I have often taught to "hostile" audiences.  Our Health Ministry had a
campaign to educate all nurses working in the well-baby clinics about
breastfeeding, and I often teach in the nursing school, not only to
those wonderful fresh new students, but also to older ones doing
required supplementary courses.
You can see the angry sour faces in the group: " I have been working in
this profession for 40 years. Who is she to tell me about
breastfeeding!!"  " My kids were bottle fed and they came out just
fine."  Etc.  Some of them cannot even look at the slides of breasts or
breastfeeding infants.  They turn their heads away. 
 Often the tension in the classroom can be cut with a knife.  I feel as
if they want to throw rotten tomatoes at me.   So I will let them throw
rotten tomatoes.  I went and bought lots of little red Styrofoam balls
and put bowls of them on the tables.  
I always start those lectures with the introduction of how much has
changed in medicine since we all started working. Once we thought, now
we know. Once we though that fat children were healthy, today we know
that obesity is one of the worst killers.  Once nurses had to wear white
dresses and stiff caps, today you work in more colorful comfortable
clothes.  Then I get into the breastfeeding ones: Once we thought that
babies were born with watches on their wrists and we allowed them to
feed at certain specified hours, today we know that babies are to feed
according to their own internal clock which can be up to 12 times in 24
hours.....   Once we thought that 10 minutes on each breast was plenty,
and today we know that.....etc. If anyone wants a copy of that list, I
would be happy to share it.  At the end of that intro, I tell them that
in this lecture, there may be information that makes them feel
angry...angry that they were never taught this correct information,
angry that they did not breastfeed because they got incorrect
information, etc, and for that I have provided you with rotten tomatoes
to throw at me when you feel that something I have said goes against
everything you have ever learned or done.  
There are certain points in the lecture that the room is full of flying
"tomatoes" and this really breaks the tension in the room and we all
laugh instead of being angry. We discuss the issue which caused the
reaction, and neutralize the tension.   I also have some slides which I
add a big red SPLAT to in order to emphasize that I can predict which
slide will cause that reaction.  
I have had nurses come up to me after the lecture in tears that if they
had only known this 36 years ago, their son's life would have been
different, or their own mothering experience would have been different.
Many express the desire to learn more about lactation.  
 
Esther Grunis, IBCLC
Lis Maternity Hospital
Tel Aviv, Israel
 

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