Some Texas High Schools No Longer Require Health Class
From chron.com, Houston and Texas news: At some schools, health classes no longer mandatory
The most infuriating quote from the article?
State Rep. Rob Eissler, who sponsored the bill changing the graduation standards, said he expects districts will adopt them over time. “Our aim … was to make school more relevant to kids,” said the Republican from The Woodlands.
Because nothing is more relevant than ignorance.
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I know this wasn't their intention, but I would've loved skipping health class. It was a waste of my time, because I knew everything they taught us from previous health classes and from my own research (I know way too much about nutrition). Plus, it helps that my mom is a CMSRN.
Instead of getting rid of health, I think kids should be able to say, "Hey, I know this stuff" and test out of it. Or, there should be some kind of Honors Health (AP-esque, minus the college credit).
Actually, I took a college health course and learned the exact same things I learned in high school health class. Frustrating.
Health class is where, in my (Texas) district, kids were taught NON ABSTINENCE ONLY sex education. Not only that, it discussed violence in dating relationships, and what the signs of "healthy" relationships are. The clitoris was discussed as something non-essential for reproduction, but as something that gave pleasure to women.
It wasn't perfect by any stretch. There was a heteronormative bias and a lot of stuff that really wasn't informative. But it was actually impressive to me, considering how ill-informed most people are when they leave high school.
So, that Texas is cutting these classes isn't really surprising.
The only "health class" that I've ever received as a student came down to these four points
1. If you have sex before marriage you'll ruin your life.
2. If you drink alcohol you'll ruin your life.
3. If you do drugs you'll ruin your life.
4. If you don't exercise you'll ruin your life.
Getting rid of that class would've been wonderful. However, replacing it with a REAL health class would have been even better.
The only "health class" that I've ever received as a student came down to these four points
1. If you have sex before marriage you'll ruin your life.
2. If you drink alcohol you'll ruin your life.
3. If you do drugs you'll ruin your life.
4. If you don't exercise you'll ruin your life.
Getting rid of that class would've been wonderful. However, replacing it with a REAL health class would have been even better.
Mine was basically the same. I wish I didn't have to sit through it to graduate, even if I did get some quality leisure reading time in.
Yes, that's the way it was for me as well. Plus, a good bit of disinformation thrown in just for fun.
Yeah, that was my health class too, with a sub-point on #1- if you do have sex and you get pregnant and have an abortion, you will go straight to hell.
Joan
I would rather have health classes taken away all together than have the absitnence only education there. Kids are more likely to use condoms if they have no education then if they have abstinence only education. Since that is the only thing that texas will fund, meaning unless the schools are now getting a donation from planned parenthood (wouldn't that be the day?) that's all they are going to be teaching, and then they won't use anything and are going to continue to spread this CDC nightmare that abstinence only education has caused. Just wait, in ten years we are going to be seeing an AIDS epidemic that is larger than the one in the 1980s (and I know in DC there already is but I'm talking about nation wide scale here) because one of the other things that these classes teach is that you can't get AIDS in a heterosexual relationship, and that there is no proven test to determine if someone has HIV. The words epc fial (I did that on purpose btw for those of you who don't know its a fail so big that it can't even be called epic fail, so it must be misspelled) so its much better if its just not there at all, but better yet would be to actually provide abstinence plus aka comprehensive sex education for public school students