Sex education is meant to make young adults aware of the emotional, physical and social consequences of unhealthy decision-making, while providing students with the knowledge they need to make these certain decisions.

Sophomore year, all students at Roosevelt are required to take a health course that delves deeply into the issues of teen sex and encourages students to set individual personal boundaries and goals. The class also covers prevention of teen pregnancy and protection against STDs along with other health information unrelated to sex. Stanton students are also required to take a six-week class on similar topics. In fifth grade students take a class on puberty and physical and emotional changes one goes through during this time of life.

More recently opinions have been formed that in order to prevent teen pregnancy and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, sex education should be taught to children at a younger age. Perhaps they feel that these fifth grade classes should incorporate sex education into their curriculum.

This could possibly be the worse idea anyone has come up with.

By nature children are innocent and attentive creatures. Although it may be true that children do and say exactly what they see and hear from the media and television, the race to steal this precious innocence should not be won by the educational system. The fact is, people who carry the opinion that sex education should be taught at a much younger age only want to take childhood away from them before something else does. Since when is that the purpose of the American education system?

And does anyone ever wonder what parents have to say about this? No one wants a ten year old at the dinner table discussing the use of a condom or the effects of losing virginity. Even though I myself am personally not a parent, I think it will be a safe bet to say that parents want to keep their children young for as long as possible. In fourth and fifth grades parents want their kids to worry about which toy they will choose during a weekend shopping trip, not what will or will not happen to them if they choose to have sex.

I think the question America needs to ask itself is, “Is it worth killing the innocence of the children who will someday run our country?” I say no.

One opinion is to start sex education as early as kindergarten by teaching youngsters the importance of good decision making and by helping them to build strong characteristics. Then to continue this education by telling elementary school students what constitutes sexually inappropriate behavior. I believe this type of education is important considering that it is estimated that at least two out of every ten girls and one out of every ten boys are sexually abused by the time they are fourteen.

I am not anti-education. The statistics are unbelievable and we definitely need to do a better job of teaching our children what inappropriate behavior is and how they should deal with it, in all aspects of life and not just sex.

Education is the best way to protect the young and the old from all forms of abuse, and there are constructive ways to go about this education, but teaching children who are at a very tender age the inner workings of the reproductive system, is not educating, it is simply traumatizing.

I also very firmly believe that it takes a village to raise a child, and in order to promote healthy live styles among all ages everyone needs to be involved. A forty-three minute class alone is simply a tool, a starting point; it takes the support of parents and guardians to make the shocking statistics non-existent.