I suspect I may have written about this before (yeah, I make periodic attempts to label my posts but don’t have enough follow-through), but this is my pet theory on sex ed:
Right now, as far as I can tell, there are two schools of thought: either you tell kids not to have sex, and give them all the reasons why and try to equip them with no-saying skills; or you give them a menu of choices: abstainence or “safe sex” with contraceptives, and accompany that will drills on contraceptive use.
But can’t we teach this in the context of a family life/life skills class? We teach students how to balance a checkbook, how a credit card works, what credit ratings mean, how to budget, etc. — even though we don’t expect high school students to use those skills until they truly reach adulthood.
Can we take a similar approach to contraception, something like this:
When you reach adulthood and you get married, you might not want to have children right away. Here are some ways you can reduce the likelihood of getting pregnant. . . there are pros and cons to each, and your choice will also depend on how important it is to avoid pregnancy at different times in your life.
I know, that sounds dorky. But I am a dork, and maybe some dorkiness helps us get past old arguments. And maybe it fits in with a unit on healthy families to boot.
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