I've just read an article on CNN that has me shaking my head.
Here is the link:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/EDUCATION/08/05/texas.textbooks.reut/index.html

To me, it seems that the preaching abstinence as the only option is terribly short sighted. From personal recollection, preaching abstinence to teenagers and expecting it to stick in 100% of the cases just isn't going to work.

I'm torn on this issue.

1) I think that the kids should have all of the tools they need given to them.

2) I also think that it is up to parents to educate their kids about sex.

3) It is also a right to remain ignorant if that is one's wish (or the wish for one's children). This conflicts on some level with point one.

4) I also think having a program in a public school could be used to at least offer a baseline education about the topic. This is the tradeoff to points one and three.

The problem arises with how far that baseline should go. Ask different people in different areas of the country, and you will get different answers. This is fine- that is why we have local school boards.

The safe way to handle it is to set the baseline very low. Teach the mechanics, explain the biological processes involved and leave it at that. Leave the morality out of it, and allow parents to supplement the education as they wish. One side would be unable to argue that sex was encouraged, and the other would be unable to complain that the topic was ignored.

However, make the parents turn in a transcript of what was said as 50% of the grade for that topic. You saw that correctly- send the kids home with an assignment to talk to their parents about sex. Have the parents sign off on some form that stated some level of talk about sex happened.

I'd still provide condoms in high schools, though.




-------

Side project on the subject of data processing and the "factual" truth to what is taught in schools: ask someone who discovered North America. Anyone who does not say Christopher Columbus but offers a different, credible theory (such as "there were already people here" or "the vikings" or some such) was probably educated beyond what is taught in high school.

From personal recollection, preaching abstinence to teenagers and expecting it to stick in 100% of the cases just isn't going to work.
Especially when most of the popular media they are constantly bombarded with says exactly the oposite.

Schools can't effectively teach morals...not withour some lawsuits anyways :)

What they need to do is, like you said, teach the mechanics and the facts about sex, sex related diseases and the responsibility that goes along with it (the whole procreating thing :') . The parents have to be the one talking about the morality of it. Unfortunately most parents today drop the ball....in this any many other things.

Anyone that thinks only teaching abstinence at the high school level is a good idea, is naive and/or ignorant. Anyone whom has either gone through high school in the past, oh, 20 years at least, or knows people whom have should know better.

Some high schoolers are going to have sex. There is absolutely nothing that they can possibly 'teach' in high school that will stop everyone. They can teach it, sure, but they need to make sure the ones that do have sex are well informed so they can be safe as possible.

Abstinence is a nice idea and all, but so is not drinking. And we all know high schoolers never, ever, drink. Teaching safety with sex should be done in the same realistic manner as drinking. They aren't stupid enough to just say "Don't drink". They also say "Don't drink and drive."

Advocating abstinence is not mutually exclusive with teaching the mechanics. IMO the schools should do both. Sure, many will ignore the abstinence part but others will not. Delaying sexual experience until one is emotionally and financially able to deal with possible consequences (rubbers break after all) should be encouraged, not denigrated.

Delaying sexual experience until one is emotionally and financially able to deal with possible consequences (rubbers break after all) should be encouraged, not denigrated.
Bingo.

You cant teach abstinance. You cant pack a bunch of 15 year olds in a class for 3 hours a week and teach to them a life skill that due to brain development, many may or may not be capable of "getting" the message. If this is the plan, you have already lost

You NEED to develop a set of life skills organized in a unified theme, starting from a young age that scaffold off each other and nurture the development of understanding and incorperating high level concepts like causation, self generated esteem, and empathy.
Anything else will suffer much more failure than success

You cant teach abstinance. You cant pack a bunch of 15 year olds in a class for 3 hours a week and teach to them a life skill that due to brain development, many may or may not be capable of "getting" the message. If this is the plan, you have already lost Nonsense.

You presume teaching abstinence is to be the only option offered in a sex education course. Abstinence is a tool, just like condoms, in preventing unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

If a sex education class teaches the mechanics and completely ignores teaching the various methods of dealing with the consequences of sex that is a plan doomed to failure.

Abstinence or self-gratification are the only 100% guaranteed methods of preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. I don't want the school system teaching my daughter how to have sex and not making her aware of the consequences or the best way to avoid those consequences.

What really needs to happen is for parents to stop letting the government (public schools) or their church deal with the difficult issues in our childrens' lives and do it themselves.

edit: spelling

Mukaz
Children arent mini adults. they do not comprehend concepts in the same way as adults do, this is proven established and definite scientific fact.
The brain develops in a sequential and measurable order.
Piaget is a good place to start
http://www.dmu.ac.uk/~jamesa/learning/piaget.htm'
And Maslow
http://www.dmu.ac.uk/~jamesa/learning/motivlrn.htm

Unless you have some knowledge that can debunk 100 years of research and accepted scientific fact.... you are just wrong, and wrong because you are underinformed.

You presume teaching abstinance is to be the only option offered in a sex education course.
No, I think he presumes that abstinance is a state of mind. It's not exactly like condoms, it's more like "Think of putting a condom on".

If a sex education class teaches the mechanics and completely ignores teaching the various methods of dealing with the consequences
I'm pretty sure sexual education wasn't and isn't about "how having sex", but directly about the consequences and options to avoid the bad ones.

I don't want the school system teaching my daughter how to have sex and not making her aware of the consequences or the best way to avoid those consequences.
Again I'm pretty sure school doesn't teach "how to have sex" to teenagers. That's a parents' and/or self instinct(you don't teach how to eat, you teach what to eat) thing. School needs to teach kids what can be the consequences of sex, and how to protect themselves with all available options. Leave them with a choice, more than "preaching" the best method.

LL, abstinence was taught in schools for generations before we were born, of course you can teach it. Did a lot of kids ignore it and experiment with sex anyway? Of course. Do all kids use protection after teaching them about it? No. So arguing that you shouldn't try because they won't get the message is not gonna fly with me. Enough will get the message and take it to heart that it becomes worthwhile to do.

Teaching kids *only* about birth control and avoiding teaching them that it is better to wait a while only sends them the message that it's OK for them all to go out and hump whenever they want to as long as they use protection. That to me is the wrong message to send, even more so in an age when the family support system is not as strong as it used to be and you have AIDs out there lurking about. No matter what you teach, you will have individuals who rebel against their teachings and decide to experiment for themselves and some number of them are going to become unprepared parents or contract STDs. All you can do is try to keep the numbers down.

Teaching kids *only* about birth control and avoiding teaching them that it is better to wait a while only sends them the message that it's OK for them all to go out and hump whenever they want to as long as they use protection.
Who is doing that? *Only* teaching that?
I remember, 15 or something years ago, when biologic teacher told us how to avoid babies in a sexual course : male contraceptives, female ones, and abstinence (we all laughed until she said it was the only 100% method).
Hiding information is misinformating. Kids must have the largest panel of options, to use the one that suit them best.

I was responding to Llummus who was advocating exactly that. My position is that abstinence should be included (and stressed) in the curriculum.

Mukaz
Children arent mini adults. they do not comprehend concepts in the same way as adults do, this is proven established and definite scientific fact.
The brain develops in a sequential and measurable order.
Children aren't mini-adults, no. They are thinking, feeling individuals with less experience than us. They can and do make reasoned decisions. Their reasoning may sometimes be flawed but that is attributable to lack of experience, not intelligence. That is the function that responsible parenting provides....a background of experience to help our children learn how to make informed decisions without having to repeat the same mistakes we did.

My teenage daughter comprehends sex and sexuality just fine. She is aware of boys. She is in the middle of going through the physical process that will lead to physical, and I hope mental and emotional, maturity. If I were to stand idly by and let the school system do my job she'd never know that not having sex at all is a valid choice. I'm not advocating the teaching of abstinence to the exclusion of all other choices. I am against any sex education course that doesn't include mentioning it as the single most effective way to prevent the problems associated with casual sex.

It falls in the same category as not drinking before legally of age or taking drugs. Are you seriously suggesting we stop teaching our youth to avoid drinking or taking drugs? Sexuality is more fundamental to our nature than either of those two issues and if teaching self-control is appropriate in those cases how much more appropriate is it to teach self control when it comes to sex?

A lot of you anti-abstinence folks seem to get the idea confused with celibacy. Abstinence is the exercise of self-control until you are ready to have sex with a partner and doesn't necessarily preclude masturbation for gratification. Celibacy is the "life-style choice" that takes years of discipline and is, in my opinion, detrimental to healthy sexuality.

edit: more spelling..today's not my day :(

I've no problem with teaching abstinence- it is a valid choice. However, holding it up like some sort of Holy Grail and expecting everyone to drink is unrealistic (that is my only problem with it, really). It boils down to the same argument as "Don't want to die on a sinking ship, don't get on ships in the first place". It is really pretty bloody obvious (and was to me as early as age 10, as a cause and effect type thing).


The problem was during my teenage years, I didn't CARE about the cause and effect. I played the odds and took the risks without really understanding exactly how incredibly FUBAR my life would have been if I'd knocked a girl up.

I'm going to ammend my thoughts. Any discussion on sex should include a breakdown of the following:

1) a: The yearly cost of raising a child for 18 years
b: The daily time required to care for a child, first year
c: The daily time required to care for a child, next 4 years
2) Projected lifetime wages of a high school dropout (average)
3) Projected lifetime of only finishing high school (average)
4) Projected ligetime wages of a university graduate (average)

Also, one can be active in a sexual manner and not "go all the way". I'm sure we all know someone who was very friendly, but wouldn't take the last step. This method might be the most healthy- and also the most difficult.

Children aren't mini-adults, no. They are thinking, feeling individuals with less experience than us. They can and do make reasoned decisions. Their reasoning may sometimes be flawed but that is attributable to lack of experience, not intelligence. That and the fact that they are raging full of hormones telling them that it's time to spread their genes to the next generation, or at least engage in acts meant to do so. An erection and spread legs can make a quick casualty of reason.
A lot of you anti-abstinence folks... Straw man. You'd have to look long and..er, hard for someone who is "anti-abstinence" and does not want abstinence taught in the classroom. I seriously doubt any sex education class takes that approach. A better characterization is "anti-abstinence only" folks. Kids should be informed so that they can make those reasoned decisions you mention above.

I don't think anyone on this thread has advocated abstinence only unless I missed something. On that we all seem to agree. The point of contention is whether or not to address abstinence at all.

Of course Gulor, but they should keep it in their bag of tricks.

The big problem with all of this is how the government butts their heads in. Idiots in the capital of the state mandate how the classes should be taught and it filters down to people many many miles away -- and they've gotta follow it by the book, at least in my home state. When I was in high school the teacher was reading out of a manual while a slide show played. Then the "any questions?" part at the end where no one was willing to ask something as embarassing as that.

My folks did a good job and set me straight, which was a good thing. Many of the girls I dated, their folks didn't, and that was a good thing too depending on how you look at it.

That and the fact that they are raging full of hormones telling them that it's time to spread their genes to the next generation, or at least engage in acts meant to do so. An erection and spread legs can make a quick casualty of reason.
Consumption of alcohol can lower inhibitions and lead to the same behavior in teenagers and adults. Does that mean because the behaviour sometimes happens we should stop emphasizing self-control and responsibility? Some people will have irresponsible sex no matter how many times they are warned of the consequences but some people will remember what they've heard and control themselves regardless of how raging their hormones are at the moment.


Straw man. You'd have to look long and..er, hard for someone who is "anti-abstinence" and does not want abstinence taught in the classroom. I seriously doubt any sex education class takes that approach. A better characterization is "anti-abstinence only" folks. Kids should be informed so that they can make those reasoned decisions you mention above. I'll concede to you on the "anti-abstinence only" term. I think its pretty clear that most of us are talking about making sure that abstinence is included in sex ed not excluding discussion of other forms of birth control and transmission of stds. Abstinence only teaching didn't work for me and I'm pretty sure it wouldn't work for my daughter either.

Lleauaric jumped in with
You cant teach abstinance.
Which I still think is nonsense.

I think it is true that you can't teach an ideal like that in a school setting, which is what L2 was saying. It is more an ideal that it is a fact that can be taught in a school classroom. It's something that has to be supported by morals, and you -really- can't teach something like that in school.

Presenting the facts and stats of abstinence is fine, but that is hardly teaching it.

It's something that has to be supported by morals, and you -really- can't teach something like that in school



Morals have nothing to do with it (for me). It is a choice of reason and wisdom.



Why do I say this? There is nothing *wrong* with teenagers having sex if they are ready for it.



The goals of the education are to prevent children with parents who can not support them and also to prevent further spread of STDs.



This applies at any age. The *smart* choices: Don't have children you can not take care of, don't spread your germs.



Any moral objection is most likely going to be raised due to a religious belief.

Presenting it seriously is all anyone expects. I disagree that doing so is not teaching it. Many children respect their teachers (though you would be hard pressed to get many to admit it) and merely the fact it is presented by a responsible adult will make some take it seriously. Unless, of course, the teacher does not take it seriously and the children pick up on that. But that would be a failing of the teacher, not the subject or the students.

When I was in school, abstinence was included *along* with the mechanics of protection and of course the biology itself. When my nephew went through school a few years ago, abstinence was still discussed but to a lesser degree. There was one teenage pregnancy when I was in school out of a class of 273 (that I was aware of). I'll have to ask my nephew tonight and see how they did 25 years later. I'll let you all know what I find out.

*PS. He went to the same high school in the same town I did, just separated by 25 years or so. The town has grown somewhat and it has become more ethnically diverse, but it should still be instructive to compare the two classes.*

Any moral objection is most likely going to be raised due to a religious belief.

Exactly.

See, you cant just teach that abstinence is good and show consequences.. Kids dont "get it".
Yes, I agree, that abstinence should be the goal, but if the big plan is to "teach" them a higher level concept, it will fail.
Vygotsky, Piaget, Bloom, Gardner, they all agree on this
http://my.webmd.com/hw/healthy_parenting/te7222.asp
http://www.ext.vt.edu/pubs/family/350-850/350-850.html
Long, but worth the read.
Watching How the Brain Works as It Weighs a Moral Dilemma
By SANDRA BLAKESLEE

A runaway trolley is hurtling toward five people. They will all be killed unless you throw a switch that will steer the trolley onto a spur, where it will kill just one person instead of five. Should you throw the switch?

A vast majority of people say yes, according to moral philosophers and psychologists who have posed the question over many years. It is morally acceptable to throw the switch to save five innocent lives at the expense of one.

Now consider a variation. As before, a trolley threatens to kill five people. This time you are standing next to a large stranger on a footbridge that arches over the tracks. Because you are small but agile, the only way to save the five is to push the stranger off the bridge onto the tracks below; it is certain that he will die, but his heavy body will stop the trolley, saving the five others. Should you push the stranger to his death?

Most people say no; in this case it is morally wrong to kill one person to save five.

After many years of debate, moral philosophers have never been able to arrive at a set of principles to explain why people treat the two situations differently. But now a new study suggests that at least part of the answer lies not in philosophy but in the working of the brain.

The study, described in the Sept. 14 issue of the journal Science, finds that the two dilemmas engage different parts of the brain. The idea of throwing a switch is impersonal; it is processed by a part of the brain that deals mainly with memory. By contrast, the notion of personally pushing a stranger to his death activates the part of the brain that deals with emotions, temporarily suppressing the memory areas.

Dr. Jonathan Cohen of Princeton, a psychologist and expert on brain imaging who worked on the study, says it begins to provide tools to understand why people with different cultural backgrounds can arrive at different conclusions about moral dilemmas, like taking a life for some greater good. If people's gut-level emotions are organized differently as a result of their backgrounds, he said, they may reason differently about what is right or wrong.

Experts say the findings may be useful to philosophers as well. While moral philosophy deals with ethics and logic rather than emotion and biology, Dr. Stephen Stich, a professor of philosophy and cognitive science at Rutgers, says that in the real world people have feelings about life- and-death issues. Knowing how their brains behave as they wrestle with difficult issues like abortion and euthanasia may be more useful than most philosophers realize, Dr. Stich said.

Dr. Jonathan Haidt, an expert on moral psychology at the University of Virginia, agreed. "It's crazy to say that the mind is based on reasoning alone," he said, adding that moral judgments are a matter of intuition and gut feeling and that cultural background affects even the most basic intuitions about the difference between right and wrong.

For example, he went on, in some cultures the thought of touching a menstruating woman is considered disgusting, and it would instantly evoke strong negative reactions in anyone who had to make a moral judgment about her. A person raised in such a culture might have no compunction about harming the woman in situations in which she defiled innocent people.

The instant negative reaction might lead a person in such a culture to harm the woman, whereas in a different culture, the idea of punishing her would be immoral. In both cultures, Dr. Haidt said, people make up post-hoc stories to explain their moral decision making, even as it is driven by covert emotion.

The Princeton study, conceived by Joshua Greene, a graduate student in philosophy, presented 60 moral dilemmas to two groups of nine people who rested inside functional imaging machines that detect brain activity via increases in blood flow. When certain regions of the brain are more active, they light up brightly compared with less active regions.

After subjects read moral dilemmas, like the footbridge or trolley problem, they pressed buttons to indicate if they judged the action proposed to be appropriate or inappropriate. Some dilemmas were personal while others were impersonal. Impersonal moral dilemmas, like deciding whether to keep the money in a found wallet, activated areas involved in working memory, Mr. Greene said.

Personal moral dilemmas, like the footbridge problem, suppressed working memory areas and activated emotional circuits. These areas were not classical emotional regions, like the amygdala, but two other areas in the front and middle of the brain, near the crack where the hemispheres meet. Other imaging studies show that these frontal regions are involved in high order emotional processing, Dr. Cohen said.

In considering the footbridge dilemma, some subjects decided it was appropriate to push the stranger off the bridge, Mr. Greene said. But it took them longer to reach their decisions than those who said it was inappropriate to kill the stranger. It may be impossible to suppress the emotional reaction to personal moral situations, he said, but those gut feelings can be overridden by other parts of the reasoning brain.

"We have not solved the philosophical question of why people choose different solutions to a logically identical problem," Dr. Cohen said. "Our contribution is to understand the psychology of moral reasoning."

Dr. Haidt said this kind of brain research had implications for moral education. Children don't learn about morality from simply reading the Ten Commandments or being guided through moral dilemmas by classroom teachers. Children learn by observing how their parents, teachers and other adults react to moral problems and by showing emotions like sadness, happiness, anger and disgust. Children internalize those reactions in emotional brain circuits, he said. When they encounter morally challenging situations later in life, these automatic gut feelings help guide their decision making.

People who are emotionally wrought by anger or disgust, say, over abortion or the condition of the downtrodden, may decide that certain brutal actions are morally acceptable, the researchers said. While it would be a stretch to try to apply the study's findings to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, they said, it is now possible to study scientifically how moral reasoning differs among individual people and across cultures.

Good read, but I think a lot of their conclusions regarding children apply more to prepubescent kids as opposed to high schoolers. Also, I don't agree that abstinence is necessarily a question of morality, or religion if you prefer. It can and should be taught as a logical decision that has direct consequences to the kids. If it is taught in such a way as to remove it from questions of morality, the "short circuit" they talk about in the above text really doesn't take effect. Don't explain abstinence as a "right thing to do", explain it as a "smart thing to do" , explaining simple cause and effect and risks.

I think a lot of people have come to associate abstinence with religion/morality and it really doesn't need to be that way.

Simple solution: Reenact the sex ed scene from Monty Python and the Meaning of Life. The poor kids will never want to have sex...ever.

I think a lot of people have come to associate abstinence with religion/morality and it really doesn't need to be that way.

You bet...great point Gulor....teach the responsibility and/or consequences that comes with act ( i.e. venerel disease (with every partner that person has ever had), pregnancy, emotional attachment, pregnancy..ooops said that :') You don't have to make it a moral or religious issue to convey that abstinance is the best path. But it should be followed with information on how to avoid unwanted consequences should they still choose to have sex.

i only hope they teach them better these days then when i was back in school . That way we know were getting our moneys worth paying school taxes .






I remember back in school taking couple of girls out and they didn`t know shit , talk about a lame lay , all that money our tax dollars go to school districts for edcation and sex ed doesn`t teach them anything hehe .:D

Reaslitically kids are not always strong morally every second of the day than their hormones. They are only human and not perfect by any stretch. So having a adult with them at all times with opposite sex is the only way to ensure there is no adult choices having to be made by a child.

If a parent can't be with them at all times when with opposite sex, then they are leaving their child unprotected from the real world if they lack knowledge past abstinence. Leaving them unprotected like this can be in fact a death sentence to them, in terms of the things they can catch out in the real world.

I just hope those parents that choose to not inform their kids are protecting them by being with them at all times in their teenage years. :)

You pretty much have to teach all aspects IMO ... birth control, disease protection and *also* cover abstinence. Neglecting any of them is doing our kids a disservice.

Kind of late to bump this thing, but it appears that the LA Weekly ( http://www.laweekly.com/ink/04/31/news-ireland.php ) has issued some statements regarding the documents at:

http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/06jun20041800/edocket.access.gpo.gov/2004/pdf/04-13554.pdf

Talk about some poor journalism.

The argument is once again an example of how things in this country unfortunately go to extremes on each side and end up in a propaganda war. The abstinence only program seeks to instill the idea that abstinence is the only truly safe way to go and I think wrongly seeks to influence rather than simply inform. The opposite end of the spectrum is what my friend has had to teach for the last few years where he is specifically prohibited from stressing abstinence at all, and from giving many relevant facts that have been deemed by the school board as being too scary.


For instance did you know that girls who are sexually active before the age of 19 with more than one partner are 90 percent more likely to develop cervical cancer in their lifetime? The kids in his class don't because he had to take it out of the curriculum.