Has US abstinence policy failed? - Page 3

new coup for you · 04-26-08, 03:54 PM

Someday the American political body will admit to the American pubic that their ability to effect the behavior of children through school programs is utterly nonexistent and every single instance of any such social program has been nothing but a utterly mercenary vote-grab.

It does not matter what you tell kids about sex in school.

It does not matter what you tell kids about drugs in school.

They will **** if they want, and get ****ed up if they want, everything whether it be abstinence only programs, DARE, teaching kids how to use condoms are a complete waste of money and done entirely for the purpose of sating adults, not for children.

FallingPianos · 04-26-08, 04:03 PM

the government's own study of abstinence programs showed that at best they are ineffective, and at worst increase risk for STDs. "failed" is a rather mild way of putting it.

new coup for you · 04-26-08, 04:04 PM

Why can't we just discuss sex as it relates to legitimate subjects like biology?

"Health" classes are little other then "Government Lies Time" where whatever prevailing idiot idea about sex "education" prevails and weed is routinely compared to cocaine.

No one is believing it. The fundamental flaw in all of these programs is that it assumes that children A)care what adults think about drugs or sex and B)are total retards.

FallingPianos · 04-26-08, 04:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by new coup for you

The fundamental flaw in all of these programs is that it assumes that children A)care what adults think about drugs or sex and B)are total retards.

I half agree with you. Teenagers don't care what adults think because adults treat them like retards. Given the chance, teenagers can be surprisingly intelligent, but you have to stop dumbing down course material and start treating them as intelligent beings.

rathi · 04-26-08, 05:01 PM

Sex education should be education, not propaganda. I was lucky enough to have a psychology class in which we learned about the effects of drugs. Not "drugs are bad and will kill you", but the real science behind how they effect the brain. My peers actually tended to listen, because the information was presented in a neutral fashion, leaving the choices up to kids to decide. \

Ideally, drugs and sex would taught in the following fashion. Sex would not be called evil and tell "students to wait". Instead, first the federal, state and local laws for minors engaging in sex would be discussed. Then real statistics on std rates. Finally, the effectiveness and cost of different contraception would be provided. Drug education would follow a similar fashion. First, the legal penalties for the different drugs would be taught. Follow it up with the real effects they have on the body and brain. Frankly, marijuana should be taught something like this "smoking marijuana is harmful to lungs and can cause problems other similar to smoking cigarettes. However, eating or vaporizing the marijuana will have different effects." Finally, finish it up with a way to recognize alcohol poisoning or drug overdose and how to deal with such situations.

Kids may still choose to use substances and engage in risky sex, but they will be better informed about the real consequences of the choices they make.

new coup for you · 04-26-08, 05:52 PM

Sex should be taught in science class as the natural process leading to pregnancy, and it's social issues should be completely left out.

drugs shouldn't be discussed at all.

Onine · 04-26-08, 08:51 PM

US Civil Government as a whole has failed in this regard.

As less changes are made annually, and more people still do not see the problem with public schools, this will likely only get more and more obvious.

Our entire education system in some areas of the public sector is, quite frankly, a joke. I talked to my counselor once when I was 17, that's it... the people I talked to more than that about things, were Substitutes, who simply had great personalities, and/or kids of their own, so they were simply concerned people. Those are actually the people who should be the school counselors. I don't think many of the teachers are doing their jobs correctly.

I had a math teacher once who asked us what she should be doing. This was a high school math teacher, and she asked us what she should be doing. It was sad. Once that happened, I stopped paying attention. Why bother? I taught myself after that and I graduated by doing so. Funny how back then I had bad marks, but once I got my own text books, and started applying myself by doing all of the work myself, based on what I knew would be in the exams, I had no problems after that.

All Im saying is the whole school system has failed in some schools. There are good schools out there, and those schools need to network with the bad ones. There are good teachers out there having corespondance with bad teachers but no one is really paying attention.

It is a waste of resources.

If the schools can't get their work together, the SI and Principals should be fired, by the Board of Ed., and replaced by someone more eager and willing to do their jobs.

I consider it the largest blemish this country currently has.

aegyptos · 04-26-08, 08:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcana XV

I don't understand what you mean. As far as I can determine, the people in your country who are trying to change the gun laws, taxation policies, healthcare and everything else you mentioned, are as American as you are. Usually of the Democratic persuasion. What do you mean, outsiders? Since when do Americans even listen to outsiders?

The few who do are the democrats. Many of the serious problems that the United States struggles with such as its ridiculous foreign policy, incipient socialism and even the racial divide were either bequeathed to us by Europeans (slavery) or came over as new and exciting ideas to level the playing field (socialism and internationalism). Admit it, didn't you like the world better, wasn't it a safer place for you when the United States slumbered peacefully on its own side of the pond?

aegyptos · 04-26-08, 09:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcana XV

They did during the whole Mohamed cartoons fiasco.

Denmark itself was irrelevant in the cartoon episode. Americans just enjoyed the discomfort of the muslims and marvelled at the failure of the Danish social system to incorporate and civilize them.

aegyptos · 04-26-08, 09:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GarzaUK

We also are so curious about America because it is an anomoly. It is the only Western nation to have death pelanty, where the majority of people do not think evolution to be true, where abortion is a political issue, where abstinence is taught in schools (I mean even European Catholic coutnries don't to that!!),where people cling to guns like to children and yet you are the richest nation in the world.

The US is a very very very strange country in regards to the rest of the free world.

Not to the rest of the free world, just to Europe. But this observation of yours at least is interesting. Much more interesting than abstinence teaching and condom distribution to kids. The anomaly you are noticing has been studied by sociologists since the turn of the Twentieth Century but first described in the 1830s by Tocqueville. It known as American Exceptionalism. America is very different than Europe (including Britain). This difference is real and its growing. A careful reading of the literature of the American Revolution will show that the American people had already by that time divirged so far from British norms that staying under British rule was out of the question. Professor Seymour Martin Lipsett, who I studied with a very long time ago, wrote some very good books on this subject. I recommend them to you.