As I mentioned in Part 1, when you’re a teacher, your planning periods are really defined by who has a planning period with you. Sitting in the teacher’s work room, your conversations can range from cooking to sports, and depending on the person, even hot topics like religion and politics...sometimes both together.
So it should be no surprise that my conservative teacher friend and I have had many conversations about many different things. However, we’re both pretty interested in politics...as such, the topic comes up more than a few times. This time, though, the topic revolved around the students at our high school, and high school students around the nation. Today’s topic was the abstinence movement.
So, without further ado, here is a conversation between my conservative friend (Cons.) and myself (Prog.).
Cons: Hey gph11, I had a question for you.
Prog: Shoot.
Cons: Here at our high school, it’s obvious that we have comprehensive sex education, where we talk about condom use, birth control, etc within our sex. ed. What do you think of this, especially the birth control part?
Prog: Frankly, I think it’s a pretty good program. Why wouldn’t we want to talk about condoms and birth control, and STD prevention?
Cons: Well, I just think that the focus should be MORE on abstinence. I know we talk about it right now, but the students (it seems) continue to have sex, nonetheless. It seems as though sex ed is not working. Sex is out of control at this school.
Prog: Well, friend, the purpose of sex education is not to stop kids from having sex, its to prepare them with knowledge, so that when they do have sex, they’ll do it right and safely.
Cons: OK, that’s where the issues comes, gph11. I noticed two things in your previous comment. Number 1. Kids having sex. You seem to be forgetting a key point. We’re talking about kids here. Kids shouldn’t be having sex. Number 2. You also said "when" they have sex, not "if" they have sex. You’re just giving in. You’re avoiding this battle altogether by assuming kids will have sex. Isn’t there something to be said about discouraging high schoolers from having sex? Isn’t this a battle we should be fighting...to stop kids from having sex?
Prog: You have a point, but...
Cons: Then say it!
Prog: Say what?
Cons: Say that high schoolers shouldn’t be having sex.
Prog: Why?
Cons: Because you know it’s true. I know it’s true. These students are immature. You teach 14 year olds, gph11! They shouldn’t be having sex. Say it!
Prog: Look, what do you want me to say?
Cons: I want you to say that people under the age of 18 are too immature, they do not understand, and they are simply unready for sex.
Prog: Fine. I believe that most people under the age of 18 are too immature to have sex.
Cons: There...is that so hard?
Prog: Uhh...no. But what has been accomplished by me saying this?
Cons: Sometimes I feel that liberal movement doesn’t mind 16 year olds having sex.
Prog: What kind of crappy statement is that? Do you think that liberals really want 16 year olds having sex? Who do you think we are? I have never talked to anyone who says, "You know what’s a great idea...16 year sophomore’s having sex!" Look, we both teach 14, 15, and 16 year olds. Without sounding creepy, none of these students should be having sex...none of them are ready for it...none of them are smart enough for it...none of them are ready for it. (Now I start getting a little angry) Fine! There! I freakin’ said it! Are you happy?
Cons: Yes, actually. Now that we’ve established that our high school students shouldn’t be having sex, what should we do?
Prog: What can we do? We teach them that abstinence is best, BUT, if they decide to make a decision, albeit a bad one, to have sex, then they MUST know about STD/Pregnancy prevention. We need to have a "it’s the next best thing" attitude, here.
Cons: But abstinence is the best...if they don’t make that stupid decision, then they won’t have to worry about AIDS, or Herpes, or pregnancy.
Prog: Here’s the deal, though. We’ve already established that kids shouldn’t be having sex...great. However, in a round-about way, we’ve also established that high school students are dumb, and they make dumb decisions. Heck, people over 18 make bad sexual decisions. So here’s a question for you. If we KNOW that our children and students have the potential to make bad decisions, wouldn’t we be incredibly negligent if we didn’t help them make the "best" bad decision that they could...i.e. using a condom?
Cons: I guess so.
Prog: See, that wasn’t so hard. We can only do so much as teachers. Parents are the most important people in regards to this. I’ve really liked that Obama’s been calling parents out for the past few months, saying that they need to teach their kids. Again, parents play the biggest role and there’s only so much we can do.
Cons: I just hate what we’ve become as a culture...sex, drugs, and violence everywhere...in the media. I just wish we could protect these kids, at least while they’re in high school from these things.
Prog: I know. Our society sucks. I blame TV, movies, music, and the media. Unfortunately, all we can really do is educate these kids, and be a good role model. Educating our students is really what our sex education program is all about. I know you like abstinence only, but given the choice between abstinence only and abstinence first, I go with the latter. We have to educate these kids as much as possible. The more information we give them, the better.
I don’t know if I convinced Cons. that we pretty much can’t only teach abstinence, but hopefully it gave my friend some pause. In regards to reasonability, I’ve noticed that my friend has moments of correct-ness. However, philosophically, we’re just very different. But if you don’t have conversations with folks who are different politically, then nothing will ever get done.