ORLANDO, Fla. -- A recent survey that found some Florida teens believe drinking a cap of bleach will prevent HIV and a shot of Mountain Dew will stop pregnancy has prompted lawmakers to push for an overhaul of sex education in the state.
I have no idea if these beliefs are because the state teaches Abstinence Only in its sex education classes, because the state's education system is just lousy, or because Florida has a great deal of dumb kids and/or parents, but there seems to be a serious lack of knowledge in Florida. That Florida is, again, undergoing a huge population boom isn't so surprising, given this information.
Posts: 17506 | Location: Lincoln Place, Granite City, IL, USA | Registered: 06-03-02
Or it could show that teens given the option of ticking the box for 'drinking a cap of bleach' in a multiple choice questonnaire, tick that box. Their reason may be no more than mischief , the hope that someone will collate the results and make a wild pronouncement about the 'ignorance' of teens
The link doesn't say what form the survey took. It's not likely that the 'drinking bleach' was volunteered freely , out of the blue , by respondents (it may have been, if this is a popular jokey statement among teens) but the problem with surveys like this is we've no way of knowing how seriously the respondents,teenage respondents, were.We know how seriously the people conducting the survey take it. It could be that these two are causally related !
It is very difficult to take survey results from teenagers seriously. I remember some of the surveys we had to fill out in high school and they were ridiculous. “How many times in the past 24 hours have you had sex on a bicycle while smoking heroin and beating someone with a bat?” I know several people who checked “more than ten.” But it wouldn’t surprise me if people, not necessarily just teenagers and not necessarily just those in Florida, believe such things. After all, plenty of grown-ups still believe that Bill Gates will give you money for forwarding an e-mail, or that Barak Obama practices the faith which shall not be named.
Posts: 4611 | Location: Rochester, NY, USA | Registered: 06-03-02
According to the survey I took in high school I was using cocaine and heroin on a regular basis and also having sex for money on a daily basis. All while maintaining my grades and playing on sports teams... I was quite exceptional though.
It is quite fun to see the results tallied and the faces of the adults... "Oh my goodness! Times are changing!" panic panic panic.
Posts: 3062 | Location: USA | Registered: 06-04-02
