I teach high school. Sometimes, adults are invisible and I learn more from overhearing conversations than I ever wanted to know about the sex lives of these teenagers. I’m no prude and I can be fairly open-minded at times, but …

I see the legacy of these programs. In this area, the program that presents defines sex in a very narrow way — penile/vaginal intercourse. Which means that these children are taking the virginity pledges and then doing other things sexual — and those other things are the high-risk behaviors. Because they aren’t being taught what they need to know to be safe, they’re doing those things without using protection.

I would love to think it’s a good thing that this generation has a much more casual attitude about sexual orientation, but … I don’t think it is, because it isn’t a responsible attitude. It isn’t that they decided that sexual orientation was nothing to get uptight about — instead, they’re doing things that feel good without thought to sexual orientation or the consequences.

Sure … it may be that in these schools, the pregnancy rates of teens might be down. Maybe.

What I want to know is … what is the legacy? How many of these kids are we going to lose in the future to the emotional fallout of their current actions? And, of course, the physical consequences, including but certainly not limited to HIV+.

Between this and NCLB, our government has failed this generation of children. Heartbreaking.

And now I’ll try to get off my platform.