Topic Discussion

Teen Pregnancy
   A major debate in schools in the United States today is what steps should be taken to prevent teen pregnancy.  It is difficult to get into the mind of a teenager to figure out why he or she has sex as a teenager.  Does it go back tot he notion that kids want to experiment and do the "cool thing," or is it that teenage students no longer hold education as a priority, but instead want to start a family?  Whatever the reason is a solution to this issue is very much needed as teen pregnancies rates are on the rise.
   Teen pregnancy gained attention as a social problem in America in the 1970s, as the birthrate among teenagers was falling but the rate of unmarried teens giving birth was starting to rise.  Throughout the years, people have introduced various potential solutions, none of which have changed the steady increase of unmarried pregnant teenagers.  One solution was the use of contraception.  Contraception includes using condoms and birth-control pills to have "safe sex."  I see this as a surrendering to what teenagers want and what they will do anyways, with or without parental permission.  Another solution presented was to minimize teen pregnancy by having abortions available to women.  Roe v. Wade, a famous court case decided that abortions were legal, with limitations, on January 22, 1973.  Although many women do have abortions, killing innocent babies because their mothers and fathers were irresponsible is not a wise solution.  The last proposed solution was for teenagers to attend a sex education course in high school.  Many have argued that this course does not affect teens until it is too late when they have already established patterns of unprotected sex.
   Teen pregnancy affects teenagers all over the world, either by being or in the same environment as someone who is.  There have been no proposed solutions that have had an impact on the rates of which teens are getting pregnant.  A solution must be made that will reach every teenager that impacts their decision to have a child before they're married.
   Possible community service projects that could raise awareness on this issue include talking to a different age group.  Maybe the solution lies in talking to seventh or eighth graders about the consequences of having sex as a teenager.  Our society is changing and it might be time to start talking about this issue to kids in lower grades.


Self-image
   The key point in treating a self image problem is getting rid of the false beliefs you have about your looks and replacing them with beliefs that matches reality.  The truth is that most people are more attractive than they think. People usually never notice the small imperfections that a person might be obsessed with and most of their perceived defects doesn’t exist except in their imagination.  A major part of this issue lies with what social media says of the fact that you should fit in with society and what they're doing.  Many people compare and try to model from celebrities.  For example, being thin is something that most people try to conform to.  If some individuals cannot attain that, they are likely to become depressed and are more focused on what others might think of them. 
   Possible community service projects that could be done in our community could include visiting middle school students as well as high school students and raising awareness.  Many middle school students look up to high school students so we could be role models for them by saying that those kind of things do not matter.


Social Media
   Most people can agree that the social media is a huge influence in people's lives today.  Our society has evolved in the way it thinks over the past years.  We now look to the media for direction in the form of Facebook, twitter, and celebrities.  These things are role models to teenagers and children all over the world.  Over the years social media has become negative.  It has caused issues like negative self-image as I stated above.  These days kids are constantly on their phone, or on social networks and it has caused a lot of problems with socializing.  People no longer think they need to talk face to face with people, but just to send them a quick text.  Cyber bullying has also been a continuous problem with the creation of social networks.  Kids bully others because they feel "invincible" because they don't actually see their victim.
   Possible community service projects that can be performed in our community is to hold and assembly and show a video on the negative effects of social media is.  There is even a lifetime movie called Cyberbully that we could show to kids.