Week 10
This week, my mind has really been set to thinking about a conversation that I had with the guidance counselor from my high school. I saw him on Sunday, and he was asking me how school was going. I told him how I will be graduating next month, and of all my classes this term, my HIV Class has really taught me the most. I was shocked when he asked me, “Is HIV really that bad still?”
The sincerity in his question made me cringe. I thought, “No wonder I never learned about HIV or AIDS in high school. The school’s very own guidance counselor knew nothing about it. There has got to be HIV awareness taught in schools, especially high school where experimenting with drugs and sex is present every day. There is something awfully wrong about this picture.
When I went to get tested for HIV last week at the Lake County Health Department, which is right down the road from Umatilla High School, I had asked the woman giving the test if there were a lot of teenagers coming in to get tested. She said that when teenagers did come in, they had no idea what HIV was. She said many of them considered it an STD that could be cleared up with the proper medications. She said that the HugMe Clinic in Lake County has been begging to able to meet with the local schools, but they get denied every time.
After my old guidance counselor asked me that question, I began to tell him everything that I knew about HIV. I told him how important it was that HIV awareness gets into high schools and middle schools because its presence is increasing by thousands every day. I am pretty sure that I got through to him that it wasn’t until I got to college that I was really informed about the severity of HIV. If it wasn’t for this class, I could have been caught asking a ridiculous question like him!
Did You Know?
“Without therapy, about 20% of HIV-infected babies developed an AIDS-defining condition prior to 2 years of age. Only about 5% of HIV-infected children reach their teen years without any apparent symptoms of HIV infection.”
(This was an article about 20 children with HIV)
Luzuriaga, K. M.D. (March, 2001). “Life Span of HIV Newborn According to NPHRC”. The Body: The Complete HIV/AIDS Resource. Retrieved on November 3, 2010 from http://www.thebody.com/Forums/AIDS/Children/Current/Q14370.qna
I cannot beleive that the HugMe program gets denied access in school! What could be more important than teaching teenagers about HIV and STDs? They can't find time to set aside in the schools schedule for something to important? It really blows my mind. I hope you made your guidance counselor really thing. HIV awareness needs to be brought to teenagers ASAP so they can spread their knowledge and protect themselves and others.
ReplyDeleteI am not surprised at all. There are some counties that refuse to teach their kids about HIV. I taught the teachers in Orange county and many of them were sill uncertain about how to teach the subject in their classrooms. If it makes them uncomfortable to talk about it, how are they going to teach the children?
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