Sex Education in the Classroom: A Good Thing, Term Paper Example

Schools exist to get children ready to face life as adults who make positive contributions to society. Schools work with parents to achieve common goals on behalf of students. Chiefly, schools desire to see boys and girls mature as people who are able to negotiate the demands of life as critical thinkers and informed doers. To omit classes about sex in public schools is to deny students the right to know about themselves in relation to others.

Education about sex should be a part of every student’s classroom experience at all grade levels, K-12, and taught in age-appropriate ways, with the permission of parents. Only those students whose parents opt out of this curricular requirement should receive waivers from such classes, and requirements put in force to make parent opt-out more difficult, for there is more at stake with sex education than parental feelings. Sexual decisions affect society as a whole, and sexual education can only help students to confront truths that invariably collide with them, head on, on their paths toward adulthood. Brough (2008) suggests that parents who wish to remove their children from public school sex education classes need to attend one of the classes offered at the schools of their children to investigate before they eliminate.

This is not a silly, trivial issue. This is a life changing issue. Parents who are actively involved in the lives of their children desperately seek assistance in talking about sexuality. Parents who abdicate many of their parental responsibilities need schools to prepare their children to understand how sexuality is a part of life.

This paper offers research-based evidence in support of this opinion and seeks to discredit any argument raised in support of abstinence-only education or the unfocused application of sex education classes from public schools.

Goals of Sex Education

If we say that sex education is important, then we should know how to articulate salient reasons for its inclusion in the curriculum. Four major goals of sex education, established according to the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS) (Hedman, Larsen, & Bohnenblust), verbalize well the purposes that most Americans hold for such a discourse at school:

1. Sexuality education should provide accurate information about sexuality, growth and development, reproduction, anatomy, physiology, masturbation, family life, pregnancy, childbirth, parenthood, sexual response, sexual orientation, gender identity, contraception, abortion, abuse, and sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS;
2. Sexuality education should provide opportunities for the kinds of questioning and exploration that lead to proper assessments of community attitudes about gender and sexuality. This should lead to better understandings of family values, critical thinking, self-esteem, self-efficacy, and personal obligations to society;
3. Sexuality education should help students in the development of intrapersonal skills, decision-making, assertiveness, and peer refusal skills. This approach prepares students for satisfying relationships; and,
4. Sexuality education should help people to exercise responsibility for sexual relationships as it addresses issues of abstinence, peer pressure, and the use of contraception.

There are additional goals, such as those aligning with public health matters and personal spiritual applications, which add comfortably to SIECUS’s list as targets for quality sex education in the United States.

Traits of Effective Sex Education Programs

Specific features separate poor or mediocre programs from those that succeed in reaching the goals of sex education in schools. Effective school based sex education programs have similar traits. According to McKee (2008), 10 traits indicate the presence of quality sex education in schools:

1. Good programs focus narrowly, meaning they focus on behaviors, such as delaying becoming sexually active and the use of contraceptive methods;
2. Good programs base their approaches on theory, meaning they try to change risky beliefs about sexual behaviors;
3. Good programs provide clear messages about sex, sexually transmitted diseases, and pregnancy, meaning they do more than lay out the pros and cons of choices;
4. Good programs give basic information that offer highlighted facts rather than detailed analyses, meaning they share emphasis through synthesis;
5. Good programs address peer pressure through discussing situations that might lead to sex, meaning they familiarize students with verbal and non-verbal cues that a person might send or receive as inducements for sex;
6. Good programs teach students how to communicate, meaning negotiation and refusal, and opportunities to practice these in classes;
7. Good programs include interactive features, meaning the opportunity to engage through games, small groups, role-play, and written exercise that help to personalize information;
8. Good programs reflect the experiences of the people in the program, meaning their culture and their age-related sexual interests and needs;
9. Good programs have multiple sessions, meaning they last long enough to influence behaviors over a period of time, meaning they last long enough to track student behaviors; and,
10. Good programs select teachers carefully, meaning they place a high premium on recruitment and training adults and peer leaders who believe in what they are teaching.

It is frightening to imagine the kind of sex education that school age children would acquire if schools took a hands-off approach to it. With sexual images bombarding television, movie screens, and printed media, and the plethora of sexually explicit Internet sources readily available to children, misinformation could easily rule the day without teachers and reliable resources to answer genuine questions from young people about their sexuality. If learning about sex is considered dirty or shameful, then students will make poorer choices based on flawed facts.

Tools Needed for Sex Education Success

Teachers need certain tools if they are to do a god job toward meeting and surpassing the goals and traits that define quality educational experiences about sex. Gelperin and Schroeder (2008) identify needs of teachers on their quest for sex education success. For starters, these include making it possible for teachers to attend conferences, in-service training, with or without school administrators and parents. Next, magazine subscriptions to sex education publications, used creatively in classrooms, help immensely. Finally, collaborations between schools and community partners garner support from parents and local stakeholders and, used judiciously, add to the value of local school instruction.

Abstinence-Based Programs for Sex Education

Sex education, as we know it, has been largely ineffective if its goal is to reduce the number of teens who engage in sexual activities or who become pregnant. “Approximately 34% of ninth graders in the United States reported having engaged in voluntary sexual intercourse” (Zanis, 2005, p. 59). Research corroborates this. “No evidence exists to date that these (abstinence only) programs are effective at delaying sexual activity or reducing unintended pregnancy or the spread of disease” (No author, Contemporary Sexuality, 2002. p. 9).

Abstinence-based programs require the following bases (Greenblatt):

1. The program has to have the exclusive purpose of teaching that abstaining from sexual activity makes for gains in social and psychological health;
2. Abstinence from any form of sexual activity, outside of marriage, for the school age child is the expected standard that is taught;
3. The message is delivered that abstinence is the only certain method of avoiding pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases;
4. Monogamous, faithful relationships, within a marital context, is the expected standard and is always socially acceptable;
5. Harmful physical and psychological effects result from sexual activity outside of marriage;
6. Child-bearing outside of marriage has harmful consequences for children, their parents, and society as a whole;
7. Knowing how to reject sexual advances, and alcohol and drug inducements are important life skills; and,
8. Self-sufficiency needs to come before sexual activity.

Americans need to get beyond the notion that students will refrain from sexual activities simply because the abstinence-based programs at their schools tell them to do so. This approach is not working. A large percentage of adolescents are going to experiment with sex, no matter what they are told in abstinence-only classrooms. We need to face that and change it.

Research-Based Applications for Sex Education

Our current approach to sex education is not in keeping with the directives of No Child Left Behind (NCLB). Under NCLB, all educational programs are required to find genesis in good science. The millions of dollars allocated for schools to teach abstinence-only initiatives are not rooted in research but grounded in conservative, religious-right thinking that is oppressive at worst and naïve at best. This presents a “policy paradox” (Oster, 2008, p. 117).

National Norms for Sex Education

There are no national standards or curricular requirements for school-based sex education (Hedman, Larsen, & Bohnenblust, 2008). This should cause societal concern. At present, SIECUS is about the most authoritative voice for policy and guidelines. More study, directed toward garnering support for national standards, would allow states to collaborate and move forward with initiatives toward more uniform sex education curriculums that transcend state borders.

Public Policy and Sex Education

Students of abstinence-only programs continue to engage in sexual behaviors, and practice unprotected sex (Peate, 2009). This is the official public policy of the country, and it is having an unintended, negative impact on teen pregnancy rates. The problems of teen pregnancy and out-of-wedlock births command our attention. Those who oppose abortion should welcome efforts aimed at educating young girls and boys about their systems of endocrinology and the consequences of their irresponsible, impulsive actions.

Sex Education and Societal Ideals

Not only should we be educating students about ways in which their bodies mature and the sexual characteristics that accompany physiological changes, we should be teaching them about sexual ideals (De Ruyter & Spiecker). Parents and teachers must discover ways to talk about sex with students in ways that are positive and promote good choices and safe habits.

It is tempting to think of student sexual activities as being more of an urban issue, when this is not the case. This is an issue for all (Blinn-Pike, 2008). Schools with the most effective education programming for sexual topics are those that have community input. There are times when this is harder to achieve in rural areas because of increased presence and influence of religious organizations. Out of the inner cities, school administrators and teachers tend to be closer, both physically and emotionally, to their students. Their roles as friend and neighbor can be impediments to the successful implementation of classes about sex. Teachers in rural places are far more conscious of community perceptions.

Teachers are not the only people who need support as sex educators. The school nurse is another valuable resource for students (Jones, 2008). So are parents, who need resources that readily available for home discussions.

Conclusion

Sex education in the classroom is a good thing. It is a necessary thing. We dare not make a call as to which is more important: abstinence or contraception. Teachers do not want to send the message that adolescent sex is acceptable if protection is used. Assiduous sex education instructors want to give students the facts –all of the facts –that lead students in the direction of personal freedom, responsibility, and fulfillment instead of down a path of uselessness, capriciousness, and incompleteness.

The time has come to get real about life in the 21^st century. Adolescents, like adults, are going to make mistakes. Adults should feel it imperative to provide sex education classes with the greatest most reliable tool known to humankind –the truth. It is not the mandate of public schools in a religiously neutral society to decide what is right and wrong concerning the sexual habits of older teens. It is the job of citizens to arm students with the kind of complete information that reduces the burden that unwanted children and reckless healthcare wrests on society as the result sexual escapades.

References

Blinn-Pike, L. (2008). Sex education in rural schools in the United States: Impact of rural educators’ community identities. Sex Education, 8(1), 77-92.

Brough, K. (2008). Sex education left at the threshold of the school door: Stricter requirements for parental opt-out provisions. Family Court Review, 46(2), 409- 424.

De Ruyter, D., & Spiecker, B. (2008). Sex education and ideals. Sex Education, 8(2), 201-210.

Gelperin, N., & Schroeder, E. (2008). Future of sex education. Journal of School Health, 78(11), 573.

Greenblatt, J. (2008). “If you don’t aim to please, don’t dress to tease” and other public school sex education lessons subsidized by you, the federal taxpayer. Texas Journal on Civil Liberties & Civil Rights, 14(1), 1-25.

Hedman, A., Larsen, D., & Bohnenblust, S. (2008). Relationship between comprehensive sex education ad teen pregnancy in MN. American Journal of     Health Studies, 23(4), 185-194.

Jones, S. (2008). Provision of sex and relationships: Education for young people. Nursing Standard, 23(14), 35-40.

McKee, N. (2008). Sex education in a fractured world: Towards a social-ecological approach. Brown Journal of World Affairs, 14(2), 213-225.

No Author. (2002). SIECUS campaign combats abstinence only appropriations. Contemporary Sexuality, 36(10)9.

Oster, M. (2008). Saying one thing and doing another: The paradox of best practices and sex education. American Journal of Sexuality Education, 3(2), 117-148.

Peate, I. (2009). The politics of virginity: Abstinence in ex education. Nursing Standard, 23(48), 31.

Zanis, D. (2005). The use of sexual abstinence only curriculum with sexually active youths. Children & Schools, 27(1), 59-63.