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| According to the Guttmacher Report on Public Policy, “Most state policies on sexuality education and STD education give little substantive direction beyond requiring that abstinence or contraception be covered or stressed.”(1) Growing up in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, my health class education closely reflected the terms established in the Guttmacher Report on Public Policy. Even from my own personal experience outside of the classroom, I never witnessed an individual that had AIDS nor did I see the affects of this horrid epidemic in the media, both locally and nationally. The first encounter I personally had with AIDS during my public education was during my sixth grade health class in my public school within the Allentown School District. In accordance with the Guttmacher Report, my health class did touch on the subject of sex. Despite the Public Policy, I distinctly recall the health teacher explaining the concept of contraception and the fact that diseases known as sexually transmitted diseases do exist. The health teacher went through some of the sexually transmitted diseases including syphilis, gonorrhea, hepatitis, and Chlamydia within the span of one week spent on the issue of sexual health. The subject of AIDS was scantily touched with the discussion only turning to HIV/AIDS for one class period, which consisted of forty-five minutes. However, a vast amount of information regarding abstinence was given in the short amount of time dedicated to the subject of sex. From my perspective, the rest of the time spent in health class was directed towards personal hygiene and substance abuse. | ||