In high school, I learned of AIDS through my IB biology courses and guest speakers. In these IB biology courses, I learned about AIDS by way of the “textbook” definition of the term. I learned about the scientific aspects of AIDS including how one got it and how it spread throughout the body. In class, to further our knowledge on this virus, we watched the movie, “And the Band Played On,” based the novel of the same name by Randy Shilts. After seeing this movie, I gained insight on AIDS, specifically the beginning of this deadly epidemic, which the textbook could not relay to me. Essentially, I never saw the reality of AIDS in this course, meaning how it truly affected people, until we had a guest speaker come to our school one day. The guest speaker was a female in her mid-30s, who had contracted AIDS from one of her ex-boyfriends through sexual contact. Before she came, everyone was required to get a parental consent form signed to be able to enter the auditorium to hear her story. I thought that getting a parental consent form was very peculiar, but it only excited me more to see what all the fuss was about.

Metro High School

 During the auditorium session, this female talked about how she got HIV/AIDS and she actually showed us all of the medicine that she had to take. While talking about the numerous medicines that she takes, she said, “When you have HIV/AIDS, you must be organized because there a lot of medications that you need to take.”I sat there very confused as she discussed the time of day she had to take each type of medicine, if she could have food with them or not, and how much she needed to take each day. This speaker’s story was very similar to the one that I had heard in Girl’s Incorporated several years back. Overall, this speaker’s message was to promote abstinence until commitment and to display the reality of AIDS to adolescents.

Picture of crying eye created by a young Nairobi girl

Although the event was well attended and was significant for encouraging HIV/AIDS prevention measures amongst adolescents, the school newspaper did not cover it. In fact, the school newspaper was produced only about 2-3 times per year. To the contrary, my high school did provide constant information about the disease. It provided a pamphlet kiosk with information on HIV/AIDS, STDs, pregnancy, tobacco, alcohol, and other health related brochures. This kiosk was located right next to the cafeteria and nurse’s office, but I rarely saw people take pamphlets from it. The nurse however did not provide information about HIV/AIDS because quite frankly, I do not believe that many people asked her. Surely, in her office, she had information on posters about the disease but you would not notice them unless you went into her office and looked around at all of the posters. The nurse was a part-time employee who was never there long enough to hear about all of our issues. When she was there, if anyone had any problems, she would simply ask if you were pregnant. Although her main concern was pregnancy and she was constantly absent, my nurse would have known where to get tested for HIV/AIDS. Specifically, you can get tested at various clinics or at an AIDS testing and counseling center at various places around the region.

                                                     

Kiosks located at Metro High School. The picture on the left provide pamphlets particular for STDs, HIV/AIDS and pregnancy

Click here to find out more about Missouri education mandates on AIDS