World AIDS Day at Eötvös

December 1^st is World AIDS Day- though in Hungary, we paid tribute on December 2^nd.  I don’t know why – and I don’t ask anymore.  It’s Hungary – just go with it.  So – for the day (on the 1^st – silly me) I brought in some statistics and did about 10 minutes on AIDS in the classroom.  I felt good because it was something that was quite prominently discussed in the school the next day.  There were displays of information about AIDS, and a questionnaire that the students could fill out about AIDS facts.  If they got all the answers right, they got a Clementine tangerine.  What a deal!  So- they were madly reading the information (well, only the young ones were because it’s the same set of questions every year – so the older students know the answers already – also, I was told that one of my students had the hook up with the tangerine girl so I didn’t have to bother, I could just go name drop and score my tangerine – totally the purpose of the whole thing…) The thing I found to be most interesting were the bumper stickers that read “I heart condoms” (see picture).  Never before have I seen such brazen sex ed.  Unfortunately, the information is a bit misleading (as told to me by a student) because “the info says that sex shouldn’t be had – that’s the best way to not get diseases, but then it says sex is good – so should I have it, or should I not have sex” quite a conversation to have with a 16 year old girl…