| UGAalum94 |
01-10-2008 10:45 PM |
Quote:
Originally Posted by Low C Sharp
(Post 1578439)
This is slightly off topic, but if you ever do peer education or or teach sex ed...you won't BELIEVE the ignorance of a lot of the kids (and of a lot of adults, too, I'm sure). We're talking about not really understanding whether condoms are just for AIDS prevention or just for gay people; not knowing whether hormonal birth control makes you permanently sterile; believing that you can't get pregnant your first time/during your period/before your period/after your period/if you do it standing up/if he pulls out; etc. etc. So the question of where to get condoms is an academic one; there are countless thousands of kids out there with only a dim idea of what a condom IS or why they might need one.
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No doubt there's ignorance too; I had a friend who taught health who explicitly taught about sexually transmitted diseases and reproduction, including information about condoms, but when the kids took tests, they had no idea. They'd label ovaries on diagrams of the male reproductive system.
At yet, the pregnant teenagers that I've known knew this stuff, knew where to get condoms or other forms of birth control, but still didn't act on it. All the knowledge didn't really help them. (I'm not a making a case for ignorance; I'm just saying that the folks who say, if only kids knew or were taught differently, they wouldn't get pregnant miss some of the picture.)
I really don't believe that the problem is the kind of official sex education that kids get or even access to birth control. They've got to be mature enough to accept responsibility for having sex, and that's where the breakdown occurs. I'm not sure there's anything other than good parenting that helps, and good parenting is no guarantee. |
