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Now that you’ve thought about how things are going at home. Let’s take a look and see how things are going in the schools.
Planned Parenthood of Indiana recently partnered with Indiana University-Bloomington to conduct a survey of the sexuality education taking place in our public schools. On the next few pages, we list some of the important highlights.
What curricula are being used to teach sexuality education?
Very few teachers (18 out of 175) reported use of an established sex ed curriculum (10.2%)
What do teachers in Indiana think about the different sex ed philosophies?
The chart below indicates that Comprehensive and Reality-Based sexuality education programs are more effective at reaching students than abstinence only and abstinence-plus programs.
What topics are being covered?
Many important topics such as HIV/AIDS prevention and education, sexually transmitted infections, pregnancy, contraception, condom use, and self exams are not discussed very frequently. The graph below shows the percentage of time these topics are discussed in class. Even the “easy” topics of anatomy, puberty and body image often get overlooked in class.
Are kids getting the information they want and need in class?
The answer would appear to be no. Teachers, nurses, and counselors report that students often ask them detailed questions about topics that are not covered in the state’s mandated abstinence-only curricula.
- Communicating with others
- Contraception
- Gender
- HIV/AIDS
- Homosexuality
- Pregnancy
- Relationships
- Sexual assault
- Sexual behavior
- Sexually transmitted infections
- Sexual values
Some questions include
- Can you get pregnant from oral sex?
- Can a woman become pregnant when she is on her period?
- How effective are condoms?
- If I have oral sex will I still be a virgin?
- Can a woman get pregnant from anal sex?
- What makes people gay?
- When a girl says no, does she really mean yes?
- I’m pregnant and I don’t want to have the baby, what should I do?
- What did I do to make someone touch me inappropriately?
- I think I might be gay, am I?
What can we do to help our teachers, school counselors and nurses get accurate information about sexuality to our kids?
School personnel indicated that they would like our help in educating our kids about sexuality. Specifically, they would like
- Up-to-date sexual health information
- Access to unbiased reference materials
- A clearer understanding of school policies and applicable state laws
- Better relationships with community organizations that could help kids
- Better facilitation and counseling skills
- More family involvement in the educational process
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Sex & Swimming
