Sex Education in America - Article Example

A better option would indeed be to sit them down and explain to them in moral or practical terms what they need to know about sex. Knowing the stages in the 28 days of ovulation did not benefit that 16 year old pregnant girl in the clinic, but perhaps if that girl who had remarked over hoping child-birth did not hurt as much as sex, had been told how to say no or avoid doing something she clearly never enjoyed doing, she wouldn't be in the position that she currently was. Teachers should sit students down and explain to them the social aspects of teenage pregnancies, explain the possible 'solutions' one relies on when such a situation arises, and explain how none of them are ever really a solution.

Furthermore, rather than scaring them away from sex using pregnancy as a tool, students should be educated on sex itself, in practical terms rather than scientific ones. Sex is not a tool to keep someone interested in you, nor is it something to increase intimacy. Rather it is something used to express intimacy, and until students know how to do that, it would be like speaking French without actually knowing how to. Furthermore, as that girl in the high school told you Ms. Quindlen, most girls will succumb to intercourse under pressure from their peers or their boyfriends.

Perhaps girls should also be taught that there is no need to feel the pressure to keep a friend or a boyfriend who will judge them on their willingness to have sex. Yet we find that none of these issues are ever actually discussed in sex ed classes. Nor is student input ever taken, so that their confusions or queries can be cleared out. Indeed it is possible that, as you, the future or aftermath is such a vague distant matter that the students aren't even aware of their confusion in reference to it.

If all that matters is the build-up to the act, they would not find themselves focusing on the ifs, buts, whys and hows of the matter. Perhaps this is because parents are not comfortable with the idea of sex being taught to their children in such an accepting matter, because idealistic or not, many parents do not want to accept that the idea is relevant to their child. Nonetheless, as their teachers and parents, it is our job to protect our children and educate them on the matter and I do feel that sex education needs to be reconsidered in the way that it is being taught.

As for the matter brought up by Ms. Austin, I also completely agree with what you had to say. Indeed as you said, after the revolution of the sixties and the current changing trends, many girls today feel that as they are career-oriented women and not the basic definition of a housewife, home economics and learning how to run a home is not relevant to them. Men on the other hand feel that it's the woman's job to handle a house and they too feel it is not relevant to them. This, in my view, is the basic reason for the decreasing popularity of home economics, and perhaps the rising rate of broken or mismanaged households.

Home economics is essential for anyone hoping to have some form of a household or family, whether it is as a full-time housewife or husband, or as a part-time housewife.