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A little different reading for a warm summer evening? We have discussed the consequences of
reducing arts education in public schools. I return again to this subject. In a sex-saturated pop culture, why can’t we do better with
sex education? Surveys continue to
show that parents are not doing the job that is theirs to do first. KWC Schools stumble over sex education Two camps have emerged over the
years: Teach abstinence only, or teach safer sex. But both these approaches may
fall short of what teens need most. By Marjorie
Coeyman | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor, July
22, 2003 @ http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0722/p13s01-lepr.htm NEW
YORK - In some classrooms, sex education means a dark message about the
frightening potential consequences of sex outside marriage. Yet in others, a
class of the same title involves graphic, practical information about
contraceptives, presented with the casual expectation that these are things
every teen needs to know. There
are few topics in US public education that ignite more emotion - or bridge more
divergent viewpoints - than sex ed. In an age when Americans talk about sex
more freely than ever, they still struggle with the question of what to tell
their children. When it
comes to deciding what should be taught about the subject in school, it is hard
to find an inch of common ground in what has become a highly polarized
battleground. "[Sex
education] has become an ideological war, full of very fuzzy thinking,"
says Douglas Besharov, the Jacobs Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute
in Washington. "I blame this whole thing on the adults - on the left and
the right - who have confused this mightily." On the
one side of the divide are proponents of "abstinence-only" programs.
These programs teach that sex outside of marriage, at any age, is wrong.
Because advocates of this approach are concerned about presenting a mixed
message, most insist that these classes may not include any information about
contraceptives. On the
other side are those who favor what is called "comprehensive" sex
education. This approach may include teaching students that abstinence outside
marriage is either one option or perhaps even the best course, but this message
is followed up with practical information about sex. Generally this focuses on
how contraceptives work, where to get them, and why they are important. The two
sides find themselves almost entirely at odds. Abstinence-only
supporters protest that comprehensive sex ed confuses teens by encouraging
promiscuity. But those who favor comprehensive sex ed worry that failing to
give kids basic information about sex - and particularly about contraceptives -
only increases the danger of sexually transmitted diseases and teenage
pregnancies. However,
somewhere in between these two sets of concerns, some argue, lies a broad
middle ground in which students are being deprived of something more essential:
enough context in which to understand the information they're being given. It's hard sometimes to be patient with either side of this
debate, Mr. Besharov says. The abstinence-only supporters are so adamant about
preventing sex outside marriage that they may squelch useful information. But
at the same time, he says, those who favor comprehensive sex ed often fail to
distinguish between the needs of a 12-year-old and those of a 17-year-old. They
fail to appreciate that, "beyond some kind of moral issue, having sex too
early can be horribly damaging to young people," he says. When
sex ed was first introduced into US public schools in the 1940s, it was not done
with concern for the morals or emotions of teenagers but rather to control
sexually transmitted diseases and cut back on teen pregnancies. But in recent
years conservative politicians have embraced abstinence programs as the most
effective approach to questions of teen sex. Abstinence
programs received some government support as early as the 1980s, but in 1996
the Welfare Reform Act - signed into law by President Clinton - upped the ante
by providing $50 million annually for their propagation. But it's been under
the Bush administration that they have grown far more rapidly. The
federal government now funds such programs at $120 million annually, with a
proposal on the table to increase that to $135 million in fiscal year 2004.
States that accept such funding must agree that sex ed classes will make it
their "exclusive purpose" to teach "the social, psychological,
and health gains to be realized by abstaining from sexual activity." Today,
95 percent of US public secondary schools teach some kind of sex ed.
Comprehensive sex ed is still the favored approach. But with increasing funds
becoming available for them, abstinence-only programs are expected to grow
rapidly over the next few years - a development that worries those who want a
broader approach. "Delay [sexual] activity, decrease the number of
partners, and increase use of contraceptives," says Tamara Kreinin,
president and CEO of the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the US.
Those, she says, should be the main goals of public sex education. Ms.
Kreinin estimates, however, that in the 1990s, after almost 50 years of sex ed,
only about 5 to 10 percent of the sex ed classes in public schools were what
she would call "high quality" programs. In
general, she says, there isn't enough interaction in the classroom, and few
chances for students to ask the questions they really care about. Teachers have
little or no training and often very low comfort levels when it comes to
conducting such sessions. "Kids want to hear about love and values and relationships," she says. "This is not
something simply mechanical, it's multidimensional." Of
course this is sensitive territory, something many argue would be best handled
at home. But that doesn't appear to be happening in many homes today. "Any
public health expert would tell you that the best place to learn about [sex] is
at home," says Tina Hoff, vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation
in Menlo Park, Ca. "If this were happening we wouldn't even be having this
debate." Surveys
the Kaiser Family Foundation has done of young people show a very strong desire
for more information about sex, says Ms. Hoff, and children aged 10 or 11
definitely want that information to come from their parents. However, if parents don't take advantage of that window of
opportunity they may lose it, she adds. Within a few years - about the age of
13 and 14 - teens begin to say they prefer talking to their friends. Yet it's a
task many parents seem to continue to shirk. "Survey
poll after survey poll shows parents believe that kids should have
comprehensive sex ed in school and if you ask them if they should talk to their
kids they say yes," Kreinin reports. But when children are queried, they say they are still
waiting to hear from their parents. Some
observers are baffled that parents today, who accept prime-time TV shows rife
with sexual innuendo, are still so intensely uncomfortable talking about sex
with their children. "We
are a sex-saturated and sex- repressed society simultaneously," says
Michael Carerra, founder of the Children's Aid Society Carerra Adolescent
Pregnancy Prevention Program. Dr.
Carerra believes strongly in the need for what he calls a "holistic"
approach to sex education for young people. He
worked for two decades attempting to educate low-income teens about sex in
hopes of reasoning them out of irresponsible behavior and teenage pregnancies.
But he never felt his message fully got through. "I
finally saw that what I needed to do to get my sexuality message to stick was
to deal with all the rest of their lives," he says. He saw the kids around him using sex in an effort to find
power, influence, or love. What they needed, he realized, was not just to learn
about the consequences of sex outside marriage, but also to understand all the
other avenues to success and self-esteem available to them. "They
needed help with school, jobs, sports, arts, someone to talk to, and someone to
talk to about sex," he says. The
program Carerra founded now operates nationwide, focusing on mentoring,
counseling, job opportunities, companionship, and sex ed for low-income teens. A
recent three-year survey of 12 of its sites showed that students participating
had one-third fewer pregnancies and births than teens in a control group. Yet
such success is far from the norm in the US. According
to figures compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the
National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, in Washington, between 10 and 40
percent of US teen girls will get pregnant before the age of 20 - double the rate in Britain and 10 times
that of the Netherlands. Some
insist there is a link between such statistics and a weak sex ed system. "Other
industrialized nations do a much better job" of giving their young people
information about sex, Kreinin says. "They are more comfortable and it is
reflected in their kids' behavior." Yet there is some encouraging news. The number of high school students
who say they've never had sexual intercourse rose by almost 10 percent between
1991 and 2001, according to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. (end of excerpt) |
