Week 9 Readings

The first reading, Sexuality Education and Desire, was the most interesting one to me.  This reading discusses how with sex education, there is an undue burden placed on discriminated populations such as women and minorities.  The article discusses how women that are sometimes abused are left to their own devices in terms of sexual health.  This highlights to me the importance of sex education.  I do not believe we can leave sex education in the hands of parents, because some parents will neglect to pay attention to such a sensitive issue.  Furthermore, even well intentioned parents may try to educate their children about sex, but leave out important information accidentally.  Although my parents tried to have "the talk" with me, they were well intentioned but it was such a sensitive and awkward topic that I had trouble openly asking questions.  In a school environment, I was in a sea of students all asking questions so therefore I was more comfortable.  Furthermore, I was taught in a school setting about all of the various STDs, something my parents didn't touch on.  This is just why sex education is so important, because even the most well intentioned parents might miss important information and school-sponsored sex education is a way for administrators to make sure youth are all on the same page.
The article did bring out some concerns about sex education though.  It discusses how students come from many diverse backgrounds such as different religions, and therefore sexual content may be more sensitive to them.  However, I reject these claims after taking them into consideration because I feel the health of young people and stopping pregnancies and the spread of STDs is much more important than catering to these fringe groups.  Furthermore, the other option to sex education, abstinence, has been an abysmal failure.  Teens are going to have sex and these radical religious people need to realize it and we as a society have an obligation to make sure they are safe while doing it.  One of the strengths of this article was that it delves deep into the history of sex education, exposing some things that I was not aware of such as the bitter fight that existed against it.  I feel like though the right has many legitimate claims, they need to compromise and realize that as a society there are some things that the government needs to do, sex education being one of them.  Not every last thing can be an individual's choice, and this is coming from a staunch right wing Republican!  I look forward to discussing this reading in class.

Teen Coalition

During Spring Break, I had the opportunity to go to the Teen Coalition two days in a row in order to minimize time needed off from work, thus completing my requirement for attending three sittings.  My main impression was that our services were not needed very much.  I thought I would have many opportunities to help them with homework and school related activities, but to my surprise there were few students, none of whom were doing school work.  First, I attended the daily meeting where students introduce themselves and say how they are feeling emotionally on a scale of one to ten on that day.  I found the students to be very friendly, and many invited me to sit near them.  This matches my experience substitute teaching, as all of the students are very friendly.  I find both in substitute teaching and in this experience that students are generally very nice and not aggressive at all, so long as they are treated with respect.  Prior to my substitute teaching and this Teen Coalition experience, I had a fear that I would be the target of the students and treated poorly by them.  I am pleased that I have found the opposite.
The next most memorable part of the experience was the task that students were doing that week.  The Teen Coalition was responsible for putting together seemingly thousands of surveys to give to the public schools about their sex practices, drug use, and other risky or violent behavior.  It was very repetitive, and my task was to tear off old pages from old surveys and replace them with updated ones.  Furthermore,  I had to erase any writing in the surveys. 
While monotonous, this mindless work gave me the opportunity to converse with the students.  Conversation quickly changed to college and the process needed to get there.  I was amazed at just how invested students were in their grades, showing up at Teen Coalition daily by their own free will.  I gave them as much advice as I could about school and their next steps in their academic careers, something I wish I had done when I was in their shoes.  I gave them lots of advice about the application process, when to apply, where to apply, and tried to ease some of their unnecessary stress about such things as being unsure of what to major in, or not having an extremely high GPA.  I told them about requirements they would have in college, and I felt all of this advice and discussion about their future was the most helpful part of my visits.  A few students I talked with most were even disappointed that I had to leave, telling me I should volunteer there in the future.
The most surprising thing I noticed about this visit was race relations between students.  There were whites, blacks, Asians, and Hispanics as well as a student who may have been a homosexual.  Their ability to put these differences aside and even tell jokes about them and continue to work together amazed me.  It made me happy about the direction of this country for the future.  I even got the chance to witness students of different backgrounds teaching each other about their cultures, such as a Cambodian girl teaching another student Khmer.  Overall, I was surprised just how easy everyone got along, cared for each other, and respected each other.  It amazed me that this occurred in an urban environment because in my rural high school, any differences between students resulted in teasing and harassment.  The experience was a great one and challenged my perceptions of inner city youth.