Health education classes are finally getting an education in reality.

Rhode Island just passed a law called the Lindsay Ann Burke Act, requiring all public middle and high schools to teach students about dating violence in their health classes. An abusive boyfriend murdered the law’s namesake, 23-year-old Lindsay Ann Burke, in September of 2005. Her mother Ann worked to pass the law in hopes of preventing another tragedy like her daughter’s from happening again.

The Burke law mandates that, in addition to the curriculum already in place, students are taught the warning signs of an abusive relationship.

Although Rhode Island is the first state to enact a law this specific about health education, Texas has something similar, although more open-ended. The law is gaining attention throughout the rest of the country, and Nebraska is the next state looking at bringing it into legislation.

The thought of teaching a 10-year-old about date rape and abusive relationships is shocking and would probably make a lot of parents uneasy. Those are precisely the things that parents want to shelter their kids from — the things that expose how scary the world can be.

A heavy dose of reality, however, is not only warranted but needed in health education programs. I remember sitting in an old classroom with even older desks, giggling with my friends as an awkward male basketball coach told us that “crack is whack” and “the best way to avoid sexually transmitted diseases is to not have sex at all.”

Translation? These programs are completely out of touch with reality.

To call Wisconsin‘s current health education guidelines vague would be doing them a favor. According to Wisconsin’s Model Academic Standards for Health Education, the “Healthy Behaviors” guidelines state that students should be able to “compare the relative risk of various behaviors,” “demonstrate ways to avoid and reduce threatening situations” and “analyze the short-term and long-term consequences of various behaviors” among other things.

But what are these “various behaviors” and “threatening situations?” There is no statement or even suggestion as to what these guidelines should cover.

Yes, we should be able to have confidence in our teachers and instructors to make the right decisions about what to teach students in their health education classes. But we should also have the structure and assertion to be absolutely sure that lessons about issues as important as dating violence are reaching our kids. Without specific measures like the Burke law, we’re setting ourselves up for more misinformed health classes led by uncomfortable basketball coaches.

The Burke law in Rhode Island is a step in the right direction for health education in public schools. The lessons we much teach today’s kids are unpleasant, scary and difficult for both educators and students. Leaving them untaught or worse yet, vague and confusing, is leaving students unprepared for real world situations that will undoubtedly arise in their everyday lives. Mandating a specific curriculum on issues like dating violence eliminates the possibility that these lessons won’t be given proper priority in schools.

Ideally, the Burke law will open discussion in the future to more realistic and honest discussions of other issues such as sex and drug use in schools. Specific legislation mandating health class curriculum will directly address unpleasant but important issues and will assure that phrases like “threatening behaviors,” which could have saved the life of Lindsay Burke, aren’t left open to interpretation.

Laura Brennan ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in communicative disorders.