A Message on World AIDS Day
Blog — By Michael Heath on December 1, 2009 at 11:04 amIn a community it’s important to be reminded that a single person with the courage of her 
convictions can have a profound impact.
Because I work in a small high school, I’m on a bunch of email lists for students.
On Black Friday I got copied on a note from one student to her peers. She’s a senior who is new to the school. She’s from Botswana, a lovely person who is making a difference with her presence in our community. Here is how she starts her note:
‘Hi Everyone,
Now that the turkey has settled and the pumpkin pie is but a memory, you want to go shopping right? But you didn’t get up at 3am and part of you is not feeling being trampled by sale-crazy Oregonians. Then I have the greatest deal for you!
The Global Citizen Club (G.C.C.) is selling HIV/AIDS awareness t-shirts…’
Then she asks us all to wear our shirts on Tuesday, which is World Aids Day.
‘…Ok, so you got the t-shirt, now what? On Tuesday, the 1st of December (which is World Aids Day), we encourage the student body to dress up in as much red as possible which means you will look ultra cool in your new t-shirt. At lunch time, we will assemble all the students in the paddock and Kitty will take a picture of us. I know some of you are already excited about taking a picture but its gets even better! We are not the only school doing this. There are schools in Ohio, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, California and Massachusetts who will participate in this event.’
This is a national initiative to symbolize the fact that we each can make a difference.
She ends her note with ‘Waiting on you to change the world’
Two things immediately came to my mind when I read this.
First, this student is convinced of the truth that she can make a difference and is helping us all to understand what we can do.
And somewhat more tangentially, I began to wonder how it was that this kind of social conscience is cultivated in a school and why it wasn’t really that important in my conservative, Christian school that I attended back in Virginia?
4 Comments
Are you saying that conservatives Christians aren’t concerned or compassionate about those who have contracted AIDS? I would disagree with that, if that is what you’re saying.
James,
please don’t leap from the particular to the universal this quickly.
I’m speaking from my experience. And it’s an experience steeped in the ‘Evangelical Christian School.’ Did you go to one for high school as well? if so, what was your time there like?
No I didn’t. I just see so much here slamming conservative Christian schools and churches as uncaring, it becomes a bit of a cliche. I am a member of a conservative (theologically) church, and my kids attend a pretty conservative Christian school, and I see countless people in both institutions who don’t live up the the stereotype that is built up in the minds of several commenters and writers at BWC.
I also attended a conservative Christian school and noticed the same lacking. I currently teach in a Christian school and sometimes joke about being the school’s social conscience. I think we just need more individuals who are aware of the need and the best way to respond.