Whenever people want to be educated about something, they often turn to one main source; school. Whether it be public school, private school or college, school is the go-to place for people to learn about things. There are several important things that schools teach children, such as math and science and other subjects, but there are also a lot of important subjects that schools either do a poor job of teaching or do not teach at all. 

     One of these subjects that is extremely important outside of school for life itself is Sex Ed, a class that sounds like it should be pretty educational and informative. It should teach students about what to do and what not to do whenever they have intercorse and how to do it safely, but instead all Sex Ed does is scare students out of having sex with pictures of STDs and teen mom horror stories.

    According to a study done by the Center for Disease Control in 2018, about 40% of high school students report being sexually active. That may not sound like a lot, but keep in mind that this survey was conducted all across the nation, meaning this statistic is coming from multiple high schools across the country. That’s a lot of students. A lot of the time, Sex Ed in high school barely even touches on the topic of sex itself and goes straight to puberty and STIs and other topics. While yes, those topics are important and it’s good that we’re being educated on them, it’s not nearly enough for us. According to the same survey from the CDC, 30% of students reported that their parents refused to talk about sex with them at all. This means that there are students out there who solely rely on the schools that they go to for learning about sexual intercourse. 

     There are several accounts on the internet that talk about how lacking the Sex Ed classes in schools are and how people wish that they were more educational. Instead of scaring students into remaining abstinent for life, schools should teach them how to safely have sex and what is right and wrong when having intercourse. They should teach students things like consent and safety and all sorts of important sex-related subjects that aren’t just life-threatening diseases that you’re at risk of.  

     And it doesn’t have to just fall down to having intercourse either – Sex Ed should also teach students about sexuality and gender identity. There are several students who are members of the LGBTQ+ community that go to North Harford and other schools all over America. The amount of education that we receive on the subject is little to none and honestly,it’s unfair. If other people get to learn about having intercourse with the opposite sex, then shouldn’t we be able to learn about same sex intercourse as well? And what’s with the lack of transgender education in schools? The majority of trans people often realize that they are trans in their middle to high school years. That seems like it’d be the best time to educate teenagers on gender identity and all the different ways they can express their identity, such as the use of different pronouns. These issues are not nearly talked about enough in schools when they really should be, for they are a key aspect to life for some people.

     People may argue and say that this type of thing goes against their religion or their beliefs as a person, and to that I say: make the class optional. If the class were an option to sign up for outside of the simple birds and the bees talk that they give everyone in health class, I’m sure that there would be plenty of students who would gladly sign up for it. If students also don’t want to learn about it because the subject makes them uncomfortable, then they wouldn’t have to sign up for it. 

      It’s just a topic that is poorly handled in schools, something that is utterly ridiculous considering how important these issues are in the real world. If the topic was handled better, maybe students would not only learn more about safe sex, but they would also be more comfortable talking about it with others. It wouldn’t have to be this awkward, elephant in the room type of situation.