My answer is YES! It absolutely should be offered. Not only offered, but mandatory.
In my opinion, sex is a natural and pure part of life, whether you have it for the first time at a younger age, or if you wait until you're married. Sex education provides so much information for these students. Preaching abstinence isn't going to stop students from having sex, instead we as educators should be informing them on the proper ways to have safe sex, and ways to prevent teen pregnancy. Not only pregnancy, but sexually transmitted diseases as well.
There is a lot of controversy about whether or not schools should teach it. There are a lot of parents whining and complaining about it as well, like it is some unnatural part of life. From what I have heard and read there are a few different views;
- If a school offers sex education and are handing out condoms, are saying it is okay for children to have sex?
- Well if these children are going to have sex anyways, we might as well educate them to have safe sex.
Parents need to stop being in denial about their children and their sex lives. Why do you think teen pregnancies have increased? Why do you think the amount of sexually transmitted diseases have increased? It is because parents have been protesting and forcing the schools to rid of sex education, when really all they are doing is hurting their children.
In Chapter 2 by Robert F. McNergney, he states that "The more education she has, the less likely a girl is to have a baby. For teens, having a child greatly increases the chance that a young mother and her child or children will live in poverty" (McNergney 33). No Parent should ever want that for their child. Don't get me wrong. Not every teen mother is not going to succeed. Two of my very good family friends had a child in high school, and they are GREAT, wonderful, and caring mothers who have amazing families that provide them with the best support imaginable. Unfortunately, not every family is fortunate enough to have the financial stability, or the emotional stability to raise a child at that age. So why chance it when you can prevent it? It is reality, and parents need to 'man up', and face it.
There is an article from the CNN News, called CNN Opinion. The title of the article is called "Sex Education should be mandatory in all schools" by Roland Martin. Martin debates that "taxes and death are considered to be undeniable realities of life. I would say that sex is right behind those two", and I couldn't agree more! It is reality! We all don't want to face the harsh realities of ANYTHING that is going to put us in an uncomfortable situation, but guess what? Not preventing teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases is even MORE uncomfortable. The author also states, "Folks, y'all are flat out crazy if you want to encourage parents to opt out of sex education by making it more about abstinence and nothing else. Why can't both take place? Abstinence is definitely the safest of all safe sex measures, but there is also a point when we have to accept reality". I think that both should take place as well. Every child is different, and they are going to have different views on sex. Why not educate them on all the different areas of sex? That way every child is informed. Also, that way if students do have more questions about sex and are afraid to ask their parents, they will have sex educators at schools that are willing to inform them. Below is the link to the CNN Opinion article.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/29/opinion/martin-sex-education/
Now-a-days, children are engaging in sexual activity at a younger age. My mother in middle school made sure to have "the talk" to my two brothers and I because she knew that life was changing, and they we needed to be informed of this stuff. No matter how uncomfortable our parents were talking about it, they knew it had to be done. When I was in middle/elementary school, I still thought boys had cooties, and we did the whole exchanging notes in class that said "Will you be my boyfriend? Check yes or no". That is what my childhood consisted of. Now I hear stories that children as young as fourth and fifth grade are engaging in sexual activity and it blows my mind. Generations are changing and that is fine. That is ALSO reality my friends. This is a different generation. Why not educate them as soon as we can?
and PARENTS, all of those iPads and other forms of technology that you are buying for your children that have access to internet browsing, guess what? Your children have just been granted more access to more "mature" things, and they will try out these "mature" things if they are not educated on this stuff. Whether you are informed of it or not. It could even be an accident if they stumbled upon it on the internet! Parents need to realize this. Children engaging in these sorts of activity without any education can be life altering, and they might now know how serious it can be.
In my opinion, every school should make sex education absolutely mandatory, and like Ronald Martin said "y'all are flat our crazy if you want to encourage parents to opt out of sex education".
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