AIDS Education in Schools

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Watch this video and read the following. Please commit on the questions below in bold. 

The Franklin County, North Carolina, school board ordered chapters on sexual behavior, contraception and AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) cut out of its health textbook for ninth graders.  The deleted material, the board said, did not comply with a new state law requiring public schools to teach abstinence until marriage in their comprehensive health education program for students in kindergarten through ninth grade.

The school board also instructed teachers to discuss only failure rates in response to students' questions about contraceptives.  If asked about AIDS, teachers were to say only that, the disease is caused by a virus that is transmitted primarily by contaminated needles and illegal homosexual acts.

The board's new policy is a compelling example of the controversy raging in many communities over what public schools should teach in sex education classes.  Although national and state polls consistently show that 80-90% of adults support sex education in schools

Why do you think many teachers continue to provide sex education in schools despite the surrounding climate circling this issue?  And what do you feel the role of the teacher should be in providing AIDS education for students.  Remember, comment on others' experiences, ask others questions about their ideas and experiences and take an idea being discussed, and offer a different perspective on it. Thanks.

Introduce yourselves to the other students in the class by answering the question in bold below

In my first blog post I will need to ask the students to introduce themselves to the other students in the class.  As I was reading in our textbook a beneficial way to beginning the online course would be posting introductions of the students on the class blog site.  I want to start encouraging students to look for areas of common interest in order to build the community.  I realize that in this medium I need to be flexible.  I need to throw away my agendas and the need to control.  I need to let the process happen and to allow for the personal agenda of students to be accomplished and just try to accommodate them.  By this I mean letting the discussion on the blog go to a direction that I may not feel completely comfortable. OMG

I need to be calm and rather than cut them off abruptly the I should gently guide the discussion perhaps by asking an open ended question that allows the students to examine that interaction together.  

So here goes. Discuss the one personal quality about yourself that you feel will be most beneficial in making a difference in lives of people suffering from AIDS.