In the beginning, health classes focused primarily on ensuring that youth knew how to care for themselves, how to behave toward the opposite sex, how to command respect with peers and parents, how to handle the emotional pressures which afflict youth surviving adolescence.
Now, districts across Los Angeles County are cutting health classes, shoring up remaining funds for core classes and preparation for standardized tests.
Perhaps this trend is nothing to lament. Health classes, sinking in the moral relativism of accommodation and multiculturalism, were trending toward student individualism and promiscuity. Long gone are the days when students were encourage to practice self-respect and self-control. Current teachings not include preparation for pregnancy and "safe sex", an overly tolerant misnomer of titillating proportions. How many unintended pregnancies are tolerated in our society today will indicate the rise in crime, deviance, dysfunction which are rising in our communities, whether urban or suburban.
Parents of immigrant status play a diminishing role in the lives and upbringing of their children. Youth who do not regard their parents as primary role models inevitably contribute to a culture of adolescent-driven angst and insolence, with the proliferation of disease and dismal consequences following.
Students need a moral compass more than the mere parameters on how to treat their bodies. Self-worth based on feelings and student comity contributes to the terrors of adulthood absent the mores of values and vision so desperately needed by students today.