Health Class In Public Schools: What’s Not Being Said

By Susan Thompson on January 8, 2010, 12:07 pm

The average eighth grade and ninth grade health classes teach students about their bodies, about disease prevention and about the human reproductive process. Many students come into these classes with some knowledge of this stuff and some even have practical experience (if you know what I mean). Some subjects avoided by health classes are how to practice safe sex and mental health issues.

Pregnancy Rate Soars

One Chicago high school reported that one in seven of its female students either had a child or was pregnant. One in seven. That is absurd. In most schools sex ed ends freshman year with little discussion or prevention opportunities at the school after that. Without prevention options and reminders of how to have safe sex many students think they’re immune. Either immune from getting pregnant or contracting a disease. Young women also are clueless to the real trials of having a child choosing instead to glamorize it and think they’re having baby dolls rather than real live babies.

Who’s Really To Blame

The reality is that parents are the ones to blame when it comes to pregnant teens. Not what is being taught or not taught in public schools. Parents need to take some of the responsibility of teaching their children how to be responsible when it comes to sex and how to react to pressure to have sex. Parents who choose to be silent about the issue may risk giving their kids the go ahead to have sex without really saying anything.

 

The silent treatment doesn’t work, but the parents that talk too openly and tell their children it’s okay to have sex aren’t doing their kids any favors either. There needs to be a happy medium between what is being taught in the school health class and what parents are talking about at home. Maybe then we can quell this outbreak of teen pregnancy.

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