A recent survey held across schools in metropolitan cities and small towns have revealed that teenager students are okay with premarital sex — not just with the idea of it, but a staggering 40 per cent has claimed of having tried it themselves.
In a country like India, where upbringing of children is strictly conventional, such statistics have come as a shocking revelation and experts and social commentators feel parents and school authorities are as much responsible for this as the students themselves.
“This is an impatient generation that is growing up on fast food and credit cards. They don’t want to wait for anything, so why wait to be in your 20s to have sex,” says sexologist Dr Rajan Bhonsle, who has encountered cases of schoolboys bringing call girls home when their parents are away. “Media exposure is at an all time high, there is free availability of pornography and with more families becoming nuclear, privacy is not an issue either.”
The need of the hour, says Bhonsle, is a proper age-appropriate, culture-specific sex education. “It is not about teaching the basics of anatomy which schools do in the name of sex-education. The learning process needs to be gradual, which helps in making children sexually responsible,” says Dr Bhonsle.
With teens becoming more extreme in their behaviour, parents too feel scared to pull them up, says student counsellor Swati Vats. “They need to differentiate between authoritative and authoritarian.
And instead of preaching, they should encourage their wards to use their discretion in such matters,” she says. Use of the Internet in the school curriculum is also giving students plenty of freedom to watch sexually explicit material. “I strongly advocate tech literacy, which means students first need to learn the safe use of technology, so they don’t take for granted what they see,” adds Swati.
Why gorge on dark chocolate?
Dark chocolate can not only act as a mood lifter or an aphrodisiac; a recent research says that it can do wonders to your eyesight as well.
When a group of study participants who had eaten dark chocolate were made to distinguish items on a similarly coloured background, they took less time as compared to those who had not eaten dark chocolate. According to researchers, it is the anti-oxidants present in dark chocolate — called flavanol — which helps in improved vision.
Where maths is no longer a science?
The United Kingdom is faced with a grave math problem that they cannot solve. Universities in the UK are excluding Maths from degree courses because students and teachers cannot cope with the pressures demanded by the elementary subject.
A report says that decades of mediocre academic standards in mathematics have led to a dip the country’s number skills. Students are unable to tackle complex math problems and teachers are also having to struggle to teach them.
So universities are being forced to lower the standards of degree courses that require the use of math, thereby not meeting the international academic standards.
The reputation of the country’s education system has come under the scanner now because the incompetence of educational authorities has come out in the open.
Who surprised school kids at the White House?
When a bunch of school kids recently paid a visit to the White House, they had no idea that they would be greeted by none other than the First Lady herself.
So Michelle Obama gave them a brief scare of sorts when she appeared before them in the middle of their house tour.
Michelle, who seemed in a playful mood, decided to play a prank on the students, and told them that they required to pass a 50-question test if they wanted to get out of the house. But looking at their panic-stricken faces, she soon clarified that she was only joking.
When did the simpsons hit 500th episode?
The Simpsons grew 500 episodes old on February 18 and became the third series on television to reach the legendary milestone after Gunsmoke and Lassie that clocked 633 and 588 episodes respectively. The yellow family has 23 seasons in all, besides a hit motion picture to their credit and a theme park ride.
