NationStates Jolt Archive

Another post, courtesy of UpwardThrust, inspired me to ask this...

In public schools, how should sexual/contraception education be done?
Should they be required programs?
Should the teachers be checked to teach according to standards?
How much of the budget should be allocated to these programs?
Should a controvertial means of getting the money be used to fund these programs, e.g. an abortion tax?
Can masturbation be suggested as a sex alternative?
Any other questions?

(And please don't joke around about hands-on education.)

Contraception education should occur in the freshman year of high school mandatorily, and senior year voluntarily. That way we can nip most teen pregnancies in the bud.

I would start before highschool. I liked the program my school did. They eased it in starting in the fifth grade. It makes a pretty good compromise on how to teach.

My rather liberal high school teaches mandatory health classes freshman year alternated with gym. Contraception education is part of the curriculum.

My rather liberal elementary school taught puberty education for a day or two to fifth graders.

I think that basics ideas of human sexcuality should be introduced early on and the more indepth and controversial issues should be taken care of in grade 8/9.

(And please don't joke around about hands-on education.)

Who's joking? The best sex ed i got in High School was by sleeping with people more pomiscuous (sp?) than myself!

Contraception education should occur in the freshman year of high school mandatorily, and senior year voluntarily. That way we can nip most teen pregnancies in the bud.
Sorry, but in some places, it's got to happen earlier. In some neighborhoods, it's not unusual to see girls 12-14 with children. My daughter had her first period at age 12, which made her physically able to conceive--I'd foreseen it coming, so we'd talked about sex long before, even though it embarassed the shit out of her.

As to when and how--seventh or eighth grade and from a purely biological standpoint, using the words "penis" and "vagina" over and over again--purely reproductive system stuff and the STD danger. This shouldn't be scare-tactic stuff--just the facts.

As they get older--tenth and eleventh grade--then you deal with the whole range of sexuality. Start talking about glbt people and the like, including masturbation.

Who's joking? The best sex ed i got in High School was by sleeping with people more pomiscuous (sp?) than myself!

LOL please don't get a disease

"If you're gonna share the love, wear a glove." :fluffle:

...and from my POV...that's a good thing. Trust me, semen on the face and in the eye isn't a pleasant thing...

LOL please don't get a disease

"If you're gonna share the love, wear a glove." :fluffle:

absolutely; i did a LOT of partying in HS, and i never got so much as a papule. In spite of what the religious right shouts at the top of their lungs, it IS possible to have a lot of meaningless sex during a foolish part of your adolescence and not rot your tool off.

((Please note that this is NOT the method of education i would condone. i'm just saying it's possible to be smart about it.))

here in my school they teach abstinence only from 5th grade on. by the time you get to 7th or so, you just stop listening. I know of several couples, myself and my exgf included, who have had numerous pregnancy scares or worse because they wouldn't teach anything but the shitty abstinence program... and they continue it through senior year in HS!

Reproduction and pubety are matters of science and chemistry. Social issues are issues for social science classes. Information about diseases of all kinds should be taught in health science classes.

here in my school they teach abstinence only from 5th grade on. by the time you get to 7th or so, you just stop listening. I know of several couples, myself and my exgf included, who have had numerous pregnancy scares or worse because they wouldn't teach anything but the shitty abstinence program... and they continue it through senior year in HS!


That should be treated as criminal negligence if the worst should happen.

(And please don't joke around about hands-on education.)

Yes, quite literally.

I think should be taught. Then again, just get laid, cost the government less money.

Education about sex and relationships started in about year 4 in primary school for me (8yo) and I think that it should start at least that early. Obviously, it was very basic stuff - the differences between the bodies and the technical stuff about sperm and ova making babies that gestated in the mothers abdomen, etc, etc. Sex itself (including contraception and some really gross disease info) was covered a couple of years later and I don't remember any sex ed at high school at all... Maybe I wasn't there that day (joke ;) ) The average level of knowledge about sex and most of its consequences is fairly comprehensive (at least on a theoretical level) by about 11 or 12. Definitely by the beginning of High School. Waiting any longer than this is ridiculous. Humans can breed by that age, so they should be taught by that age.

Any later and you are kidding yourself.

I also think that people who leave it to the school are idiots - but that's just my opinion. :)

My 3yo already knows that boys and girls have different genitals, that boys have penises and scrotums, while girls have vaginas, labia and clitorises. She also knows that babies grow in the mummy's womb, which is inside her tummy. She even knows that girls have something called periods and boys don't.

It's an ongoing process that you have to maintain at the level the child can cope with. Obviously I'm not showing her pics of people having sex or of chancres or childbirth vids or whatever as I don't want to traumatise her but I am already attending to her education about sex.

My 15yo has always been taught (apart from everything else) that "there is no such thing as sex without a condom" and I plan to continue that approach with my little one.