Nearly half of U.S. public schools offer sex education with others prohibiting it or teaching abstinence-only.
While some states like Arizona allow schools to teach sexual education unless a student is permitted by a guardian to opt out, many schools such as those in Tennessee prohibit sexual education to be taught unless it has been approved by both the state’s board of education and the local school board.
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures website, “22 states and the District of Columbia require public schools teach sex education.”
Many schools incorporate sexual education into their wellness and physical education courses while others have courses specifically designed to teach sexuality.
“In middle school we had a class called Explore,” said Bretton Dempsey, 19, from Mattawan, Michigan. “You didn’t have to take it in high school unless you chose to take a class like that.”
In schools like Jed Rosenberg’s, 14, in Bethesda, Maryland, students are taught the mechanics of sex. He said his school informed him of the basics of sex, including “reproductive organs, what they do, the different diseases, how to put the condom on.”
But Marcus Robinson, 36, went to high school in Eufaula, Alabama, which he described as “conservative.”
He explained how the school had brought in people with HIV disease to let them “know it was real.” Robinson said that his school focused primarily on sexually transmitted diseases instead of the mechanics of intercourse.
“I was in med school for the Air Force,” Robinson remembered. “It was the first time I had heard a lot of that sexual stuff.”
With so many methods of teaching sexuality, there is debate over which approach works best to prevent teenage pregnancy in the United States.
Robinson said, “They should teach more. Not just sex, but self-esteem…the importance of having a life…it would make them wait to have a child at such a young age.”