Jean Q. Davis
AIDS education provokes strong emotions in the public school setting. Several problems confront AIDS educators. (Volberding, 1988).
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From its earliest days, AIDS has been associated with stigmatized issues, homosexuality, drug abuse, sexually transmitted diseases, promiscuity. The HIV infection has affected groups whose behavior is condemned by society. This is not to overlook those who contracted the infection from blood transfusions and newborns who contracted HIV from their mothers. These children have a more sympathetic response from society.
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AIDS is incurable and contagious through blood and bodily fluids and this has led to irrational fear not unlike previous plagues in history. Fears about AIDS have made some students uncomfortable in the classroom in such a way that it has interfered with the learning process.
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Sex education in this country has been controversial. As a society, we are uncomfortable talking about sex even though is used and promoted constantly in the mass media. Television is pro sex without being pro prevention or protection. Explicit descriptions of sexual behavior continue to be offensive to many.
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Our discomfort with the issues of death and dying also creates a problem for AIDS education. AIDS affects families and a loss of a family member has strong implications for children.
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5. Accepting adolescent sexuality as a normal part of growth and development is also a problem for our culture. The age for the onset of menarche has declined (Schowalter and Anyan, 1979) and the age for marriage when sex is acceptable has increased. There is a space of many years when sexual experience is to be deferred.
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The bane of sex education is the common assumption that sex education promotes, rather than prevents sexual activity. However, not offering sex education hasn't worked, and current research refutes the claim that education isn't effective as prevention.
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AIDS education is not easy because it brings into conflict issues of public health and safety with public morality and values.
In New Haven, a problem-solving curriculum called social development is mandated for all ninth graders. One emotionally powerful week is currently devoted to AIDS education. The goal is to give students a chance to not only think about the issues but also to have enough time to understand their feelings about AIDS. Students from Yale University Medical School and School of Public Health, AIDS and health care specialists, videotapes, and a person with AIDS are a part of this week. My goal in this curriculum is to add to that experience. Instead of appearing suddenly in the curriculum I would like to set the AIDS week in a framework, to give teachers and students added materials and information to make the week as useful educationally as it can be.
In our ninth grade social development program students come from many different cultural, racial, and ethnic backgrounds. The amount of family life or sexuality curriculum that they have been exposed to is equally diverse. Our curriculum must meet New Haven adolescents where they are - not only developmentally and cognitively but also as students in an urban environment with a very diverse knowledge base. Quotes from several of my students this spring typify this problem. “I know a lot and I was not surprised about what they said. I had AIDS week when I was in middle school two years in a row.” He knows it all. Or, “I'm confused about AIDS and homosexuals. They say homosexuals are the cause of AIDS. But what if two homosexuals have sex and neither of them has AIDS. Homosexuals have been around since the beginning of time, but there was never a case of AIDS before the early 80's.” He's missing the germ theory. Or, “I learned thing I never knew and I learned that AIDS AIN'T NOTHING TO MESS AROUND WITH.” Or, “We learned alot more than what we already knew and this helped many of us to make the right decision.” That's what we like to hear but what will be her choice in the moment of sexual decision making. Adolescents may know transmission facts and still be confused. The goal of AIDS education is to build a good information base that will promote behavioral changes that affirm sexual abstinence or effective use of condoms.
