Replies to '10/07 The Latest Debates'

There are drugs, sex and crime in ALL schools...Christian or otherwise.  Those alternative schools have the exact same problems. 

There are schools where you can send your children that promote Christian values, but you shouldn't expect a public school to be that place.   

I agree with you in regards to suicide that they are missing a love & purpose in their life...for some that may be God, for others that may be a sense of belonging or individual purpose.   

I hate to tell you this but drugs, sex and crime are also in private and catholic schools.  Kids are commiting suicide for many different reasons.  To say that it is because they do not have spiritual belief is very narrow minded.  One of them is that they do not feel that they can go to their parents to talk about their problems.  Perhaps they feel guilt because their religious parents would not understand that they made a mistake or do not have the same beliefs as them.  Some have major medical illness such as serious depression that is completely unrelated to religion.  Do you think that no spiritual people suffer from depression? 

I am a 26 year old educator.  I attended 2 private and 4 public schools while growing up.  I completed my college fieldwork in both public and private schools and took a job with my local public school system upon graduation.  To assume that issues of "drugs, sex and crime" only pertain to public schools demonstrates gross naivety.  On the drug issue alone, my personal experience was that kids in public school used drugs such as marijuana, which many people may agree is bad.  Kids in private school used drugs such as cocaine and heroine, also bad, maybe worse than pot to some people.  The amount of drug use was the same.  Thie difference was that private school kids could afford the more hard-core drugs. 

Some messages here state that parents should talk o their kids about sex.  That would be Fantastic!  But it does not happen as often as it could.  It would also be great if parents could afford to give their children nutritious meals every morning, but some can't, so our schools supply breakfast to any child who needs it.  Is it wrong to deny children nutrition?  Our schools also provide after-school programs which allow kids to stay as late as 7 pm on some days so they don't go to empty homes.  Should these children be denied care and safety?  To me, providing REAL sex-ed and condoms is on the same level as proving meals and after-school care.  For whatever reasons parents have, some will not and some cannot provide proper care and instruction on these issues.  So, schools step in.  In my high school, I took a child development course in which we actually ran a daycare 3 days a week with toddlers and preschoolers.  Some students in the class had children, and the class helped them to gain skills to become better parents.  Students who did not have children got a taste of parenthood, and solidified our decisions to have our own children later on in our lives.  Condoms were provided in this class, no questions asked.  I feel that if the entire school, which has roughly 3000 students, had access to condoms, we would have fewer unplanned pregnancies and lower rates of STDs.  I believed that as a student, and I believed it even more strongly as I began to work with students.