Above The Noise

(chiming music) (bell ringing) (upbeat music) (whistle blowing) Good morning, class. Now as you see here, I'm Coach Myles. Now normally I'm just your PE coach, but today we're talking about sex. Now you can thank the school board for this. But what do y'all know about sexual health? Anybody, gimme something. What you know? - Hey, Mr. Myles. So I heard that if a girl eats a apple seed that she gonna have a baby. What? That's not how it works. A guy has to hold hands with a girl, then she'll have a baby. You both are wrong. - Tell 'em. A mom and a dad have to kiss, and a stork has to see, so a baby can end up on their doorstep. (kids chattering) (whistle blowing) Y'all are all wrong. Completely wrong. I've never heard wronger answers in my life. I think it's time we have... (dramatic music) The talk. All right, it's only gonna get more awkward from here, y'all. Today we're gonna be talking about sex education in America. Sex ed is super controversial and all over the place. Different states teach sex ed way differently. And some places don't even teach it at all. And this can be a problem if you look at STI and pregnancy rates among teens in America. According to the CDC, in the US, 15-24 year olds account for half of new STI reports each year, even though they only make up just over a quarter of the sexually active population. And this topic is so taboo that this very video will probably get blocked in schools. But today, we're just gonna throw caution to the wind and dive into this controversial topic, and ask, what should sex ed look like in schools? All right, now as you can imagine, this is something that is on the minds of a lot of students. In fact, this topic came to us by a student report from Oakland Military Institute. These students are a part of PBS NewsHour Student Reporting Lab. They researched, wrote, and helped produce this episode. Meet Alberto, Hugo, Nairobi, Roberto, Samantha, Tavares, and Teddy. All right, like Myles hinted at before, the federal government doesn't require any sex ed to be taught in any really specific way. Different states have different requirements, and some states don't even wanna teach it at all. So let's say you're living in Arkansas. According to the state's law, your sex ed is probably more along the lines of learning stuff like, only safe sex is no sex, you should only have sex if you're married, and there's not much talk about birth control. And if you live in California your sex ed is gonna look very different. Covering all kinds of things from birth control, to consent, to gender identity, and more. Now because sex ed is taught so differently depending on where you live, we wanted to find out what students across the country think about their experiences with it. It was very educational on body parts, but that's about it. Didn't really learn anything about, you know, the act. Specifically for me, I don't feel like there's even a sexual curriculum that even has related for me because they don't talk about gay sex in schools. Let alone do they talk about sex at all, period, so. We had a lady come in and make us use condoms, and how to properly put them on. And we learned that unprotective sex is very dangerous. I can't even tell you what it was about, honestly. All I know was my weird PE teacher told us about it. And we made fun of him the entire time. The latest sex ed, which was all about ball cancer and whatnot, so. In health we kind of did sex ed, not really though. It was more like, don't have sex, than sex ed. In eighth grade we were taught abstinence, and we actually signed away that we'd be abstinent through our school years. And that's all we really got taught. That's a whole lot of variation on instruction methods there. And what gets taught in schools is often decided by state politicians and local school boards, who are elected by voters. Many of whom are parents. So given this variety, it's hard to talk about the pros and cons of these approaches. But we'll do our best. Let's start with comprehensive sex ed. Comprehensive sex education, which is a deeper dive into sexual health. It still teaches that abstinence, or not having sex, is the best way to prevent teen pregnancies and STIs. But it also includes just about everything else from STI prevention, to gender identity, and consent. To learn more about this we sat down with Peggy Orenstein, a journalist who has investigated this topic and written about it extensively in her books, "Girls and Sex" and "Boys and Sex". So it's essential that we equip young people with these skills. And we see too much these days what happens when we don't. We see sexual harm being committed, we see sexual harm being experienced. We see really violent relationships. And one of the biggest arguments for comprehensive sex ed is that research shows it works to reduce teen pregnancy. According to a study from University of Washington, teens that receive comprehensive sex ed were 50% less likely to report pregnancies, compared to teens that only received abstinence only education. Comprehensive sex ed is also endorsed by many health organizations, like these. Supporters of comprehensive sex ed also point to research that abstinence only programs can actually be harmful by withholding medically accurate information. So in our contemporary society the default sex educator is becoming pornography. But the kind of pornography that young people access most readily, and most easily, and for free, is again this kind of media that shows wildly inaccurate behavior, that shows female pleasure as a performance for male satisfaction, that shows sex as something men do to women not with women. Supporters say that comprehensive sex ed is designed to make all students feel more comfortable in the classroom. Including LGBTQ+ youth, students with disabilities, or students who have been victims of sexual violence themselves. But scientific evidence isn't the only factor that plays into how schools decide on what to cover in their sex education. Personal, community, and religious values also influence policy in how people feel about this curriculum. You often hear these stories in the news about parents protesting this type of curriculum. Some of the curricular materials are encouraging behavior without listing all the potential consequences. It's gonna normalize certain ideas that we as parents feel should be in the home. For instance, ideas regarding gender identity, sexuality, and sexual behaviors. In particular, some opponents are critical of teaching kids about gender identity and consent. They say what is taught isn't age appropriate. It's too graphic. Goes against personal beliefs. Or can put ideas into kids heads. And some parents just feel that school is not that right place or setting for students to learn about sexual health or reproduction. We propose that Austin ISD focus on academics, and leave character training, values, and beliefs to parents. And then you've got people who support sexual risk avoidance programs, aka abstinence only. Or abstinence leaning programs. Supporters of these programs often point to the benefits of abstaining or delaying sex. And point out that most teens aren't engaging in sex anyways. So, they say, the best way to keep teens from having sex is to stress the benefits of waiting. Ascend is one of the largest advocacy groups for this type of sex ed. When it comes to criticism that these programs are harmful to LGBTQ youth, they say that LGBTQ youth are a small fraction of the population. And just like heterosexual youth they can also benefit from abstaining or delaying sex. Opponents often feel like these programs push religious messages, which they think should not happen in public schools. It's shocking when you find out that faith-based groups are providing this sort of information in our schools. I had no idea, I thought that was not allowed. -

Nairobi

So you've got parents on both sides of the issue pressuring school districts for an opt-out option, so their kids don't have to get sex ed that goes against their family values. But what's often left out of this whole sex ed conversation is a student's perspective. And now we'll leave you some thoughts on what some students want in their sex ed. I don't think we should create a sense of fear over sex. And we should in fact normalize it so we create a safe space, so that people can discuss freely and ask questions over sex education. 'Cause there's a lot of misconceptions. Kids should be able to ask questions and get answers, rather than them just teaching abstinence like they always have. Because abstinence is good, but there's many different kids with many different issues that they need explained to them. Even students who produced this episode practice abstinence, like me. And there's probably many more students like me who get comprehensive sex ed, but make the decision to practice abstinence. I still want to learn about this stuff. Like avoiding date rape drugs, and learning about the LGBTQ community. And that doesn't take away the fact that I want to practice my religion. What has your experience been like with sex ed? And what do you think it should look like in schools?