Today’s social climate places a high emphasis on sexual assault awareness, and the conversation has made its way into the classrooms of HHS. Because sexual assault has become dangerously common on college campuses, senior health teachers teach lessons on sexual assault to prepare seniors for the next chapter in their lives.

While making students aware of sexual assault is an inherently good thing, the way it is being taught is accomplishing little more than scaring students. By giving harrowing statistics about the percentage of people who get assaulted by the time they graduate and comparing that to the terrifyingly low number of people that get convicted of assault/rape, teachers are causing many seniors to take this lesson the wrong way and walk away even more scared of going to college.

The problem with the curriculum is that it emphasizes the commonality of rape situations, often implying that encountering such a situation is inevitable. Students should be taught how to handle a potential assault, not just informed that it is likely to happen. Accompanied by a lesson in self defense, these classes would become much more successful in preparing students for college.

The biggest issue with the way students are being taught is that it is normalizing rape. Instead of solely instructing students on how to handle a sexual assault situation, perhaps it would make more sense to also teach kids not to rape other people. It’s important to emphasize the fact that rape is a crime, and that it not only comes with extreme consequences, but it can ruin another person’s life. Instead of just talking around rape, the message carries more of an impact when the physical and emotional effects of rape are clearly stated and the consequences are made known.

“Learning about how athletes and people more privileged than others get away with sexual assault makes me scared for what is going to happen in college,” senior Vicki Wendover said.  “Just hearing some stories makes me want to be extra careful of my surroundings and to be careful who I trust in college.”