Parma High School teens make a request for real sex education

[ccharles000]

On Monday night, two teenagers stood before Parma's school board and essentially pleaded that the grown-ups in charge change how sex education is taught in their district.

Their courage was a timely reminder that we ignore our children at their peril.

The first student to speak in the room of 150 or so in attendance was 17-year-old Daniel Sparks.

Teenage boys don't come any cleaner-cut or more poised than Daniel. In a strong, steady voice, the junior at Parma Senior High School attacked the district's abstinence-only-until-marriage sex education program, taught by Operation Keepsake.

The program sounds like a military exercise, but it sends kids virtually unarmed into a sexually complex and potentially dangerous world.

This, Daniel told the school board, is poor public health.

"Operation Keepsake has made me question education as a whole, for while they scared us into understanding what could go wrong, they afforded us no information on how things could go right," he said. "On how to protect ourselves, on the effectiveness of contraception, and empowering us with knowledge to make the right decisions before making the wrong ones."

http://www.cleveland.com/schultz/index.ssf/2010/02/teens_make_a_request_for_real.html

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. Those kids are to be applauded.

It takes real courage to stand up to the so-called adults and call them on what's being taught.......and on what isn't.

It's time to listen to the kids.

K&R

[MineralMan]

2. Clever lad, there!

[Skittles]

3. kids like that give me hope for America

[RKP5637]

4. Fortunately the kids in this country seem to have some brains! It's about time

American moved into the 21st century.

[OhioChick]

5. Good for these kids

K&R

[Blue_Tires]

6. wow...things are so different now...

I had sex ed (as a part of the regular curriculum) in 9th grade at a pretty conservative catholic school in the early 90s...Of course, the teacher was all about "abortion = evil murder of innocents", but she got into contraception, masturbation, STDs, pregnancy, just about everything...

And even in SIXTH grade (1989) at a public school, my parents signed me up for sex ed (which was after-school, and only with parents' full written permission)... Didn't go into too much graphic detail, but at least I started to understand more about the female body than what I could learn from 'Penthouse'...

[conservdem]

7. How did the school board respond?

That seems to missing from the piece.

[RC]

8. Probably tried to expel the kids for insubordination.

[FarCenter]

9. I thought high school kids generally had access to the Internet

Why do they need sex education?

[lib2DaBone]

10. Good For These Kids.. well done....

..Let's all Google "Operation Keepsake" and see what we find?

[Lex]

11. Kudos to those young men & women and SHAME ON that school board

for keeping relevant information from those young men and young women.

Knowledge is power, and countries whose schools have comprehensive sex education have LOWER incidences of unwanted pregnancies and STDs. It's a freakin' proven FACT.