If children and adolescents are educated about sex practices at too young of an age it can encourage them to partake in sexual activities prematurely. This can result in teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases and negative mental health or low self-esteem. If students are educated about sex with abstinence based program it can reduce the amount of teen pregnancies that occur. For example, Project IMPPACT in New York City “focuses on the importance of abstaining from sexual intercourse” (Lieberman, Gray, Wier, Fiorention, & Maloney, 2000). This program discovered that “Lower rates of adolescent sexual activity are associated with having parents who demonstrate a combination of traditional attitudes toward sexual behavior and effective communication practices” (Lieberman et al, 2000).…
Sex instruction is critical, however numerous amounts of students complete sex education classes with a mutilated perspective of sexuality and without a decent comprehension of contraception and safe-sex practices. Schools without sex education, leave children confused and often misguided. Students are left to learn through their parents about sex, who could, in turn, be misinformed themselves by never having taken a course in sexual education. Without sexual education classes, little is accomplished leaving a defective and contorted, one-sided point of view of safe sex such as abstinence. The lack of knowledge also can lead to an increase in teen pregnancy, and the spread of sexually transmitted disease, Sexual education should be taught to…
The article describes how an increasing number of teenage pregnancies in Texas are increasing at an alarming rate. That around 172 pregnant girls are enrolled in the city’s public schools and some as young us 13 are pregnant. Even more astounding number is that around 22,000 students have reported to have sexually transmitted infections. This has led the school board to institute a new curriculum an abstinence-plus program for seventh and eighth graders, emphasizing that waiting for sex is right thing to do. With this curriculum they hope reduce teenage pregnancies.…
In recent years, the question of whether schools should teach abstinence only programs or comprehensive sex education has been debated rigorously. Through his 2013 published piece, “Educating for Character in the Sexual Domain”, author Thomas Lickona focuses on the benefits of abstinence only programs. He uses the argument that abstinence creates character in today’s youth and cites multiple sources that support his viewpoint. On the other side of the discussion, authors of the article “Abstinence-Only Education and Teen Pregnancy Rates: Why We Need Comprehensive Sex Education in the U.S.”, David Hall and Kathrin Stanger-Hall address the lack of efficiency abstinence only programs provide. Published in 2011, their article relies heavily on…
According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the average teenager engages in sexual intercourse by the age of seventeen, but do not marry until the mid-twenties (citation). This means that young adults are at an increased risk for unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections for nearly ten years or longer. The numbers of students engaging in sexual activity of ages thirteen to twenty-four continues to grow each year, as does the number of unplanned pregnancies and HIV infections due to not being fully educated about the risks. Today, the duty of educating students and teenagers about sexual intercourse and the risks involved is left to the government and public school system. Abstinence education programs in public…
Teens did not know their own bodies. There were little factual resources that teenagers can depend. Few choices left for them, teenagers were guided along high risk actions. Abstinence was the approved option by parents, as it teaches teens to not be sexually active but not on protection or STDS. Another path is exploration on their own means. Exploration was dangerous, because teenagers were unaware of the consequences. Both options plunged teens’ health into a abyss. Then around 1980s, media started to reach towards the topic of sexual activity in teenagers. Many teen movies brushed against the topic about sexual activity and gave more positive responses than usual. Now, there is a rapid increase in sexual activity amongst teens. Due to this rise of sexually active teens, sexual health programs in high schools need to be updated to accommodate this change. High schools need to avoid only abstinence learning and implemented new programs for…
High school is either the best days of your life or four years of struggling and mild torture for teens, and the pressure to be sexually active can push adolescents towards the latter. The idea that sexual activity is the ticket to popularity is burned into teens brains by the media, through television, major label music, and movies, their peers, and celebrity role models. They are bombarded with images and sounds dripping with sexual innuendos and sometimes-blatant encouragement of adolescent sex. It is almost impossible to believe that any teen has not become sexually active after their constant exposure to the sex-craved American entertainment system. These are some of the reasons…
My learning throughout this course was different than other courses. I read from a textbook, which was similar, but the application was different. Seeing as this is a foundations of education course, it was about the history of education for most of the course and how the history shapes the present, and will shape the future of education. The application was a lot different, however, due to the fact that the information learned throughout the course applied to different projects. For example, while gathering information for the debate on abstinence-only education in schools, it was important to take into account what life was like, and how our culture has evolved into one where sex is not a taboo topic anymore. With that in mind, having abstinence-only education made sense for students of a different time, but the information provided to students needs to change with the times. This is different due to the fact that for other courses, the projects would include information on current topics instead of cumulative information.…
Educators supporting the Abstinence-Only Sex Education system are purposefully trying to restrict the student's knowledge of sex in hopes of preventing them from having sexual intercourse. They believe that if students don’t learn about the topic of sex, they won’t be able to become involved in any sexual activity. This thought process is simply not true, especially in the digital information age of the internet, where anything can be found with a simple search…
Abstinence only education programs do more harm than good for the nation’s youth. These sex (or lack there of) education programs aim to teach adolescents to avoid unplanned pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) by simply abstaining from all sexual interactions with a firm “Just say no!” attitude. People in favor of this approach argue that if teens are taught not to have sex then there is no reason to teach them how to have safe sexual encounters. It is believed by some that the act of teaching…
How would it feel to be pregnant? I will never have the chance to find out, thank God, but apparently about 13% of the female students at Timken High School in Canton, Ohio know how carrying a baby feels. The spread of this epidemic must be halted now before many other aspiring students have their dreams dashed by the responsibility of parenthood. Through stronger parental guidance and support, better abstinence programs, and more government action, this urgent problem must be quelled and brought under control by any means necessary.…
The two forms of sexual education taught in America are comprehensive (abstinence, safe sex, diseases) and abstinence-only (no sex till marriage). Abstinence-only sex education in the schools of the United States of America are bad for teenagers and won’t make a large difference in this country to a great extent because they don’t fully inform and aware students.…
The United States has the highest rates of sexually transmitted diseases and teen pregnancy of any developed country. Each year, unprotected sex results in almost four million teenagers contracting an STD. The HIV/AIDS epidemic is also a serious health concern for young people. Of the 40,000 new HIV infections in the US every year, about 20,000 occur in people under the age of 25, unprotected sex being to blame. (1) The National Abortion Rights Advocacy League says, “By denying teens the full range of information regarding human sexuality, abstinence-only education fails to provide young people with the information they need to protect their health and well-being.” (2) Surveys done by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that “students who have sex education know more and feel better prepared to handle different situations and decisions than those who have not.” (3) If the abstinence-only approach continues, it is expected have serious consequences by denying young people access to the information they need to protect themselves. These…
Abstinence based classes emphasizes on not having sexual intercourse before marriage, but many teens are likely to do so due to curiosity, the overload of hormones, and the influence of the media. Because the natural desires of teens today, parents should be encouraged to talk to their children about how to properly protect themselves from sex. Sex ed programs should be instructed by an educated teacher that knows well enough about the subject and is able to influence the class they are…
Abstinence-based sexual education comes from a foundation of Christian morality and employs shame and fear to attempt to prevent teenagers from engaging in sexual acts prior to marriage. The goal is to reduce teenage pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections, and of course, the perceived sin of adultery. However noble these goals may be, abstinence-based education has been repeatedly proven to be non-effective, particularly when compared to more comprehensive sexual education programs. The result of multiple generations of ineffective sexuality…