Rationale:
The more preparation people have in anticipating high risk situations and practice they have in responding to them, the more effective they will be in dealing safely with them in real life. The opportunity for students to share their newly acquired and valuable competency with members of their community will help clarify the personal and social value of these AIDS education lessons as it contributes to AIDS prevention in the community.
AIDS Education Objectives:
1. Students will practice effectively communicating health preserving responses to a series of typical high risk situations.
2. They will contribute to AIDS awareness of their community.
ESL Objectives:
1. Students will practice listening, speaking, reading, writing, and group problem solving.
2. They will practice interviewing techniques.
3. They will practice note taking in their journals in preparation for a formal report on their AIDS education interviewing in their community.
4. They will write a report based on their interviewing, in which they assess the AIDS awareness of their interviewees and the AIDS education needs of their community.
Procedure:
Begin the lesson by reviewing the homework. Ask students to discuss some of the better responses to The "Lines." Which is the best? (5 minutes)
Now discuss the Plan Ahead Role Play. Ask: What are some good responses you came up with? Write some of the better answers on the board, noting the situation, 1-5, to which the response corresponds. Ask students to write down some of the better responses for future use. (5 minutes)
Form groups of three. Have one student play Chris, one play John, and the third, evaluate the "discussion." Create one or two different examples of what Chris might say to John. Rotate roles twice so that everyone has a chance to play each role. (15 minutes)
Ask the class: What was most difficult about this exercise? Why was it difficult? What kinds of things get in the way of communicating about sex and AIDS? Would anyone like to demonstrate their role-play for the class?
What are the best situations (time and place) for young people to discuss AIDS prevention? (5 minutes)
How Can We Help?
Hand out Rara and Meredith. Ask the class to read this handout. Ask for volunteers to read to the class. Ask what they liked about it. (10 minutes)
Rara and Meredith
For Rara and Meredith Blank, after-school activities mean more than school clubs, team sports, and part-time jobs. That’s because Meredith, 15, and her sister Rara, 16, are volunteers at the Teen Aids Hotline in Rockville, Maryland. The hotline provides callers with facts and counseling about AIDS.
The hotline volunteers, mainly teenagers and young adults, answer several thousand calls a month. "Some nights," Rara says, "the phones just don’t stop ringing." Most of the calls come from people in their 20s. "Most of the callers are people who think they have AIDS," Meredith says. A lot of the teenagers who call ask if you can get it from kissing. [Scientists consider this highly unlikely.]
The saddest phone calls come from people who have just discovered that they have AIDS. "The first time it happened, I was shocked," Meredith recalls. "The person was really upset and he needed somebody to talk to. He was angry too." Hotline volunteers usually refer these callers to a counseling service.
The sisters decided to work at the hotline to fulfill a community service requirement at their school. And once they started, they didn’t want to stop. Rara says, "With the hotline, you can educate yourself and everyone you come in contact with."
The two sisters’ training included a seminar about AIDS, as well as practice sessions in which volunteers ask each other possible questions. They also keep up with the most recent scientific articles on AIDS, which are available at the center. "Since we’ve been working here, I am always reminding my friends of the dangers of AIDS," Meredith says. "It’s kind of a joke among us, but it’s important to hear the advice coming from other people your age."
Even with the warnings, Meredith and Rara say some of their friends still take chances with their health. "A lot of people just say ‘I don’t think it’s going to happen to me,’" Meredith warns. "What young people have to realize is that it’s not who you are. It’s how you choose to protect yourself."
Meredith and Rara believe they are making a difference. "This is one case where young people can help save lives," says Rara.
(adapted from Alex Wohl, Washington, DC, for Scholastic Update.)
AIDS Education: From the Classroom Into the Community
Now announce to the class that they can help, too. Tell students that for homework you want them (put the following on the board):
1. to
administer the HIV Risk Behavior Questionnaire and interview at least one
friend, family member, or person in the community,
2. to use the questionnaire as a focus of discussion to find out how well the people they interview understand HIV risk behavior,
3. to give people copies of AIDS education literature (if available),
4. to record in their notebooks the main points of their interviews,
5. to write a report on their interviews.
Tell students that their interviews will be anonymous, that they can not identify the people they interview, and they should make this clear to them. However, students should include in their reports the important demographic information on the people they interview: age, sex, education, native language, level of English, source of previous information regarding AIDS, etc. Students should approach people they wish to interview by asking them if they would be willing to help in an AIDS education project by answering a short questionnaire for a couple of minutes. Students should be sensitive to and respectful of a person’s wish not to be interviewed, although most people are happy to cooperate.
Tell students that the lessons they learn from their interviews and report in their papers will be sent on to the public health department and will help health workers deal more effectively with AIDS in their communities. Instructors may arrange a swap of AIDS education materials for reports. Public health workers are always happy to have contact of this sort with the community.
Tell students that through these interviews they will have the opportunity to explore and better understand the AIDS educational issues raised in these lessons, and by actively participating in the AIDS education of others, they are performing a socially useful service that will help preserve the health of their communities, as well as their own health, while developing their English language skills.
