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Writer's Block: School days
Mar. 28th, 2011 05:53 pm[Error: unknown template qotd]
Ooh, that's a tough question. I feel really strongly both yes and no. (For reference, I am a believer in abstinence and always have been, but also a believer in informed consent and people being able to make their own decisions for themselves.)
The part of me that feels "yes" remembers how awkward it was to have "The Talk" with my parents. It's a very personal subject and I realise, in retrospect, that my parents were pretty biased about what they told me. (I say 'parents'; really it was just my mom.) In a similar vein, I would guess that some parents either don't care about educating their children, or they do a poor job of it for whatever reason, and then their children might make uninformed judgments and decisions about sex. I remember one girl I knew in high school who had already had one baby, and after taking the school's sex ed program she said she would be living a completely different life if she had known even half of that information before. I think schools should definitely provide sex education because: a) parents may for whatever reason give an incomplete or biased picture, b) the awkwardness of a parental "Talk" is mostly avoided, and c) school-sponsored sex education has the weight of an institution behind it, which to impressionable children might be more socially driving.
On the flip side, school-mandated sex education has a lot of deficiencies, so a part of me really wants to say "no" to it as well. One of my main reasons is that I really don't think it's the place of the school to be the primary material resource on something so important to a person's future life choices. Parents should be taking an active role in the lives of their kids, not depending on the school to take care of and nurture them. Another thing: it's just as possible to have bias in a school program, except that's worse because then it's affecting every kid in the class, not just one or two. Another plague of the school-run program is giving too much or too little information, regardless of what the kids involved are ready for. I personally feel that my school-run sex ed program came about six years too late - I was a precocious kid - but my younger sister's program was a bit earlier and a LOT more graphic. Basically, the reasons here are the opposite of the reasons I gave above. Schools shouldn't be the sole provider of sex education because: a) a school program can't personalize the information it gives to each student's level, b) the school program is often impersonal and scary, and c)institutions shouldn't be responsible for the social well-being of someone's children.
My opinion: there should be both.
Ooh, that's a tough question. I feel really strongly both yes and no. (For reference, I am a believer in abstinence and always have been, but also a believer in informed consent and people being able to make their own decisions for themselves.)
The part of me that feels "yes" remembers how awkward it was to have "The Talk" with my parents. It's a very personal subject and I realise, in retrospect, that my parents were pretty biased about what they told me. (I say 'parents'; really it was just my mom.) In a similar vein, I would guess that some parents either don't care about educating their children, or they do a poor job of it for whatever reason, and then their children might make uninformed judgments and decisions about sex. I remember one girl I knew in high school who had already had one baby, and after taking the school's sex ed program she said she would be living a completely different life if she had known even half of that information before. I think schools should definitely provide sex education because: a) parents may for whatever reason give an incomplete or biased picture, b) the awkwardness of a parental "Talk" is mostly avoided, and c) school-sponsored sex education has the weight of an institution behind it, which to impressionable children might be more socially driving.
On the flip side, school-mandated sex education has a lot of deficiencies, so a part of me really wants to say "no" to it as well. One of my main reasons is that I really don't think it's the place of the school to be the primary material resource on something so important to a person's future life choices. Parents should be taking an active role in the lives of their kids, not depending on the school to take care of and nurture them. Another thing: it's just as possible to have bias in a school program, except that's worse because then it's affecting every kid in the class, not just one or two. Another plague of the school-run program is giving too much or too little information, regardless of what the kids involved are ready for. I personally feel that my school-run sex ed program came about six years too late - I was a precocious kid - but my younger sister's program was a bit earlier and a LOT more graphic. Basically, the reasons here are the opposite of the reasons I gave above. Schools shouldn't be the sole provider of sex education because: a) a school program can't personalize the information it gives to each student's level, b) the school program is often impersonal and scary, and c)institutions shouldn't be responsible for the social well-being of someone's children.
My opinion: there should be both.
