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B. Keywords
sex education, safe sex, birth control.
Vocabulary
curriculum, abstinence, contraception, sexually transmitted disease, reproduction, condom, abortion, homosexuality.
Most students in the nation's public school receive some form of sex education.
But it's not always clear what schools are teaching or what educators, parents and children think about it.
Kids are learning a lot more about sex than many people think, and parents want schools to teach them even more.
Sex education usually starts in elementary school as part of a health curriculum.
By the 12th grade, 90% of all public school students have taken at least two sex education courses.
A large majority are providing some information about HIV/AIDS.
Most are talking about abstinence, providing messages about the importance of waiting to have sex.
Beginning in the 7th and 8th grades, over a half of the 1,500 junior high and high school students surveyed said they were taught how to deal with peer pressure to have sex, where to get and how to use contraception, how to talk to a partner about safe sex, and where to get tested for sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS.
Although a third of the schools in the study focused exclusively on abstinence, the main message in about 80% of all sex education courses is this.
Young people should wait to have sex, but if they don't, they should use birth control and practice safe sex.
But even fear of HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases or getting pregnant doesn't always stop kids from having sex.
Well, our parents know this? I think many parents have no idea with what's actually happening in this school.
Parents should have the right to keep their children out of sex education classes that teach things that they don't agree with.
Many schools do notify parents when their child starts sex education, but in most cases, schools don't needs the parents' permission.
Instead 40% of schools invited parents to attend sex education classes.
A surprising 22% of schools did not notify parents at all.
Still a clear majority of parents wanted to see more sex education in schools, not less.
And they don't just want abstinence or the basics of human reproduction.
Over 90% of parents want schools to cover HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases, rape, safe sex. Most said condoms and birth control needed to be discussed.
They thought abortion was an appropriate topic, and thought that homosexuality should be included too.
Researchers say this surprising level of support for more sex education maybe due to the fact that parents don't talk to their children about sex, so they want schools to do it.
We have a third of the students surveyed cited parents as a source of information about sex.
61% said that the most of what they do know about sex they learned from their friends, followed by television, movies and magazines.
The message that educators should note is that there is a need for more sex education not less, and more practical approach to dangers and risks of sexual behavior.
