindergarten through fourth grades in the Chicago Board of Education district. At first I was appalled at the thought of my five year old sister learning about sex while she learned about her ABC’s and 123’s. Then as I read on I realized what kind of curriculum they planned on teaching the Kindergartners. The curriculum starts off explaining the correct terms of certain body parts and then ends discussing bullying and how to handle it (2).

  I actually feel that that this is a great start in the sex discussion and I feel that it is age appropriate. I also feel that by starting at an early age discussing the very basic and gradually increasing on the discussing as age permits, it will make the talk about sex much easier than having this big discussion at puberty.

Starting the sex discussion at the Kindergarten age allows for not only the abstinence discussion to be given at the early stages of the talk, but also for the talk of contraception to be given at the age appropriate time when kids or teens are mentally prepared for it. I feel that this is more of a win-win situation than just discussing abstaining or contraception. We want children and teens to be well informed of all the risks of sex and we can’t just tell them about the parts we want them to hear but also the other parts that may benefit them in the future.