The world is full of unfit parents. People who really have no business having children in the first place, and people who just don't know what it takes to raise children. High schools across the nation are filling up more and more with pregnant teenagers. Girls and guys who are going to be parents because of one or two mistakes that tons and tons of teenagers make every day. Many of which have to worry about graduation let alone trying to raise little ones. While teaching a child devolopment class in high school is a good idea in some respects because it would prepare teenagers to be parents either soon or later in life, there are a lot of things that need to be considered when evaluating the practicality of such a class as a high school requirement.
First of all, we must consider what typical high school requirements are in schools today. In the area where I live, our high school has 3 good programs based on the number of credits received for certain classes taken. Core 40 requires that a student receive 40 credits during their 4 years of highschool with a possibility of earning 7 per semester and 14 every year. The Academic Honors program is a step up from that in which the student must earn 46 credits and have no grade below a C on their transcripts. 8 credits must be in math, 8 in language arts, 6 in a foreign language, 2 in the arts, 6 in science, 2 in PE, 2 in social sciences(psychology and sociology), 4 in history (including government and economics) and the rest in electives such as creative writing, or possibly more art classes. The difference between those two programs is the foreign language credits. Then finally there is the Vocational program which consists of training in a specific trade such as cosmotology or autmobile mechanic where the student will have to spend half the day learning the trade, and half the day completing basic core classes like math, english, and science. With such a full schedule would child development fit into the cirriculum as a requirement? Furthermore, does it even really belong there?
The academic system already in place at a good highschool really focuses on a student's ability to be accepted in to a college. It is less focused on teaching them the basic functions of society. For instance, driver's ed is no longer a requirement, and passing it doesn't even count towards your graduation credits. It isn't even taught during the normal school day, and is an after school program. Lets face it, you don't have to leran to drive in school with all the other driving programs available. You don't even have to learn how to drive to function in society becuase there are other ways to get places. Now let's consider child development. It is not imperative that every student becomes a parent. Also parenting is not required to be accepthed into a college or even to have a career. Besides, if you wait to have children until after college, you probably won't remember anything from the class you took 4 or more years ago. So a child development class doesn't really fit into a good high school's vision of preparing one for college, and it doesn't fit into the students' vision of attaining a career and functioning in society.
The benefits of a child development class at the high school level would be great. There would be a place to turn for teenagers in need of the knowledge. But to make it a requirement would be unfair for the students who don't want to have children, or who want to wait till after college to start a family. Child development classes would be best incoprated into the high schoool cirriculum by either making it a choice in one of the core categories, meaning that a student could take it instead of psychology or sociology, or by making it an after school program for those students who need it or want to take it.