Currently, sex ed is indeed taught in compulsory 8th grade health classes at Delaware Valley. (Am I the only one who remembers watching The Miracle of Life with Mr. Raniero?) I don't think the number of STIs and pregnancies could be significantly decreased by teaching kids about sex in high school. Do we honestly believe that sexually-active students do not know what an STD is? Or how to put a condom on?
Is lack of education really the problem here? If so, is it really the school's responsibility to regularly teach its students about safe sex? And how will perennially discussing sex with high school students prevent the spread of STIs and pregnancies among students who are becoming sexually active in middle school?
(Is sex on the PSSAs yet?)
We also need to do our homework and consider the limitations. Public schools will receive federal funding only for abstinence-only sex ed programs. Federal funding is not provided to public schools for comprehensive sex education.
Teen pregnancy numbers in the U.S. have plummeted in the past few decades, according to the National Center for Health Statistics of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Has anyone even looked at past data for the DV area? The media have just taken one isolated number and made the DV pregnancy and STI "spike" into a national crisis.
No one has once paused from the sensationalization to do some research and look for trends or patterns in historical data or data from nearby schools. (I'm pretty sure the board has a homework policy somewhere...) And while researching, what about surveying the students? Maybe someone should find out exactly when students become sexually active and whether or not at that time they need to spend class time learning about sex, before we all yield to the media's fear-mongering and dive headfirst into curriculum changes and arbitrary opinions.
My message to DV (and the media):
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8 comments:
I moved to Milford in 2001, shortly after 9/11. I came from a catholic school background where even there we had a better sex education program; even they knew if you didn't talk about it, everyone would pay for their uneducated actions in the end. I feel like a lot of things at DV go unspoken or dealt with until something like this happens. So DV offers sex ed in 8th grade. Fine. But how many kids do you know that listen the first time their told something? In a time when hormones are raging and kids are rebelling isn't it a good idea to follow through with this? Are they afraid of it or something?
I mean, geez, even family guy did an episode on sex ed in schools. Saterical, yes, but who do kids listen to more nowadays, their parents or stewy griffin?
I'm not by any means saying that the school should turn to family guy for its moral lessons but if a student can get suspended for breaking the law outside of school, even if what they did wasn't school related, then that means the school wants some connection between school and outside life. Isn’t sex one of those things?
I do agree that sex ed should be taught with a different approach than just the abstinence is the only way method. Also in eighth grade who actually cares about school as much as they do in high school so not every kid is gonna pay attention. it should be taught in high school in either ninth or tenth grade. In addition teaching kids the value of safe sex should be a primary concern for sex ed classes. Although i do believe the school should provide some type of sex ed program to the students, i believe that it is primarily the parents responsibility to talk to their child about safe sex. I know its awkward and neither the child nor the parent may want to do it but its necessary. The recent spike in sti's are not just the school's fault its the parents' as well. the parents need to assume responsibility and talk to their children about safe sex and even goes as far as provide them with the necessary items to prevent sti's and pregnancy( ex. condoms, birth control, etc.).
Schools should have no responsibility in teaching sexual education, that is the role of the parent. In my opinion those who say the schools are at fault have shirked their responsibilities as caregivers. What ever happened to the conversation about the birds and bees that children used to have with their parents? I'll tell you where it went, into working too much and leaving kids unattended. It went into putting kids in front of televisions and video games thinking they are a good substitute for quality family time. Have the times changed so much so that parenting is pawned off onto teachers, who already have so much to deal with given the addition of high stakes testing. A dialogue on school responsibility to teach about sex is pointless and reflective of a much larger societal problem, poor parenting. Erin, you cannot be farther from the truth. The truth is that schools should worry about reading, writing, and 'rithmatic and save religion and morals for parents. How about parents start controlling their kids and stop allowing the schools to have to police bus stop fights and drug incidents? How about we point the finger of blame in the right direction for a change.
According to the letter, students are becoming sexually active in middle school, so I think it is more appropriate to teach sex ed in 7th or 8th grade rather than high school.
At the board meeting in June, the administration and school board indicated that sex ed will take place earlier than eighth grade, and that each time students have health class through high school they will get a refresher on the dangers of STDs. I think that is a good route to go.
Also, thanks for reading and commenting on the blog!
There is not one group or organization that can be blamed or called the source of this problem. The issue is exceptionally comprehensive. From what I can see, there are 3 entities that can be placed at fault:
1. Parents
2. Schools
3. Pop Culture
1. Sex is a touchy subject with parents. I have overheard conversations of parents who have sent their children in the house whenever the adults are talking about the sex issues in DV. That is wrong. So so wrong. The parent is the biggest influence in any person's life, no matter what age. I forget the exact statistic, but a surprisingly high percentage of grown men still call their fathers either daily or weekly. Parents do not want to deal with this issue with their children. Who knows why? I sure as hell don't. Now because parents don't deal with this issue with their children and it is impossible to force parents to do this, it then the responsibility of PROPER SEX EDUCATION falls to the school district, the only other important organizational structure that almost every child must experience.
2. School districts must be given credit for at least attempting sex education. Sex education is harder for schools to deal with than almost any other issue because there is a strong religious factor. I can understand this however it is a lousy excuse for unrealistic sex education. If a child's parents would find offense to the teaching of birth control, then all parents must be notified before the class is given that SAFE SEX WITH BIRTH CONTROL is going to be taught and that parents may have their children excused from the class because it violates his or her religious teachings. I am all for such a system. It is 100% American. It even upholds the separation of church and state in public schools because birth control is roughly secular and abstinence-only cares non-secular undertones. What is unrealistic about sex education in our school system? The teaching of nothing but abstinence. It simply isn't realistic in this day and age. I'll touch on that in a second. But birth control needs to taught and it needs to be taught properly.
3. Pop culture is the force that will overturn anything and everything that is taught to children by either schools or parents. Today's culture and media promote excess, materialism, and happiness. One particular culture, that happens to be the most mainstream culture and has the most influence over popular media, encourages the mistreatment of women and raging and uncaring sex. Kids want to emulate what they see on MTV. It is as simple as that.
Do I have a solution? No. The only course of action I can even rationally discuss is proper sex education in the schools. You can't force parents to talk to their kids about sex and it's nigh impossible to get kids to stop listening to their new-fangled rap music.
As a student at Delaware Valley, I feel the school absolutely needs to stop pretending their abstinence only sex ed is helping anyone and get in touch with the reality of the typical high school student.
As for this whole STD crisis that's going on in DV lately, I think a large majority of students don't completely understand STDs. Sure, they know the names of them and some of the symptoms, but a lot of students have this idea put in their heads that “if I don't feel anything or see anything, I'm okay," which isn't true. Unless you do have symptoms, which a lot of the time you don’t when you have STDs, the only way to know is to get tested, and many students wouldn't consider asking their parents to take them to do that. They don't know about the free STD testing clinics right here in Milford, nor do they know how important it is for them to get tested.
As for the 8th grade sex ed classes, they are completely ineffective. Perhaps it was just my class, but I distinctly remember having to read the definition of "nocturnal emission" out loud to my entire class of immature students. I don't think those types of things are the fore-front of the problem DV is facing with STDs; all reading those definitions does is make everyone in the room giggle. How to talk to your parents about sex, where to get tested, the truth about STDs, the truth about pregnancy: these are important topics to cover with students. If the school’s sex ed classes focused on things like that, maybe our STD and teen pregnancy issues wouldn't be as bad as they are.
As for parents being offended by the school teaching their children about sex, all of the parents I have spoken to about the issue have all said they'd like a more useful sex ed curriculum. And honestly, for the parents who are so offended; would you rather have your child be educated on the subject and make a safe decision for his or herself, or would you rather her come home pregnant or him tell you he has AIDS? Even if neither of those things happen to your kid after they have sex, do you want to allow them to take that chance because they didn't know enough about STDs or pregnancy? I don't think any parent would want that for their child, regardless of their opinion on sex ed in school. As Sam said, if parents have such a strong problem with their children being taught about safe sex, they should simply be excused from the class and their parents can talk to their kids about it later if they so choose.
Also as Sam said (he made quite a few good points), pop culture also plays a large part in this. I remember watching a Britney Spears concert on TV when I was pretty young and my mom turning it off saying Britney was a bad influence. And that was just Britney Spears in a tight leather outfit. Think about the things on TV now; the amount of sex children are exposed to is much, much higher than it was when my parents were growing up or even when I was growing up. Children are exposed to this at a very young age, thanks to not only TV but the internet as well, so how does being educated on the subject do any more harm than is already done? If anything, it tries to help the problem that has already been started, and I don't see how that can be refuted. Educating students on sex doesn't send them the message that it's okay or that they should be doing it; the internet, television and basically society as a whole have taken care of that. Educating students on sex helps them to be safe and possibly save their lives.
I agree with the comment under Erin's; I'm sure it's very difficult for parents to have the knowledge that their kid is having sex and they don't want them to, but providing them with condoms, birth control or whatever else they need is best. You can't stop them from having sex so the least you can do is keep them as safe as possible. That's basically every parent’s job, even if in this context it's very difficult.
Oh, and my parents have given me the "birds and the bees talk" more times than I can count, and we've had plenty of hour-long discussions about STDs, teen pregnancy and all that fun stuff. I know there are many more parents like mine who try very hard to keep an open relationship with their children about sex. The biggest problem with some kids is not wanting to hear “the sex talk” from their parents over and over again. They eventually tune it out, therefore not knowing the important information their parents are trying to give them, which is where the sex ed classes come in. Even if the parents try, the kids don’t always listen. Also, since when did every kid sit home alone all day playing video games their parents threw in front of a TV for them? I don't do that and my parents work a lot of hours to support my family; I must be abnormal or something. As a matter of fact, a few hours ago I sat down and watched The Bucket List with my family, and we have quality time like that almost every day.
Anyway, high stakes testing? I agree the tests are "high stake" since the school will lose funding if we, GOD FORBID, fail the holy PSSAs. But what English teacher doubles as a health teacher? Having sex ed classes doesn’t take away from PSSA preparation, that’s what they do in classes like English and math. But pleasing our government with "Advanced" PSSA scores is more important than your child not getting an STD or pregnant? Who has shirked their responsibility as the caregiver now? If parents are completely to blame as you claim they are, how do you suggest we change every single one of them who is obviously neglecting their parental duties? I don't see it being feasibly possible to somehow fix corrupt parenting since, from your argument, no parent has time to deal with the burden of taking care of their children these days.
Part of Delaware Valley’s mission statement is to “prepare students for life’s journey,” and I’m pretty sure sex comes up in everyone’s “life journey.” The school would simply not be fulfilling its own mission by neglecting such a significant part of human life.
I agree parents need to play a part in their children's sexual education and health, but the school needs to step in and do a better job of reinforcing these ideas and giving students the facts they need to protect themselves.
As, number ONE, A PARENT in this area, and also pretty much a lifelong resident,I have to follow up on this..
Recently, I had a letter to the editor appear in the Times-Herald record (7/4)..
Some people may have mistook my response to mean that it it NOTthe responsibilities of parents to educate their kids...nothing can be farther from the truth.
I have seen recent letters to editors from both the THR and the Dispatch about this issue...my biggest problem is why we should have to buy or subscribe to a SCRANTON paper, or some other paper that is only issued bi-weekly or does not cover our area, to realize what is happening here...
The best thing I did this morning was to log onto RB for DV....
After printing out about 30 pages of blogs, it seems like the kids in my area feel as I do...
DV NEEDS TO DO MORE...
Parents can only do so much, especially when we have NO information about a problem present in our district, until after most schools are closed....maybe DVBOE expects this problem to be absolved by parents by the beginning of next school year...
As stated, I have read letters...
I, however, have issues...
According to one letter, DV's numbers are below the 'national average'...
Is this the average of ALL HS kids, or the average of all teens that have quit school, never went to school, or more??
Are the averages taken from America as a whole, taking in inner cities and bigger areas than ours, or are they from rural areas, as we are??
Are they taken from areas that are as demographically split up as our area is...one common school district with at least three different area groups...
Are they taken from areas that has seen a MASSIVE increase in population to the schools, due to the fact that we offer better living conditions for a cheaper price for newcommers, but abhorrable wages for locals that hold jobs here..
Also, with the increase in our population, can these numbers be split up to reflect the areas of the district so we can see where the problem lies?
In reading EVERYTHING on this site, I think my letter to the TH-R was on-base...student response has backed me up in stating that this district NEEDS to do more NOW...
Also, in reading the responses here, they also support my belief that this district puts more effort into their State-standardized testing...PSSA'a...than they do the general cirriculum...
Far too often we are asked to 'prepare' our kids over the summer months for these tests...
THIS IS CALLED TEACHING
And I don't even want to touch on the 'AR' reading programs.
If mis-stating numbers to get a group together is your game, than so be it..
I grew up here and graduated 25 years ago...
One letter stated about having nothing to do in '95.... 'NO INTERNET'...
In '84, we didn't have a god-damned CPU that was nothing more than a glorified video console..
You will hear more from me...
I have to do this because I listen to today's music, watch today's tv, have nothing to do, and spend too much time on my computer...
BTW...I haven't gotten ANYONE pregnant in 13yrs...
Hi I'm a sixteen year old girl and I go to a public high school in the Bay Area. I'd just like to say that until sex ed at my school alot of kids believed the myths and didn't know the truth (like the one that if you pull out you can't get pregnant). Right now I'm living with my grandpa and there's no way in hell I'm talking to him about sex. Sex is happening all the time at high schools (not just ghetto ones like mine) and adults don't realize the importance of sex ed, because not everyone has loving perfect families like the ones on TV to talk to their kids about where babies come from.
I think so long as it only helps one kid in the class who is clueless, its worth it.
And in health class they teach us about how everything works as well, as well as diseases. Its not just about Sex.
Thank you for your time.
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