Uther wrote:
Anyway the point is, abstinence only education might work.
Despite countless years of evidence to the contrary. Oh sure.
But a mixed approach, teaching about safe sex methods as well is probably better. At the same time, I don't think Bush is effectively giving kids AIDS.
Then you're ignorant. Not that that surprises me.
All that said, of course, what it comes down to is that this whole sex ed thing is something of a red herring.
Translation:I've talked myself into a corner I can't get out of so let's pretend it doesn't really matter.
How pray tell can sex ed be a red herring in a debate about sex ed?
I REALLY would like to hear your reasoning.
Economic status, social class, attitudes towards familial responsibility and higher education, what's culturally acceptable and what's not, these things are of far greater importance.
Which is relevant to the fact that proper sex ed reduces unwanted pregnancies and STDs how exactly?
I'd like to leave you all with an anecdote that I think illustrates this issue rather nicely.
Oh yes. Anecdotal evidence. We all know how extremely valuable that is.
I went to a public high school that had a nearly even split between hispanic kids and then the white/asian kids. Now, the hispanic kids were mostly first and second generation, they lived in a different part of the city, they spoke both spanish and english, I imagine they were generally in lower economic brackets, and they certainly weren't in any of my AP classes. Now, there were other hispanics who were in accelerated classes, but these were kids whose families had been here a while, were upper middle class etc. The point is, both the upper middle class (UPC) kids like me and the hispanic kids all had to go through the same rigamarole state mandated Health class, which of course included sex ed. Now, my memory is pretty fuzzy but the class mostly emphasized scary STDs and that "absitenence is the only 100% effective method!" but we also learned about condoms and stuff. What's my point? Well, I know of several hispanic girls who got pregnant over the course of the 4 years, and not a single UPC girl did. Granted, this is merely an anecdote, but we had the same sex ed! With different results. Why? Because of what's culutrally acceptable and what's not, and what's expected or OK and what's not, and because all these pretty little UPC girls were going to college, and a lot of the pretty little hispanic girls weren't. That's what it comes down to.
Uh huh. Let me get this straight: there will be differences in the approach to sex depending on social factors anyway so let's not bother with proper sex ed since that wouldn't affect those social differences.
You realise that makes no sense, does it?
