In fifth grade, not too long after moving to Maryland from New York, I got my first taste of sex education as taught by Howard County. Although I don't remember the exact lessons we all learned during the roughly two week course of videos and teacher-led instruction, I do remember it being a big deal. All the classes were separated into boys and girls, and it spawned a multitude of lunch-time conversations in the cafeteria as we compared notes to see if they had shown us the same videos.
At my middle school, health class rotated so that you took it for one quarter per year (home ec, art, tech ed, and music got full quarters, while gym got three.) Each year in health class, a large section of the course focused on what most educators would term "comprehensive sex education" - while we were certainly encouraged to remain abstinent, and indeed were taught it was the only 100 percent effective method of avoiding STDs, we also learned a tremendous amount of information about how to have safe sex. We learned about condoms and diaphragms and watched videos showing the gory horror of syphilis, crabs and HIV/AIDS.
By ninth grade, health had taken over half of the year for one elective cycle, with gym comprising the other half. At that point, our sex ed lessons were much more focused on the safe sex side of the equation, as we discussed the consequences of foregoing contraceptive usage and learned how various STDs are transferred and treated. That half-year in ninth grade ended my formal sex education, and at that point, I'd say I felt relatively confident in my knowledge of "how stuff works."
I bring this up because of a big story on the sex ed front that hit the papers today. A study released by a University of Pennsylvania professor is being touted as a major critique of the comprehensive sex ed methodology, which typically refers to sex ed that teaches students how to use condoms, avoid STDs and prevent pregnancy. Abstinence sex ed, on the other hand, usually implies classes with either a faith or moral-based component that eschew any and all references on how to conduct safe sex. This approach tends to view teaching safe sex counterproductive, as condoning safe sex will lead to an increase in teens having sex.
The study today seems to counteract the president's decision to push money into comprehensive sex ed classes, by showing that abstinence-only sex ed can help delay kids from having sex in their middle school and early high school years. Via the Washington Post story:
"Over the next two years, about 33 percent of the students who went through the abstinence program started having sex, compared with about 52 percent who were taught only safe sex. About 42 percent of the students who went through the comprehensive program started having sex, and about 47 percent of those who learned about other ways to be healthy did."
The debate over how to teach sex ed gets to the heart of one of the most fundamental questions parents, teachers and school systems try to answer every year - how much should our children know about safe sex, and when should they start receiving that information?
In my view, the answer to the first question should be "as much as possible." The central premise to using the new study as fuel for the argument seems to be flawed. The study sought only to see whether abstinence-only sex ed would delay the inevitable. It doesn't say, for instance, if the 33 percent of kids who still had sex within the two years of completing the course did so safely. Without classroom instruction, did they know the risks involved, other than sex in theory is bad? In this study, the class didn't affect condom usage, but the class as constructed didn't use the faith/moral-based approach typically employed in abstinence sex ed.
That to me gets to the heart of the issue. Without getting cynical, I think it's safe to say that in modern society, kids between the ages of 10-14 are being exposed and acclimated to ever-greater numbers of sexual stimuli. I'm not going to go in depth into that point, as I think it's generally accepted as fact. Teaching an abstinence-only curriculum may delay the onset of sexual activity, but it doesn't remove it completely (for the most part), and it hinders the ability of students to adequately prepare themselves by restricting the amount of information coming from good, influential sources - I'd like to think most kids would trust what they learn from a health teacher about avoiding the clap over what they learned in the locker room.
I know I've rambled a little here (it's my blog!), but reading the story in the Post this morning got me agitated, as it seemed to so greatly miss the point. By once again setting up abstinence and comprehensive sex ed as positions that can't possibly be reconciled, it just seemed to fuel a debate that doesn't need to occur. Teach both - emphasize abstinence from the start (especially at the earlier ages), and slowly supplement with info given out in a "But if you do, here's how) manner.
Thoughts?
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