Why is sex ed so bad?

maeve99 · 18-09-2021 08:35PM #1

I was listening to the radio about the topic of unplanned pregnancies. A 23yr old said she had her child at 17 because she didn't know what the morning after pill was. This misinformation among the youth doesn't seem to be isolated to Ireland but many countries. Why is this?

I'm in my mid-20s and I only received two full classes of sex ed in my entire life. One was in 6th class in primary school and the second was in SPHE class in 3rd year. That was the extent of my sexual education.

Is it a wonder so many adults never-mind teenagers are unaware about STD's, consent, and contraception?

Some say the parents should give the talk but my friends in school were just like me and received none from their parents but learned it from the internet.

SimonTemplar · 18-09-2021 08:42PM

I remember doing Biology in secondary school around 2002. Our teacher was a man approaching retirement age. We started on chapter one and went through the textbox in order throughout the whole year but he just skipped the Reproduction chapter and moved straight onto the next one. Hilariously obvious that he just didn't want to go near that subject.

18-09-2021 08:49PM

Creepy!😲

Princess Calla · 18-09-2021 09:32PM

Is it though?

I was in a convent school in the 90's and I remember it being covered well in religion, civics,home EC and science.....the four subjects covered it around the same time and I think by the end of it we were thoroughly sick of the subject.

They also got aids alliance in when we were in 4th year to give a workshop.

From talking to family members the curriculum seems to have moved on to a more indepth conversation about STDs .

The one thing that probably could have been covered more is same sex relationships and safe sex within them. Though at the time homosexuality was still illegal I think ...not sure what the curriculum is now on this subject.

Now my parents were absolutely woeful and really neglected their duties but the school was on the ball.

One eyed Jack · 18-09-2021 09:38PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117909271#Comment_117909271

Funniest show on Netflix in a long time, I won’t spoil it though 😁

As for why sex education is considered poor, it’s really down to the fact that people aren’t generally interested in teaching the ins and outs as it were of sex. They place greater educational value in teaching people about other things which they see as more useful or more important or more interesting than sex is all.

18-09-2021 10:02PM

I went to a convent school in the '90s and it was sh1t, which I think is the more predictable experience than Princess C's but I guess it depends on the school. Mine was so full of messers whom they couldn't control that they probably just didn't want to bring all the laughing and piss-taking on themselves. It was mostly lay teachers teaching science as well - except for two nuns who were pretty "with it" for nuns. But there was no "it's sinful" stuff to it, just not wanting the grief of all the little smartarses. We were shown a really poor quality video and that was it. It was funny in fairness - seemed to be filmed in a local hall in the bogs, with a presentation and Q&A.

I think it's extraordinary that someone who was 16/17 in 2015 didn't know about the morning after pill though. Particularly with all of the online information (which is obviously rife with issues too but the m.a.p is straightforward). 20 years before that, teens knew. Was she from a very sheltered home?

riclad · 18-09-2021 10:34PM

Our schools are mostly run by the catholic church, say your car breaks down, would you phone the local chemist to fix it. we need to copy other countrys,sex education needs to be thought in a logical sceintific way, that covers things like consent, stds, lgbt rights etc saying the age of consent is 16 is not enough.there needs to be proper training of teachers or else bring in experts to teach it.i got no sex ed. i think young people learn more from watching porn than from the present system of sex ed.there was no sex ed in my school, i did not know about the morning after pill .i think teachers get given a book ,or course materials, i dont think they recieve specific training about sex ed . to teach maths honors you need a basic level of training .maybe some teachers are embarrassed about it, expecting a 50 year old male to teach girls about sex ed without training is a bad idea .

its hard to think of an organisation worse prepared than the catholic church to run a sex ed program.its like asking the taliban to create a female diversity equality education program.if most students were failing maths or english there would be an uproar, theres no test or university points given for teaching sex ed.teachers are employed for 40 years, most teachers maybe have a very basic or zero training re sex education

igCorcaigh · 18-09-2021 10:53PM

OK, interesting thread... and before I read and think about the posters' contributions above, please let me throw this one out:

My own experience of the topic: a special night (yes, the evening time) arranged for sex ed ,when I was in (an all boys) Primary School in 1985; must have been the last year of school, I was probably 13. At least one parent had to be present (my dad).

Presented by: nuns. I learned something about X and Y chromosomes, stuff like that. The presentation ended with a beautiful poetic image, of two two raindrops on a window, joining in union. Nothing about sex was mentioned. Nothing about contraception, and certainly nothing about STIs.

We went upstairs, to our classroom, where we could write anonymous questions on little pieces of paper, and put them into a box, which were then "answered" in the next part of the presentation. I didn't write anything.

The whole thing was weird, creepy, dangerously insufficient, and embarrassing. I was 13, knew I was gay, and it was in the midst of the AIDS crisis; no abortion services, no contraception, and a totalitarian "moral" ethos in society.

I hope things have changed now, but until we create a secular education system in this country, we really are not a modern society, and there is still a presence of our own Taliban in control of our children.

Josephfromdowntheroad · 18-09-2021 10:55PM

If a teenager wants an answer to a question they can just Google it.

Pre internet we were clueless

18-09-2021 11:02PM

While I agree that church and state should be separate, I don't think it's appropriate to compare the Catholic Church here with the horror that is the Taliban.

I don't agree that we were clueless pre internet either. I wasn't. Depended on your parents and school.

igCorcaigh · 18-09-2021 11:07PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117909649#Comment_117909649

Yes, it is very unfair if I compared our life under RCC rule than those under that of Taliban. It's more a hypey word play, a way to make a point. Apologies.

18-09-2021 11:45PM

Don't apologise! 😊

I can absolutely see parallels with a theocracy if you consider some of the church's shenanigans here 55+ years ago, which isn't terribly far back in the wider scheme of things. Many of those who suffered still alive too.

Manky O Toole · 19-09-2021 12:06AM

Teens learn from porn these days anyway.

igCorcaigh · 19-09-2021 12:13AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117909807#Comment_117909807

That isn't learning though.

Mrs OBumble · 19-09-2021 01:09AM

Catholic school in the 1980s, overseas. Among other things, we learned about condoms, and practiced putting them on bananas (girls school). So I don't believe that it's Catholicism which makes it short on content.

"Sex education" is a huge topic, which starts in pre-school with learning that other people aren't allowed to do things to your body that hurt you - I'm not aware of anyone saying that part of it is badly done.

Components of it are covered in lots of different classes (biology, literature, whatever civics is called here, etc). Most people pretend that the non-biology parts aren't part of sexuality education - but they are often the best ways of teaching about the range of human experiences.

You could equally ask why maths education is so bad, evident from the number of people who into trouble with debt, or struggle with basic logic in the workplace.

riclad · 19-09-2021 01:14AM

I presume things have improved a bit since the 80s, we have gay marriage, single mothers are not ostracised, abortion is legal. Maybe there's just no political will to change the sex education system we have now and the government is dealing with a pandemic and the housing crisis i would not be depending on nuns to provide a wide ranging sex education program unless the government brings in a basic standard sex Ed curriculum

To some extent we were a theocratic state in the 70s and the 80s since our education system was so tightly controlled by the Catholic Church change does not happen by accident the dept of education set standards and what kind of material is in textbooks

Glaceon · 19-09-2021 01:23AM

I think it’s a mixture of two outdated ideas. “The parents should talk about it” and a bit of “sex is for procreation so you shouldn’t be doing it anyway unless you want a baby”.

Strumms · 19-09-2021 01:44AM

Nothing in primary school that I remember...

secondary school, maybe second or third year I forget which year...anyway we were like true teen perverts all hoping for Ms G to teach us, she was a rude wanker an absolute dickhead in fact and fûcking dreadful teacher but about 27 and ‘stunning’...

ended up being the about 62 year old form teacher Mr M ... who seemed to have less interest even then his knowledge of the subject...when he began mispronunciations of body parts and not for comical effect.... a ‘vageena’..l never came across a girl with one of those sir, no pun intended.

Shao Kahn · 19-09-2021 08:26AM

Is it a bit odd that we are supposed to be the most intelligent animal on this spinning ball of loopy-ness, yet we are also the only animal that needs education on sex! :D

As the nike ad says "just do it!". Our big brains seem to always want to over-complicate things. Keep it simple, stupid!

19-09-2021 08:43AM

In the 1990s / early 2000s we got absolutely none whatsoever, but we did have marriage guidance classes in Transition Year ?!? These were basically discussions with an all male group of 16 year olds about communication within a hypothetical marriage and about bringing Jesus into your marriage…

As you can imagine, we took this very seriously… Absolutely nobody asked any fake questions for comedy value, or wound up the teacher about this ludicrous class…

We did, however, have an utterly weird teacher who kept asking strange questions about stuff like who had chest hair etc and bringing up totally inappropriate topics when he was supposed to be teaching an academic subject. I also had similar weird and creepy crap in 6th class, from an older member of a religious order as a primary teacher.

In general, just found the whole Irish school experience on those topics abysmal and downright weird.

Mad_maxx · 19-09-2021 02:42PM

Some people are just a bit thick, I never received any sex - Ed at home and very little at school but between juvenile schoolyard banter and what was in the science book in first year, it wasn't that difficult to piece it together

Manky O Toole · 19-09-2021 05:33PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117911116#Comment_117911116

This. Pretty easy to figure out what goes where. And everyone knows a girl who got knocked up at 15or so, so you get a crash course in contraception.

Tell me how · 19-09-2021 05:37PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117912005#Comment_117912005

Maybe the 15 year old and her likely similarly aged partner would have benefitted from a more formal communication process whether in the class room or at home before they found themselves in such a life changing position.

Manky O Toole · 19-09-2021 05:39PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117912018#Comment_117912018

Not my problem. I was the nerd who never got laid in school, so seeing popular kids ruin their lives was funny to me.

19-09-2021 05:41PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117910100#Comment_117910100

Avoiding pregnancy when too young, and avoiding STDs.

Tell me how · 19-09-2021 05:43PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117912026#Comment_117912026

Should put that as your bio on dating apps.

Manky O Toole · 19-09-2021 05:44PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117912038#Comment_117912038

Who needs dating apps when you have escorts?

Tell me how · 19-09-2021 05:47PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117912042#Comment_117912042

Whatever works for you.

Does however bring us back to the benefit of good sex-ed and and particularly the risks around STD's.

Loafing Oaf · 19-09-2021 07:03PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117912042#Comment_117912042

The ultimate Passion Wagon

Mad_maxx · 19-09-2021 07:58PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117912018#Comment_117912018

Some people are either thick or irresponsible

The state can't wipe everyone's ar5e

riclad · 19-09-2021 09:28PM

People need to know about stds , contraception, issues around consent, etc the average couple now has 1 or 2 children, obviously they are using contraception.we spend 100s of hours learning irish in secondary, maybe we could put together a modern sex ed program for 2022 .is it really that difficult ,or maybe no politican wants to get involved in this area .theres not much votes in saying ,im in favor of a modern sex ed curriculum.we spend millions each year teaching irish, how many actually speak irish in real life, maybe a few people who work in tg4, rte, or in the gaeltacht.

Most people will end up being in a relationship and having sex at some point.

Why is sex ed so bad?

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