
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, February 18, 1994                   TAG: 9402180211
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: KAREN BARNES STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

PUPPETS TEACH TRUTH ABOUT AIDS

Roanoke-based Puppets by Pizzazz presented a play designed to teach students about the dangers and myths associated with AIDS.

"The best protection for our young people is an education about how to avoid the risks," said Midge Morris, Bedford County's interagency case manager. "We need these children to know it's OK to give hugs or eat dinner at the same table" with an HIV-infected person.

All the school's fifth- and sixth-graders attended the performance and asked questions afterward.

The students' questions ranged from basic to specific - such as whether AIDS can be transmitted by dentists. More than 20 raised their hands with questions, which Morris, a certified AIDS educator, answered.

Reaction to the puppet show was positive. Casey, a fifth-grader, said he learned that one of his beliefs about how AIDS is contracted was wrong. "I learned that you can't catch it from a toilet seat," he said. "I didn't really think it was true, but no one told me it wasn't."

One of his classmates thought mosquitoes could spread the virus but discovered that is not true.

Several of the students said their main source of information about AIDS is their family. Joyce, a sixth-grader, said, "I learned some stuff, like I thought you couldn't get AIDS from a blood transfusion." The virus can be transmitted that way, although, with current screening practices, the risk is slight. "My mom tells me everything I need to know."

Others learned about AIDS in family-life education, taught in fifth-grade classrooms.

Morris emphasized statistics associated with the disease's spread across the globe. "By the year 2000, all of us will know someone with HIV," she said.

This fact, and the falsehoods associated with the disease, call for a greater understanding in the future, one of the goals of the puppet show.

"It's an introduction how not to be afraid if someone they know is HIV positive," Morris said. "This can give them a basic understanding and compassion."

by CNB