Health Class- Opinions?

[smearyllama]

As of right now, I'm taking HPE8, which consists of health and PE for grade 8.

We alternate between health and PE every five days, so that we at least get some physical activity.

I actually enjoy Health. It's actually kind of informative, and the class is really easy.

We just got to the Sex Ed part of the curriculum, and my friend insists that guys learning about periods and such is useless. I think it's just because he's embarrassed to t learn this stuff, but I wonder if there is merit to what he says.

So, I'm wondering, escapists. What's your opinion on Health class in schools?
Do you think it's actually educational, or do you find it to be a waste of school funding?

 

[Aris Khandr]

Far more useful than PE class is.

 

[Mr. Eff_v1legacy]

Health is one of the most important things you can learn in school. Everyone should know about sex and general fitness, and I think school is a good place to do it. Teens are trying new things - drugs, sex, etc. While they may not necessarily be bad things, they need to be aware of what they're doing, the consequences, and how to prevent undesirable outcomes.
Sex education is especially important. Everyone knows having sex leads to pregnancy. But how? And how does one prevent it?
Some kids don't have parents that can tell them these things. I was lucky in that my mother is a nurse, and she could tell me anything I needed to know - which is good, because my schools did a pretty bad job of teaching those things. The only class we actually learned about STDs, contraception, etc. was an ELECTIVE CLASS I took.
Some may say "Let people make their own mistakes." Sometimes, people need to do that. But when it comes to things like pregnancy and STDs, that's a problem that affects us all. Teen moms go on welfare. STDs are spread. Drug addictions go hand in hand with crime. The list goes on - these issues go beyond one persons mistake.
As for physical fitness, I was ardently opposed to mandatory gym class. How dare they make me do something I don't want to do? This will never help me.
As I got older, I realized, again, this is part of a broader issue, and sometimes people need a push to help themselves, and maybe even discover something they wouldn't have in the first place.
To use myself as an example, after I graduated high school, I began to work out on my own time. If you had asked me at 16 if I would have been doing that, I would have laughed and responded with an emphatic "No."
So, I think health classes are important. In fact, it's one of the most important things you can learn in school.

 

[BRex21]

We had abstenence only Sex ed, so pretty much useless. Personally though I think most of my friends who graduated full and proper from a highschool with real sex ed have no usefull information, and the ones that do got a female-centric sex ed anyway. If they wanted to expand it, give it a serious curriculum and either divy it up between male and female reproductive issues or seperate the class i would fully support it. But as it stands I would bet there are remarkably few men out there who went through sex ed and could tell you what torsion is, and it is a very serious medial condition.

 

[Wolfenbarg]

I found my health class to be the most pointless platform for an uneducated soapbox I had ever seen in high school. Not only that, but the amount of homework assigned relative to classes that actually meant something (math, history, etc.) was horribly skewed. If I could have chosen one class to completely strike from my school experience, it would have been health. Completely useless.

 

[Jamboxdotcom]

We just got to the Sex Ed part of the curriculum, and my friend insists that guys learning about periods and such is useless. I think it's just because he's embarrassed to t learn this stuff, but I wonder if there is merit to what he says.

So, I'm wondering, escapists. What's your opinion on Health class in schools?
Do you think it's actually educational, or do you find it to be a waste of school funding?

your friend doesn't know what he's talking about. i hated Health class, but i can't deny that it was useful information. and every man should know about menstruation, unless he's planning to be a hermit. and i don't mean that in a "lolPMS" way. it's seriously important info. wanna have unprotected monkey sex with your lady, but don't wanna be a daddy? better know how her cycle works.

 

[Mr. Eff_v1legacy]

Also, I might add that having guest speakers divide the class into groups and having a contest to see who could blow up the condom the biggest to test their durability was a lot of fun.

 

[Cowabungaa]

We had pretty extensive health class covering drugs, sex, alcohol and all kinds of stuff. All in the honest Dutch way of course, none of this abstinence-only bullshit. They even showed us how to put on a condom, including a black dildo. Ahh hilarious times they were... They didn't even explicitely told us to stay off drugs. Just told us the consequences, nothing more.

Far more useful than PE class is.

PE not usefull? In these obesity-infested days especially in your country? Not to say Health Class isn't usefull, but PE is pretty damn important too.

 

[Odbarc]

I wish they taught more about female anatomy in Health class. They never talked about breasts other than mention a note that babies feed them from. It was always about the genitalia and sexually transmitted diseases (which I think they're calling them STI (infections) which is probably technically more accurate way to describe it anyway.

Why would you want to learn about periods, ect? Well, would you really want to be surprised by your wife/girlfriends first bed-spots when you share a night together? That shit would share the crap out of you if you didn't know what was going on.
I really wish they would be more candid about most of the stuff. A lot of the stuff you 'don't need to know' gets omitted entirely. They should probably also include stuff like prostate exams, gynecology, and I would even dedicate a week (5~7 days) on human mating rituals (you know, those body language signs - those documentaries on the subconscious movements and behaviors people have. Very interesting stuff!)

They should probably also include stuff like tobacco usage and alcohol abuse (and moderation for that matter) seeing as so many people use the stuff.

 

[Blue_vision]

Far more useful than PE class is.

Pretty much this. However, I'll go out and say that my health class experience definitely needed to be improved. My teacher started sex ed with the birds and the bees in grade 3, which I honestly think is a good time to start, but it definitely should've kept the momentum.

That said, we've got public outcry when our premier tries to introduce improved sex ed into the grade 10 curriculum (or something like that,) so I'm not sure how that may be accomplished...

 

[Shirokurou]

We had this stuff as a subset of biology.

 

[Aris Khandr]

Far more useful than PE class is.

PE not usefull? In these obesity-infested days especially in your country? Not to say Health Class isn't usefull, but PE is pretty damn important too.

I'll make an argument that PE is useful in primary/elementary school. After that? No. Once you get past about 11, the kid is either going to exercise on their own or not, and a half hour of it during school will make no difference. And cutting the PE budget and all the "coaches" who couldn't string a logical thought together if their lives depended on it might result in improved performances in other aspects of the curriculum that are far more valuable.

 

[thethingthatlurks]

The idea behind Health is pretty damn good, but sadly the teaching of the individual subjects sucks. Sex ed (at least in my experience) was focused way too much on the horribleness of STDs, and why you should never ever ever have sex until you're married. While there's at least a kernel of truth in there, learning about prevention and safe-sex would be a bit more useful for stemming the rising number of teen pregnancies. Same for the bit about drugs and alcohol. Yes, drugs are bad, but trying them probably won't kill you. 'course, by my former teacher's standards, I'm already an alcoholic, so whatever...

 

[Fetzenfisch]

Well i had it in 3rd grade, then again in the 6th and 7th, with ascending complexity. And i say its a very good thing to know how a body functions and not only your own. It would be umimaginable if there would be human beings in a civilised country, ages maybe 10-14 that dont even know about the basics of human nature. A lack of information, this is my opinion, is the worst that can happen to influence a teen's life

The idea behind Health is pretty damn good, but sadly the teaching of the individual subjects sucks. Sex ed (at least in my experience) was focused way too much on the horribleness of STDs, and why you should never ever ever have sex until you're married. While there's at least a kernel of truth in there, learning about prevention and safe-sex would be a bit more useful for stemming the rising number of teen pregnancies.

Thats exactly how it works here. At first you learn about how bodies are built and how reproduction works generally (elementary 3rd or 4th grade) then 2 up to 3 years later you get into a little bit more detail and learn a lot about different kinds of protection and how they are handled and used properly (in this part of course STDs are also a topic but not in the sense of "dont have sex ever" but "the different devices of protection we mentioned may prevend pregnancy, but without a condom you are not safe from STDs") and first insights into genetics and chromosomes are tought.
Europe ftw!

 

[Obsideo]

It sounds like a good idea.

Unfortunately at my school the class is a joke and consists of not much more than "DRUGS ARE BAD, EXERCISE A LOT HERPADERP!" which most kids already know at that point.

But the 99 in the class is a real GPA boost.

 

[zehydra]

We had pretty extensive health class covering drugs, sex, alcohol and all kinds of stuff. All in the honest Dutch way of course, none of this abstinence-only bullshit. They even showed us how to put on a condom, including a black dildo. Ahh hilarious times they were... They didn't even explicitely told us to stay off drugs. Just told us the consequences, nothing more.

Far more useful than PE class is.

PE not usefull? In these obesity-infested days especially in your country? Not to say Health Class isn't usefull, but PE is pretty damn important too.

Except that it's a class, and it doesn't teach squat.

Sure exercise is good for you, but why make it a class?

 

[Cowabungaa]

Far more useful than PE class is.

PE not usefull? In these obesity-infested days especially in your country? Not to say Health Class isn't usefull, but PE is pretty damn important too.

I'll make an argument that PE is useful in primary/elementary school. After that? No. Once you get past about 11, the kid is either going to exercise on their own or not, and a half hour of it during school will make no difference. And cutting the PE budget and all the "coaches" who couldn't string a logical thought together if their lives depended on it might result in improved performances in other aspects of the curriculum that are far more valuable.

Of course half an hour isn't going to make a difference, either teach it properly or not. We always got around 1.5 hours of PE class in high school. Honestly, I wished they doubled that. Sounds like over there they're doing an exceptionally half-assed job at them.

But the point of PE class is pretty much forcing them to excercise, just like school's supposed to do with everything. Kids need proper excercise more than ever these days, with all those distractions around that'll just turn them into couch potatoes. The rise of obesity (again, especially in your own country) is only getting worse and in the long run it'll be a lot more costly for any society than proper PE classes. Cutting PE classes is simply a really bad thing to do.

Now of course, PE classes ain't the end-all-be-all, hence why Health classes should spend a lot more time on subjects like diet. The fat epidemic must be stopped.

Except that it's a class, and it doesn't teach squat.

Sure exercise is good for you, but why make it a class?

Because kids around the globe are tempted by almost every angle to be couch potatoes. It's for their own good, like school is supposed to be in general.

 

[Caligulust]

I had to take health twice. Not because I failed it, but because I took it in year eight since I was told it was required (almost everyone I knew took it that year). I then found out before year ten it didn't could for credit, since only years 9, 10, 11, and 12 count. So I took it again, and it was even more pointless the second time around.
The most useful thing it did for me the first time around was an introduction to STIs. I already knew cigarettes were bad for me.
I preferred PE, because they at least forced me to exercise. I didn't mind it unless I had to participate in group sports.

 

[Fetzenfisch]

We had pretty extensive health class covering drugs, sex, alcohol and all kinds of stuff. All in the honest Dutch way of course, none of this abstinence-only bullshit. They even showed us how to put on a condom, including a black dildo. Ahh hilarious times they were... They didn't even explicitely told us to stay off drugs. Just told us the consequences, nothing more.

Far more useful than PE class is.

PE not usefull? In these obesity-infested days especially in your country? Not to say Health Class isn't usefull, but PE is pretty damn important too.

Except that it's a class, and it doesn't teach squat.

Sure exercise is good for you, but why make it a class?

To force the little squishy lumbs to move! If it wasnt for that i wouldnt have had any sport as a kid. I now am very happy that after a long time i finally was motivated to do something and after all joined a sportsteam so i could transform from a big fat kid into a well build man (im 25 and my weight hasnt changed much since i was 13, only that i am a good part taller now and exchanged a lot of extra belly for some muscle )

 

[Aris Khandr]

I would say that the idiot epidemic, especially in this country, is far more damaging to us than the fat one.