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High School Experience
The very first question I had to ask was why did I guess so high? What influenced me to estimate in the manner that I did? I spent eight hours a day, five days a week, ten months out a year, at Thomas J. Corcoran High School for four consecutive years. For my sophomore year I was required to take a class on Health/Sex Education. According to the New York Education Department, everyone within a New York school district was (and still is) required to learn about HIV/AIDS as a mandated topic of the curriculum (2). What the curriculum covers includes the nature of the disease, modes of transmissions, and methods of prevention. Now, while this is mandatory for all NY students, why did I in particular guess extraordinarily high? I clearly remember our extended HIV/AIDS unit (units generally lasted a couple of days) and the strong emphasis my health teacher put on the topic, but why? After some investigation, I came up with the demographics of my high school student body (3). The Black population made up 66% of the student make-up while the White population made up 28.4%. Hispanics individuals made up 4.3%. All together, the student population was around 1700 (3). Given the demographics of the student body and that HIV/AIDS affects a large portion of the African American population (4), the emphasis place by my health teacher was very appropriate. Reflecting back, not taking extra time to focus on a relevant issue would have been disastrous and negligent, especially when it could potentially affect the majority of them.
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