Directive vs. Non-Directive



According to Thomas Lickona’s "Where Sex Education Went Wrong" "Growing up in a highly eroticized sexual environment- a legacy of the sexual revolution- American children are preoccupied with sex in developmentally distorted ways and increasingly likely to act out their sexual impulses." The proof is in the widespread sexual harassment and teen sexual activity that we have witness throughout the years in our schools.

Many schools have adopted the Comprehensive Sex Education program, because it seems like a "realistic" compromise, but according to Lickona, upon closer examination reveals fundamental problems.
  1. It sends a mixed message. Abstinence is presented as the safest option, yet "protected sex" is offered as a safe, and "responsible" second option. The "emphasis is made on making your own decision, rather than on making the right decision."
  2. An abstinence message is further weakened when schools provide how-to condom instruction and/or distribute condoms. This action signals approval of protected sex and undermines the abstinence is the best decision message.
  3. As stated earlier, condoms do not make sex physically safe. Condoms have a 10 percent failure rate in preventing pregnancy. While, the average condom failure rate for preventing AIDS is 31 percent. Many sexually transmitted diseases can transmitted by areas of the body that are not covered by contraceptive barriers (ie. Chlamydia, HPV).
  4. Condoms do not make sex emotionally safe. Low self-esteem, a sense of being "used," self-contempt for being the "user," and loss of reputation are all "destructive emotional and spiritual effects that can come from having temporary, uncommitted sexual relationships."
  5. Nondirective sex education undermines character. From a character education standpoint, this model does not give unmarried teens compelling ethical reasons to abstain from sex until they are ready to commit to another person. Instead, they are learning that they are "responsible" if they are using contraception. Additionally, it does not help students learn the "character quality of self-control" and promotes the societal problem of "sex-out-of-control." It also doesn’t develop an ethical understanding between the relationship between sex and love.

So, by the measures of ethics, education and public health, this nondirective sex education has not succeeded. "As a result, schools are turning increasingly toward directive sex education-just as the national character education movement is embracing a more directive approach to promoting core ethical values as the basis of good character" (Lickona 1993). The directive approach, which was discussed earlier, stresses sexual abstinence as the only medically safe and morally responsible choice for unmarried teenagers. As shown by the statistics presented, condoms do not make premarital sex responsible, cause they do not make it physically or emotionally safe, or ethically loving.

For links to pages which show why contemporary public school sex education does not work:
http://www.hi-ho.ne.jp/taku77/papers/sex.htm
http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/n/x/nxd10/sexuality2.htm#sex ed
http://www.missouri.edu/~c641884/ISCS7.html
http://www.mfc.org/pfn/56-96/sexed.html