Recycling is elementary.
A
f* ’"' '
Somewhere along the
line we learned how to
recycle. And now,
recycling on campus is
as easy as putting your
bottles, cans and news
papers in the right
places. Heck, you
learned how to do that
in preschool. You just
didn’t know you’d be
tested on it later.
Campus Recycling 346-1529
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Pick up an Emerald at 93
Students learn of AIDS threat,
less about overall protection
By Anjetta McQueen
AP education writer
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A girl in
Matthew Wentzel’s class of ninth
graders at Minnie Howard School
wanted to know who gets
HIV/AIDS. “Gay people do,” said a
15-year-old classmate in the back.
When Wentzel told them no, statis
tics show that among adolescents,
heterosexual females are at highest
risk, the class was silent.
“That’s the basic introduction,”
Wentzel told a reporter later. “The
realism of this epidemic hasn’t re
ally sunk in.”
Wentzel says he doesn’t sugar
coat the issue. “If you ask, I’m going
to give you an honest answer,” he
tells his human development class,
which includes this northern Vir
ginia district’s coursework on sex
education.
But nationally, sex education les
sons might not be as informative, a
new report suggests.
A survey of 1,501 students and
their parents, plus 1,300 educators,
found that students learn in school
the “birds and bees” basics of how
babies are conceived. Most also
learn how sex partners can contract
diseases. And — because of state
policies — many teachers stress ab
stinence as a way to prevent
HIV/AIDS, other STDs and un
planned pregnancy. What’s miss
ing, say teachers, students and their
parents, are lessons that would
help young people avoid such situ
ations in the first place.
“What’s important is that this
class is being taught at the most dif
ficult time for them,” Wentzel said.
“If sex education is to become part
of the curriculum, it has to evolve.”
Others say sex education has
gone too far, leaving parents out of
the process.
“Parental control or lack of it is
the basic problem, rather than what
just happens in schools,” said Liz
Alston, the pro-abstinence-only
chair of the Charleston County,
S.C., school board that’s battled
over teaching abstinence only or in
cluding lessons about birth control.
But the report, conducted by non
profit health researchers at the Kaiser
Family Foundation and released
Tuesday, found that parents want
their children to learn more about
birth control and safe sex, more than
their children reportedly learn.
Now reluctant school officials
should be more willing to expand
their programs, said Ramon Cortines,
a former superintendent who now
directs a school reform research proj
ect at Stanford University.
“We tend to be responsive to the
politics of rhetoric,” he said. “We
now have better information than
who can yell the loudest.”
For instance, 97 percent of par
ents want their children taughthow
to deal with sexual assault; just 59
percent of students said they cov
ered that in their most recent class.
Nine in 10 parents want their chil
dren to learn about birth control;
eight in 10 students say they do.
“Sex education is often debated
at the political and advocacy kind of
levels, but rarely does it get down to
real world discussions,” Tina Hoff,
Kaiser’s chief public health re
searcher. She said the study is
meant to further research on the is
sue, not invoke changes in any par
ticular state or school board’s poli
cies. The margin of error for family
and teacher responses is plus or mi
nus 3 percentage points.
Federal and private research —
distributed with the Kaiser study —
show declining sexual activity and
unplanned pregnancies among
teens. However, figures that often
raise concerns show that approxi
mately 4 million teens will get an
STD each year, and nearly half of
teens didn’t use condoms in their
most recent sexual encounter.
Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention statistics show that
among teens age 13-19, young
women, especially black females,
are being infected with HIV at high
er rates than males.
Another survey, released today
by reproductive-rights advocates,
said teachers in such classes are
less likely to introduce information
about obtaining birth control, as
well as abortion and sexual orienta
tion. The Alan Guttmacher Institute
said according to its survey — ex
clusively of teachers of these cours
es — that one in four instructors say
they are being told not to teach con
traception and focus instead on the
abstinence message.
“Teachers are covering far less ...
than they believe is needed,” said
institute president Sara Seims. “Ab
stinence messages are very impor
tant, but clearly the coverage of con
traceptive topics is also crucial.”
The Guttmacher Institute re
ceives most of its funding from
large foundations, though a small
amount comes from Planned Par
enthood of America.
Thirty states mandate that if sex
education is taught in schools that
they include lessons that encourage
teaching young people to remain
abstinent until they are emotionally
and physically ready for sex. Just
18 states and the District of Colum
bia mandate that schools offer sex
education at all.
Virginia doesn’t tell its districts
to provide sex education courses,
but requires the ones that do offer
such lesson include abstinence and
contraceptive use in those lessons.
“It’s important to provide op
tions,” said Cheryl Mercer, one of
four human development teachers
at Minnie Howard who cover the
district’s sex education curriculum.
“They’re all over the map and
there’s so much information they’re
trying to filter.”
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