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Sex Education Sex education has evolved throughout the last fifteen years, due to the explosion of information provided by the expansion of technological advances such as the Internet. With sexual information being as attainable as it is today, it is no surprise that children are learning at a younger age what sex is and how it affects them as people. It is then the responsibility of adults to make sex education a part of a child’s curriculum to ensure positive knowledge for prevention, rather than failed exploration leading to pregnancy, STDS and or AIDS. A thin line is then drawn between what sex education should entail. After all, a discussion of sexual activity can be said to arouse curiosity, which can easily be interpreted as encouragement. Is sex education the best essential learning tool for our kids to learn the dos and don’ts about sex? Sex is a natural part of life, and when questions arise, they can be discussed in a matured way with or without condoning certain behavior. Relying to that, we realize that sex education is important to be inserted in a person’s life. Therefore, sex education in schools is very necessary for youngsters to acquire information, form attitudes, beliefs and values about identity, relationships and intimacy. Sex education also encompasses sexual development, affection, body image and gender roles. In other words, it is about learning how we grow, reproduce and change over the years. "Forty percent of today's fourteen year old girls will become pregnant by the time they are nineteen" ("The Effects" 632). This statistic may indicate that the sex education programs in the United States are not controlling the effects of sex by teens. "The United States has the highest teen pregnancy rate of developed countries" ("The Effects" 632). I believe that the people of this nation need to look at the current sex education programs and see if they are properly addressing the problems that sex education was intended to stop. The three major reasons why sex education is taught in our schools are: 1) to discourage teens from having sex at younger and younger ages; 2) to stop the spread of AIDS and other STDs; and 3) to prevent teenage pregnancy.
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