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If you (or your child) had T1D while in school, did you give presentations to classmates to teach them about T1D?
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I assumed you meant elementary, junior high, or high school. I developed T1D my freshman year of college.
I gave a speech on T1 for my university speech class.
Several Science Fair projects
Disabilities month in 4th grade. My mom and I presented about type 1 diabetes. We gave out glucose tablets to everyone. Not sure that got the right point across. We also had guests teach us about deafness (they performed Eye of the Tiger in ASL). I’m sure there were others but I can’t remember them now.
I had a ready-made science presentation through elementary school!
I became a T1D 36 years ago before all the privacy laws kicked in. When I returned to school from being in the hospital for a week or so after discovering I was diabetic the teacher had information about diabetes all over the board and had told the entire class!!! I was mortified but that was a time when you rolled with the punches’ and adjusted. I know now that the teacher meant well but I always think of what would happen if someone did that in this day and age :). So I didn’t voluntarily give a presentation but it was definitely presented!!! With that being said I never had a problem sharing my condition with anyone.
When I was young, for the first few years of elementary, my mom had sent a VHS along to have the teacher show to the class so they would be aware of why I was acting a certain way, why I had to eat a snack, or why I had to go to the nurse more often.
I gave a presentation on T1D in my daughter’s class each year from Kindergarten to Grade 5. This year she is in Middle School (a new kid in a new school, new country) and has said that she doesn’t want her classmates to know for a little while. We’ll see if she agrees to doing a presentation later in the year.
I worked at a junior high and did presentations in the health classes when they were studying the endocrine system.
The less attention I got the happier I was so I never would have considered giving any presentation about my disease. I was in the first grade when it was discovered I had diabetes many years ago.
I did my first presentation on living with diabetes in 2018 at a small college’s campus colloquium. I was 68 at the time. The audience consisted almost entirely of students who were concerned about helping their parents adapt to Type 2.
My daughter told her teacher her mom is a T1D, so her teacher asked me to talk to the kids. This is 25 years ago, and I wasn’t thrilled, but I thought it might be informative, and I was a teacher, but in college.
I gathered up all my supplies, gave a brief presentation, and when I came to loading a syringe, one of the boys passed out. I have avoided all requests to discuss this with kids again.
After dx in third grade I offered to give a presentation during health class, but my teacher wasn’t interested. I used my information for a science fair exhibit instead. Every year after that I put together a science fair exhibit that related in someway to life with T1 diabetes. I continued thru high school, winning an achievement award from the Midwest Research Institute my senior year.
No way! When I was young I did everything possible to be ” normal”.
In the 1970’s I don’t believe it would have been wanted… Even friends knew little to nothing about what I was facing. Hoping things have changed for the better since then.
I did not let ANYONE know that I was t1D for the first 45 years and I am fully disc losed now because I am so crippled by it that I can’t hide it anymore.
Not as a young person. I don’t recall ever having to give a presentation where I got to choose the subject.
In later years, when I did college as an adult, I had to take a speech class. I didn’t want to. I had to. But, one of the first speeches was a “demonstrate/teach something” type speech and I chose how to give a shot to a cat. In that short speech (I don’t think it could be over 2 or 3 minutes), I used a syringe and a stuffed animal. And I got in some diabetes information, but not a lot.
No way. Schooled in the 1960s and 70s it was never considered as a thing to do. Even while attending nursing school in the 1980s I didn’t give any diabetes presentations to classmates.
However, in the 1980s I was trained as a volunteer peer educator through the ADA and gave self-care empowerment talks and led support groups for young and older adults living with diabetes of all ages. Eventually I became certified as a diabetes nurse specialist and as a CDE/CDCES I have been invited to give education sessions to many groups and individuals of all ages, backgrounds and in all kinds of settings.
I gave a demonstration to my fifth grade class on how to give a shot (this was in 1966). I used an orange for the demo. At slumber parties my girlfriends watched me inject myself – there was a lot of squealing!
I didn’t personally give the presentations, but my mom always arranged for a diabetes nurse/educator to do a presentation to my class each year in elementary school. I always dreaded those days because I didn’t want the extra attention.
I’ve had diabetes since the age of 2 1/2. So, I had already been living with it before I started school. As a young T1D I had to eat snacks during class time. Most often, I had to go out into the hallway to eat in order to not “bother” the other students. This led to a lot of questions from my classmates on why I had to leave the room everyday.
I had no problems with explaining to them that I have diabetes and what diabetes is. As I got older, this became less frequent, but whenever asked I would always explain. I also did a research paper on diabetes when I was in Jr High and gave a presentation on my findings.
PS: I also was on several panels, including one at Hahnemann Hospital School of Nursing in the 80’s. There were 4 or 5 of us speaking about being on an insulin pump. I think the nursing students learned a lot!
I was also on a panel while in college in upstate NY. This consisted of nurses, doctors and me, a college kid. After I answered and/or added to others answers, the doctor I was sitting next to started referring questions directed at him to me!
I also had newly diagnosed people referred to me with questions by the JDF (now JDRF) while I was in high school in the late 70’s.
I quickly pressed “NA”, but should have chosen “I did not have T1D while in school”. (If there is a difference?)
Yes part of science fair project
I never gave a presentation while in school, but my daughter did a poster for their science fair when she was in middle school. 🙂
In 1960, 4th grade, nobody knew anybody who had it or knew anything about it, so mom came in while in elementary school and did a short explanation for the kids. She went in before school started to talk with the school nurse, etc. Once I was in Middle School I did my own presentations. Never was shy about it in any situation with any group of people throughout my 61 years of T1D.
P.S. I was a teacher for 40 years and also always gave an explanation to all my students about why they might see me suddenly eating or drinking at an odd time, and also showed them all my “Tech Stuff,” once all that was invented, if they wanted to see it. As I was a special ed teacher most of my career it was often a great “object lesson” as well: “We all have something tough!”
Not much possibility back in the late 1950-s and early 1960’s even though I was TD1. Schools didn’t do much accommodating back then or do much of anything to help except to allow me to keep a candy bar in my desk.
Back in the mid-60s and 70s, when I was in grade school and high school, I only knew one other T1D classmate (my senior year). I attended a fairly large school also. It was not a disease a lot of people had in my town. My “ailment” wasn’t something anyone wanted to know about or talk about. Now, I give a presentation each year to College Pharmacy students.