RCL 2

Sex education in the United States is a mess. The mandates on the subject are very vague and loose, and many developing students have suffered because of it. Under informed kids are at higher risk for STDs and teen pregnancies than students with more thorough sex ed. Two articles I read on the topic that interested me were “What’s The State Of Sex Education In The U.S.?” and “The Sex Study That Could Alter Our Understanding Of Campus Assault“. According to the first article, almost 100 percent of American parents support stronger sex education in middle school and high school. Only 34 states have a mandated policy to teach students about HIV and only 24 have a mandated sex ed class. In those states the guidelines are not remotely clear and do not require schools to teach much specifics, just that there is a sex ed class. The specifics of what has to be taught is pretty much entirely left up to the individual school districts which obviously leads to a gap in knowledge from school to school and especially from state to state. The second article is more about how college students interact with each other. It states much of their behaviors are crystal clear warning signs of students who either did not receive proper education on consent and harassment or even more frighteningly, none at all. Rape statistics in colleges are frightening across the board so if middle and high schools can do something to help that they absolutely should. The second article really shows the effects of the lack of sex ed discussed in the first article. We could use the information in this article in a number of ways. We could very easily use it to show cause and effect which would be effective and eye opening to our audience. There are a number of ways to work that information in but I feel that’s the best one.