It’s really good at bayesian type computation.
If data is missing it automatically fills in the blank spots based on prior assumptions.
It’s absolutely wonderful when, say, reading a book, talking to somebody, etc. Not so useful in other situations, such as being an eye witness to a crime.
A parentless 16yo was denied an abortion in FL because the judge said she wasn’t mature enough to make that decision. She had to go to court to bypass parental consent laws
republicans make me sick
Not mature enough, but old enough to be a mother. awsome.
Mature enough to be a child mother without any parents in her own life.
That reminds me of the logic surrounding sex education in public school when/where I grew up.
In that state, at that time, it was illegal for schools to teach about sex before 9th grade, whereupon a Red Cross nurse was summoned to lecture for a week in the mandatory health class…assuming parents signed a permission slip allowing us to be indoctrinated.
My urban junior high school went to great lengths to keep students in school, even going to the extent of having a small nursery/daycare available. (Yes, this was junior high.)
This, of course, led to the most memorable bit of my 9th grade sex ed experience: another student being called out of class because of an issue with her baby.
So, there were a lot of storks in this urban area?
It was a miracle.
This was the same urban public school where the biology teacher skipped over the chapter on evolution because of her religious beliefs.
Something tells me Grade 9 might be a tad late to start sex education.
My school started in grade 6, with very basic biology (think menstruation) and then I think the rest of sex ed was in 7th grade. Which, honestly, feels too late to me.
Fortunately, we had pets that got pregnant, and so I understood the basics of mammalian reproduction by first grade. But that seems like a pretty bare basic floor of knowledge.
(True story – a friend who is a generation older than I am told me that when she was a teen, she had a friend who was sexually active. That friend had been told that you get pregnant by kissing. So she didn’t kiss. But she was doing stuff that could get her pregnant. So my friend explained the basics to her. She told her mom, and as a result, was never allowed to talk to my friend again. Way to fail at educating your kids.)
To this day in the Bible Belt, there is a sentiment that the only sex education one needs in school is the decree to abstain until marriage.
My 9th grade class did, at least, cover birth control albeit with extra emphasis on failure rates, and all the bad things associated with being a teenaged single parent.
My wife reports that at her rural southern high school, this message was taken sufficiently to heart that a number of couples got married around the time of their junior and senior proms.
My mother taught at a public middle school for a while, which was grades 6-8. There were lots of pregnant girls in her school.
definitely too late.
I started masturbating in 6th grade, started watching/seeking out porn in 7th grade.
A girl already had an abortion in 8th grade in my school.
We had basic sex ed in 5th grade, talked about menstruation, erections, and basics of birth control (use a condom). The boys and girls were separated and allowed to ask questions, and this included teaching the boys how to put on a condom.
Next sex ed was 10th grade biology I believe, where we learned about different types of birth control beyond just condoms.
I had sex ed as part of my 8th grade health class and then again in my 9th grade health class which covered mostly the same stuff as the 8th grade class had covered. I’m not sure if the district decided to move the topic and I just happened to be in the contingent that got it twice, or whether it was intentional that we’d get it twice.
Certainly how babies are made and birth control and STDs were all covered. Abstinence as the only surefire method was discussed, but it was all pretty dispassionate instruction without a lot of judgment (as I recall anyway). Certainly there were plenty of pregnant gals in my high school and going off Facebook, plenty of overlap where some of my classmates were becoming first-time grandparents while others were becoming first-time parents. So I don’t know how much difference it all made, but at least the information was out there.
There were definitely some icky photos of untreated STDs and what that does to your body. The message was very much to try to not get one but if you did you have to get treatment. And discussion that when you have sex with someone you’re not just having sex with them… you’re essentially having sex with everyone they’ve ever had sex with and everyone they’ve ever had sex with, etc. But it was really from the standpoint of safety. Of course there was a lot of snickering.
I remember chanting No sex before marriage in my 8th grade health class. I didn’t realize how weird it was until I thought about it years later. This was a public school in Orange County, so even more weird.
i think i had sex ed senior year in high school. a teeny tiny bit late for the slut hos in my school.
i think they changed it to sophomore year after i graduated.
Oh and in 5th grade they pulled all the girls into one classroom and showed us a movie with the actresses who played the orphans in the movie Annie that was about menstruation. And we all got a sample pack of pads from Always. (This was in Cincinnati: home of Proctor & Gamble which makes Always products.)
I don’t remember much about the movie except that it seemed to be designed to put our minds at ease because the girls were saying it was no big deal.
I think the boys just got free time while we watched the movie. At least, that’s what they claimed.
I remember a girl getting her period in 8th grade too. She was escorted out of the classroom, and the chair was all red.
That remained the only time that I had ever seen menstruation in person.
Sex Ed has come a long way since I was taught it in Grade 9 in the 1960’s. The boys received their education from their gym teacher. Our teacher was clearly uncomfortable about the subject and started off with the following statement that I remember to this day:
“Ok guys. Today you’re going to learn how to use it.”
The class actually went downhill from there.
