How are teachers prepared to handle these sensitive and important health topics?
Through a series of training programs, administrators and teachers are being introduced to the updated curriculum. Principals are responsible for assuring that a minimum of five HIV/AIDS lessons are taught every year in elementary school, and six in every middle and high school grade. Training programs began in October 2005 and will continue into the spring. How do the lessons help students to stay healthy? The updated HIV/AIDS curriculum provides age and developmentally appropriate lessons to help children and adolescents understand the nature of HIV/AIDS, methods of transmission and prevention, and ways to support friends or loved ones who may be living with HIV/AIDS. Lessons use strategies that reinforce the importance of communicating with parents/guardians, teachers, and other caring and appropriate adults in their lives. Interactive activities foster communication skills, assertiveness, planning and goal setting, decision making, and limit setting. What if a parent/guardian has c
