European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - February 7, 1987, Darmstadt, Hesse The stars and stripes saturday february 7,1987 Colin Mhz James j. Kilpatrick sex education avoids Issue of right and wrong whats wrong with sen education in the Public schools Jusi about everything in the View of Secretary of education William j. Bennett. Moil such education he recently told he National school boards association lacks one crucial ingredient it lacks any element or character. It rarely gets to questions of moral right and wrong. To neglect questions or character in a sex education class Bennett said would be a great and unforgivable error. Sex education has to do with How boys and girls How men and women should treat each other and them selves. Sex education is therefore about character and the formation of character. A sex education course in which issues of right and wrong do not occupy Center stage is a evasion and an in some schools Bennett acknowledged som teachers Are doing an admirable Job. In All Loo Many places sex education classes offer Itolle More than tech Nical information. The general approach is to explain that Intercourse May Lead to pregnancy and that preg Nancy offers options single motherhood marriage adoption or abortion. The teacher then is supposed to us the class which solution do you like Best which solution do you like least Why a teen Ager s pregnancy involves youngsters Ina highly Complex sensitive personal and serious Situa Tion but the sex education that is widely offered is not geared to human emotions. A typical teacher s manual suggests Only that where Strong differences of opinion exist on what is right or wrong sexual behaviour objective informed and dignified discussion of both sides of such questions should be what s wrong with this kind of leaching Bennett asked. First it is a very Odd kind of teaching very Odd because it does not teach. It does not Leach be cause while speaking to a very important aspect of human life it displays a conscious aversion to making moral distinctions. Indeed it insists on holding them in abeyance. The words of morality of a rational mature morality seem to have been banished from this tort of sex it is not that the materials used in most schools Are urging students to go out and have sexual Intercourse. In fact Bennett said they give reasons Why students might want to choose not to Nave Intercourse and they try to make students comfortable with that decision. Indeed you sometimes get the feeling that for these guides being comfortable1 with one s decision with exercising one s option is the sum and substance of the responsible life. Decisions Aren t right or wrong decisions imply make you comfortable or not. It is As though com fort alone had become our moral the schools have to Stop being so Neutral Bennett told the school Board members. I think most Ameri Andrew j. Glass cans want to urge not what might be the comfortable thing but the right thing. Why arc we so afraid to say what it is the overwhelming majority of parents would gratefully Welcome the teaching of old fashioned values of chastity virtue and sex in the context of marriage. Let us from time to time Praise mod wholly apart from its Bland neutrality sex Educa Tion in american schools seems not to be accomplishing much. By 1985, an estimated 70 percent of High school seniors had been subjected to sex Educa Tion courses. Bennett found it doubtful that the courses Are doing any Good at All. More than one half of America s Young people have had sexual Intercourse by the time they Are 17. More than one million teen age girls become pregnant each year. More than400,000 teen age girls now have abortions each year. Forty percent of today s 14-year-old girls will become pregnant by the time they Are i recommended three principles As guides for constructive sex education. First courses shout teach children sexual restraint As a Standard to uphold and follow. Second courses should stress that sex 1$ no simply a physical or mechanical act it is lied to the deepest recesses of personality. Third courses should speak up for the institution of the family. Educator sought of rid themselves of the defeatist attitude that teen agers Are going to do it anyhow and the Best Way to curb pregnancy is to hand out guidance is a better Way yet. Big Bill Bennett As i May have said before Isth Best thing to hit american education Fine the Mcguffey readers. His counsel May not be sophisticated but it sure makes sense. A Una Nyhl pram Syndicate both truth and Art won out in making of platoon it took the movie Industry nearly 10 years to come to terms with the Vietnam War it did so in releasing Oliver Stone s epic film even then the $6 million needed to make platoon came from Britain since just about everyone in Hollywood thought Stone s picture would bomb. Platoon May be the Best War film since All quiet on the Western front released in 1930. It s also that rare motion picture that s being acclaimed by critics and movie goers alike. Oliver Stone s movie neither trashes or glorifies the . Military. Whatever views you bring with you into the theater about the nature of War and patriotism you Are Apt to Lake away As Well. So Gung to Good old boy War lovers will be jolted into an adrenaline High by the carnage that they see on the screen. Those however who have come to recognize the futility of combat will be con firmed in their opinions. Stone a Yale dropout and a Vietnam vet avoids the Chic Liberal cliche of an anti hero protagonist. Yet he leaves no doubt that innocence is the first casually of War. Compared to prior conflicts in which american bore arms. Vietnam has yielded precious few Good movies. For the most part we be suffered through phony films like John Wayne s Green berets or else exploitive ones such As the rambo series the Deer Hunter a forceful film in t really about that War aside from hunger and sex War stirs the most powerful human emotions. It is As Hemingway has written Man s greatest adventure those who five through combat Are rarely Ever the same again. Winston Churchill who had watched several Battles in South Africa As a journalist before mounting his own As a wartime politician once said there is nothing More exhilarating in life than to be shot at without effect Vietnam was America s first class structured War since the great civil War of 1861-65. Then Rich men could buy their Way out of the draft by paying an other Man to fight in his place. A Century later during the Vietnam struggle the official rules were More sophisticated but they added up to the same thing. By and Large he poor and less instructed fought the educated and Well off stayed behind. In the soviet Union today High communist party official arrange matter so that their sons Are usually Able to steer Clear of Afghani Stan Many of the generals who now Call the urns at the Pentagon were Junior line officers in Vietnam leading grunts into Bailie during the time depicted in Pla perhaps that s Why so Many of them today fiercely oppose the notion of entrusting . Troops to the Jungles of Central America. For reasons that in fact mirrored Stone s own feelings us he came of age in Vietnam pfc. Chris Taylor the film s hero and narrator joins a Rifle squad in the 25 in Tropic lightning div. Taylor Stone Well played by the Young actor Charlie Sheen has a Tough time explaining to his fellow grunts atthe battalion s base Camp Why he had volunteered to serve in the infantry in Vietnam. Soon after coming Home from the con flirt Stone captured his ghastly Mem ories in a film script. I was under a obligation to show it As it was he now says. If i did to i d be a whence whole thai a Cpl however the nation remained unprepared to Deal with the reality of that struggle. It could t fall of How massive american firepower had come to naught beneath a Jungle canopy that served As a Refuge to a strike and mde enemy. As Stone cast about for someone to underwrite his movie he had the Lime and training to become a Superb movie maker. So in the end. Both truth and a thave won out
