Trusted Teachers Educate Students on HIV

One of my best friends just became a teacher this past fall. After living what many would feel is a glamorous life in both New York City and Los Angeles, he realized he didn’t feel like he was making any sort of impact with his career. He moved to Texas and took a regular desk job so that he could spend his evenings going back to school to get his teacher certification. Now, he is happier than I have ever seen him. He works in an inner-city school and he loves it. His students really trust and respect him and he thrives on getting his students to learn, staying up late almost every night preparing his lesson plans and coming up with entertaining activities to get his students involved. Seeing how his students truly look up to him makes it understandable that, as one study recently demonstrated, it is more the individual who is teaching rather than the actual curriculum that gets through to students these days.

Researchers out of the University of Kentucky and Ohio State University recently determined that when it comes to learning about personal issues like HIV and preventing teenage pregnancy, instead of hiring officials from outside the school system, it would be more impacting to have the students’ normal teacher educate them on these subjects. After all, who better to begin a discussion on these sensitive matters than somebody the students already trust and feel comfortable with? Eric Anderman, one of the lead researchers on this study, states, “The actual person teaching makes a difference in how students learn. When there is a good relationship, that really facilitates learning and motivation. And we found that in almost every area, the regular classroom teachers were more effective, they were better.”

Many other studies have shown that when teachers and students get along, the students are better behaved and actually learn more. This new study revealed that with these touchy subjects of pregnancy and STDs, students would feel more compelled to open up with their teachers and more likely to ask questions and participate in well thought-out conversations on the subjects. Anderman goes on to say, “The relationship between the teacher and the student, particularly during adolescence, is very important. It was easier for the kids to talk about personal stuff with someone they knew. It was easier for them to absorb the material and become more interested in what they were talking about with their regular teacher in the classroom.”

The study surveyed close to 700 Kentucky high school students from seven high schools. All were taught the exact same curriculum, but some were taught by their normal teachers while others had outside experts come in to teach. Each student completed a survey both before the curriculum was taught and a few weeks after. The survey noted how students viewed the material they were taught, their feelings on condoms and sex and how trustworthy their teachers/outside experts seemed. The researchers were not surprised that the normal teachers were deemed more credible and likeable by their students, rather than the outside experts. Researchers on the project feel that this was due to the fact that students already had a teaching relationship with their regular teachers and, thus, wanted to demonstrate they could do well with the material and with classroom conversations. States Anderman, “School is the absolute best way to get information out to adolescents, no matter who is teaching. The important thing is getting the teacher to make a connection. If the teacher can make the right connection with one kid, you’ve saved one person from getting HIV, you’ve saved one person’s life.”