Sex ed at STA: Better safe than sorry
Although students at STA are required to take Health and Fitness as a freshmen, students should also be required to take sex education as they get older.
February 19, 2015
by Katherine Green
During freshmen year, many girls got squeamish when second semester came along in PE class. Second semester meant Health class, no more fun and games playing eclipse ball and learning how to throw a frisbee. Second semester meant having to learn about how to stay healthy. However, a small chunk of this time was dedicated to learning about STDs and sex, hence the squeamish freshmen girls.
Although most of us wanted to get through that awkward topic as quickly as possible, the stuff we learned did not seem to stick with me. Just like many other school subjects, I can learn topics just in time for a test, then after the test any information I thought I knew vanishes. This applied to freshmen year health class.
Although it is a big step to have health class at all, as it isn’t required in all states, a class strictly for sex education would serve a greater purpose at an older age, such as during junior or senior year.
I think it’s safe to say that most people just assume freshmen aren’t having a lot of close encounters with sex or drugs, the things covered in health class. However, these encounters become more frequent as students get older.
Not only would learning about sex ed at an older age leave facts fresh in your mind when you come into close calls with risky situations, it would also help students who are having sex to know what to do in situations that they may have not been prepared for by just simply learning about how STDs are contracted in freshmen year health class.
Unfortunately, more often than not, teenage girls revert to different kinds of over the counter medications, such as Plan B pill, to try to counteract the scares of unprotected sex or something along those lines. However, many girls don’t know what exactly these pills do.
For that reason, I think instead of having a full year of PE and health as a freshmen it should be split up. The PE part should be freshmen year and the health part should be junior or senior year, covering an array of topics, such as explanations of pills that girls take without knowing what they actually do.
Let Them Learn • Feb 19, 2015 at 2:14 pm
I think this is so important. I know that church isn’t a big fan of sex before marriage but it happens and unless parents want their daughters having unprotected sex, taking drugs without knowing the side effects, and making other bad choices they should have a class to educate students about this. Sometimes parents like to act like their daughters aren’t doing this kind of stuff, they need to be realistic. They also need to realize that they can’t send uneducated girls off to college, where they no longer have parental eyes watching them all the time.