Centerfield

Sounds better than my high school health class, aka Pictures of Horrible Diseases That Will Rot Your Penis If You Have Sex class.

Ah, yes, the Tertiary Syphilis Show!

Ranked right up there with the "Blood on the Highway" Driver's Ed film.

During fifth grade the girls were taken out of class one day for a "Mother/daughter Tea." From what I heard later, they learned about periods and such.

What did the boys do during this? They watched a movie about dune buggies.

Mind you, the credits did include something about "sex education" (which caused kids to giggle), but I have yet to figure out in what way it educated me about sex.

Freudian perhaps? Subliminal messages? Who knows?

The problem with "Abstinance-based Education" is that it doesnt' include education about birth control. The approach is, essentially, "Don't have sex."

The absurd thing about this is that the evil, contraceptive-based education was never pro-premarital sex. Nobody is opposed to premarital sex, except for the millions having it. (Heck, most of them will be against it later.)

What makes sense to me is that schools provide a variety of options and that parents can be involved in choosing what things the kids get exposed to, so that the education the students get complements and reinforces parental sensibilities.

I have no problem with suggesting to kids that there's merit to waiting. But abstinence is meritorious only insofar as it goes. It doesn't arm kids with info about how to proceed safely should their biological urges get the better of them. So, when abstinence fails, it bound to fail with worse consequences than a program of absttinency advocacy coupled with biological and social education.

I have the same problem with abstinence only education regarding alcohol and other drugs. When abstinence fails, kids are bound to experience a cognitive dissonance over a percieved difference between what they were told, and what they feel. I'm all for discouraging abuse and even use of alcohol and other drugs, but it doesn't feel like near enough. Kids becoming adults will need to make adult decisions, and I think many kids would be better served by a program that, especially for alcohol, encourages them to be very aware of the distinction between use and abuse.

"What makes sense to me is that schools provide a variety of options and that parents can be involved in choosing what things the kids get exposed to, so that the education the students get complements and reinforces parental sensibilities."

I agree.

I also think that the emphasis on "pre-marital" sex is misplaced. Frankly, if my kids don't get mrried before they're in their 30s, I think it would be fine if they had sex. Goodness knows, I don't want to really know anything about it, but premarital sex in and of itself isn't objectionable for me. What's a problem is emotionally or physically unhealthy sex, because of a person's age or for other reasons.

I once saw a televised school board meeting about sex education, and many people were arguing for an abstinence-only program. And a lot of people were making the comparison between drugs and sex....which works, to some degree. But as one woman very emphatically pointed out, generally we don't want our kids to ever use dangerous drugs. But we *do* presumably want them to have sex eventually, at least if they want to.

I remember, too, -- this was years ago -- watching Phil Donahue (*years* ago), and there was a debate over sex ed. And one of the kids pointed out that abstinence was a great idea, at least for now, but the whole premarital sex thing was going too far. And the gentleman that was promoting abstinence looked really startled, upset, and said "why?". And the kid replied, well, he might not get married until his twenties -- which he clearly thought was an unimaginable number of years away. But it's true -- people are getting married later and later. And some people do basically form relationships for years without getting married. I don't think government really needs to be telling kids that they shouldn't be having sex, even when they are 29, if they're not married.

Rick;

They let you stay in your health class for the self examination film? What a progessive group!
Now this material is presented on television in some markets (and rightly so).

Seriously, your (our) high school health classes handled sex ed. in a very mature and clinical "no nonsense" manner - in contrast with the minimal information about health and substance abuse that we received in elementary school.

I never understood why the neutral high school approach met with objections in other school districts and geographic regions. This material was not presented to drive us into sexual activity - as feared by many detractors to this approach, who sometimes voice the fear that sexual education increases curiousity and resulting activity.

I have conflicting memories from this period between the kids that talked (bragged) a lot and the subset that was actually sexually active. More were far more interested in pot, beer or cigarettes. The social pressure came from the loudmouths over those that responded to this peer group.

For all practicial purposes those teens that were so curious would have found the opportunities (place and time, willing partner) to experiment no matter what. On the other hand those who were raised to maintain strict standards of behaviour (and understood the consequences of disobedience) or were just "not ready" (for whatever reason), abstained during their teen years.