Sex Education in Schools

What age is to early for students to learn about sex? How much should they be taught? What should they be taught?

There are many question to be asked when it comes to sex education being taught in school. Many schools are having problems deciding whether or not to teach sex education, and what grade they should start teaching it. Schools also need to be sure parents are accepting of what is being taught and that they follow the beliefs of students when it comes to sex. Depending on the school students are attending, depends on what they are being taught.

There are two different types of sex education classes: Comprehensive Sex Education and Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Program. They are two completely different forms of teaching. One class maybe good for some students and another class might be better for other students.

"Comprehensive Sexuality Education is a program that starts in kindergarten and continues through high school. It brings up age appropriate sexuality topics and covers the broad spectrum of sex education, including safe sex, STDs, contraceptives, masturbation, body image, and more... Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Programs emphasize abstinence from all sexual behaviors and do not cover information on contraceptives, STDs, masturbation, etc. "

Schools and teachers need to know what type of students will take the most information out of which class. Students seem to be growing up faster than anyone can expect and personally I believe a comprehensive sexuality education program would be most useful for students to understand what they are doing and how to do everything safely. It is not bad to promote abstinence, but teachers need to be prepared for the very few students will follow the abstinence program.

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_sexEd2006.htmlexEd2006.html- gives very insiteful information about teens and sex. Some of the information is listed below.

Teaching Gap

There is a large gap between what teachers believe should be covered and what they actually teach on some topics in sex education.

Sex and Pregnancy Among Teens

• By their 18th birthday, six in 10 teenage women and more than five in 10 teenage men have had sexual intercourse.

• Between 1995 and 2002, the number of teens aged 15–17 who had ever engaged in sexual intercourse declined 10%.

• Of the approximately 750,000 teen pregnancies that occur each year, 82% are unintended. More than one-quarter end in abortion.

• The pregnancy rate among U.S. women aged 15–19 has declined steadily—from 117 pregnancies per 1,000 women in 1990 to 75 per 1,000 women in 2002

• 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

• Every year, roughly nine million new sexually transmitted infections (STIs) occur among teens and young adults in the United States. Compared with rates among teens in Canada and Western Europe, rates of gonorrhea and chlamydia among U.S. teens are extremely high

• Though teens in the United States have levels of sexual activity similar to levels among their Canadian, English, French and Swedish peers, they are more likely to have shorter and more sporadic sexual relationships and are less likely to use contraceptives.

Sex Education: Teens’ Perspectives

• By 2002, one-third of teens had not received any formal instruction about contraception

• More than one in five adolescents (21% of females and 24% of males) received abstinence education without receiving instruction about birth control in 2002, compared with 8–9% in 1995.

• In 2002, only 62% of sexually experienced female teens had received instruction about contraception before they first had sex, compared with 72% in 1995.

• Only one out of three sexually experienced black males and fewer than half of sexually experienced black females had received instruction about contraception before the first time they had sex.

• One-quarter of sexually experienced teens had not received instruction about abstinence before first sex.