Norma, how delightful!  I hope you get a lot of good suggestions for this
ideal situation--eager students, open teachers...

Sometime rather recently someone posted about a science class she was
teaching in which she had the students discussing mammals and the students
discovered for themselves the incredulity of our denying our human babies
the milk that is ideally designed for them.  I think I kept the post but I
can't find it this morning. Perhaps the sender can re-send it to you.

I used to speak to a child development class each year and in the beginning
I think I talked "down" to them, appealing to their simplest
interests--delayed menstrual periods, convenience, etc. Then I worked with a
17 year old mom who went with me to one of the classes and I got a good
lesson in speaking to their "nobler" selves.  She approached them as people
who would want to give their babies what they themselves would have wanted
as babies. (And they were not as far from it as we might be.) She treated
them intelligently and talked about the advantages of feeding human milk and
how to get comfortable taking her baby everywhere she and her partner went
and, very importantly, how they should plan to breastfeed, that no one could
have told her what joy can come from breastfeeding her baby and she couldn't
tell them all of it either.
But to trust her there was nothing like it. She was *so* believable.

After that day, I did much better in my speaking and was most likely much
better received. What you say does matter a lot, but seeing them with
respect will go a long way in helping them receive what you have to offer.

I wish you the best!

Patricia Gima, IBCLC
Milwaukee
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