February 22, 2012
Students visit AIDS Memorial Quilt display, make a quilt to contribute
In early December, more than 50 Duanesburg art, sociology and health students in Mr. DiTondo, Mrs. Sprenger and Ms. Moffett’s classes took a special field trip to the Empire State Plaza Convention Center to view the enormous handmade AIDS Memorial Quilt that was hung on display for only a few days before it was moved to another city.
The AID Memorial Quilt was an idea created in 1985 and came alive in 1987 by Cleve Jones and a group of people who wanted to document the lives of those living with or who died from AIDS, and to thereby help other people understand the devastating impact of the disease. Today the AIDS Memorial Quilt is a powerful reminder of the AIDS pandemic. More than 44,000 individual 3- by 6-foot memorial panels have been sewn together by friends and family members.
The viewing of the quilt is the culmination of a health unit on HIV/AIDS where students learn the devastating effects of the disease. During the unit, students undergo a “medication trial” where they see first-hand what it wo
uld
be like for them to have to be on a strict diet and medication schedule if they
or a loved one suffered from HIV. Health Teacher Maureen Moffett fills
“medication” baggies with snacks (gummy bears, tootsie rolls, pretzels, goldfish
and cheerios) to demonstrate how many medications an HIV-infected person must
ingest every day on a strict schedule in order to survive.Students also learn about Ryan White—an American teenager from Indiana who became a national poster child for HIV/AIDS after he was expelled from middle school because of his infection. A hemophiliac, he became infected with HIV from a contaminated blood treatment. The students also read other HIV-infected peoples’ biographies and stories of struggle as well as discussed at length the impact that HIV has had on Africa.
Upon completion of the HIV/AIDS unit, Moffett and DiTondo invited students to participate in an after-school project of creating an AIDS quilt panel to donate to the large AIDS Memorial Quilt. The students worked together to come up with a design and create their quilt panel. (See photos)
“We take this field trip to view the AIDS Memorial Quilt to really impress upon the students the impact that this deadly epidemic has had on people not only around the world but in our own community within the Capital Region,” says Moffett.
“The
students who have attended in the past have said how taken back they are by the
large number of quilts and the originality of each one.”
In addition to viewing the quilt, students also participated in a seminar hosted by Peer Speakers who have AIDS or HIV and who shared their life stories—how they contacted the disease, how they live their life dealing with it, how they are treated by others, how they spend their time trying to educate others about the disease and the prevention of it.
“Duanesburg students were so moved by one young man’s story that they want to create a quilt panel for the AIDS Memorial Quilt in honor of that young man and his family,” says DiTondo.