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Sex Education At Five?
by James Glaser September 15, 2008
Everybody has their own idea of how we should be teaching our children, and as a father and a grandfather, I have my own. I believe that the State, over the last forty years has taken more and more of the responsibility of parents to teach their children by making it economically necessary for both parents to work. Fewer and fewer mothers or fathers have the luxury of staying home with their children while they are growing up. In fact the American media has been making it seem wrong if a woman opts out of the workforce to stay and teach her children, and if a father wants to do that, that pretty much brands him as being weird. I have to start out by telling you that I believe I have had a wonderful educational experience, and when I finished high school, not only did I know where babies came from, but I could also count money, balance a check book, loved to read, and had a desire to learn more. I still remember kindergarten. Every morning my best friend, Mikee Kane, would stand at our back door calling for me, and the two of us would walk to school together. Kindergarten was half days, as I think the system was trying to ease the transition of playing at home to a future of 12 years of full time school. Also it was easier on my mom, easing me away from her with this half time attendance that first year of school. Today, kindergarten is no longer your first year of school at age five. Now in many areas government schools are starting kids when they are four in a pre-kindergarten class. That first year at school for me was filled with learning how to interact with other children in a group setting. I didn't know that was what was going on, but I do remember there were times we had to be quiet while the teacher read to us, we had painting projects where we could express ourselves, and than there were games where we had to follow rules and work with others on our "team." Now, I can understand why Barack Obama wants sex education at the early age of five. In this day and age many children are faced with sexual abuse and arming them with knowledge of what is right and what is wrong may stop some of that, but entrusting the government to teach a child that young is not the answer. Look at our public school system today, and tell me if you believe that that system can be trusted to teach anything that important. Right now in many cities we have a 50% drop out rate, and many of those kids who do graduate, can't read or count money, let alone do complex math problems. So, with a school system like we have, Barack Obama wants to take the responsibility for sex education away from parents and give it to the State. In fact, Obama wants to give that responsibility to a State run system that we already know is a failure. Sure, we can say that if the school doesn't do it, then no one will. I have to ask though, what is Barack Obama running for, School Superintendent or President of the United States? If Obama is running for President, then I am looking for new ideas out of the man. We all know we have problems with both our schools and our families. We need a President who can think out of the box, and see that at one time we had good education, and families that stayed together, where one parent was allowed to help with the teaching of their child, while the other parent worked, and where one income could support a family. In the last forty or fifty years we have lost the American nuclear family. Now more and more parents depend on the State to raise their child. Right now in this country we need a President who will work on getting parents and children closer together, not one who wants to create new programs that keep them further apart. Barack Obama might mean well, but his ideas will distance children from their mothers and fathers more than they are now, and his ideas for education will take us in the wrong direction. |
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