LIVESTRONG at School: Changing Classroom Talk About Cancer

Excerpt

In 2005, at the Lance Armstrong Foundation, we began to see that students were not receiving the support they needed to talk about cancer in an age-appropriate and empowering way. We knew that students all over the country were dealing with cancer whether by their own diagnosis, or the diagnosis of a sibling, a parent, a grandparent, a loved one, or a school teacher. And we were also aware that from 5 to 18 years, students spend a great deal of their time in school. Yet, what we did not know was how teachers were handling these discussions. As a first step in this project, we took a look at all of the school curricula about cancer we could find. What we found were interventions that were targeting specific situations related to cancer, but not broadly accessible curriculum that teachers could use in their classrooms. We also found school curriculum which addressed cancer prevention, cell biology, and even some which discussed Lance Armstrong’s specific cancer treatment protocol. What we did not find was curriculum that any teacher could use to begin a dialog about cancer, to demystify the disease and provide a forum for questions and show students ways they could support people with cancer. We saw providing school professionals with a tool they could use to teach about cancer in a way that was inspiring and empowering was an important gap that needed to be filled, and so we created LIVESTRONG at School. …