December 1st is World AIDS Day. AIDS, for many Americans, is becoming the invisible epidemic. People in America are living longer with AIDS, so it doesn’t feel like the immediate death sentence it was twenty years ago. (My God, has it really been more than twenty years since we first started hearing about AIDS?) But there are now 38 million people in the world with AIDS with thousands of new cases being diagnosed every day.

It is quickly becoming an epidemic in Africa, and in America, the number of blacks and hispanics who have died from AIDS eclipsed the number of white people with AIDS years ago. We know now — or at least we better know now — that this is more than a "gay disease," but this is a disease that can strike anyone who is not careful.

There are only four ways you can contract HIV, and yet the number of people with AIDS continues to increase.

AIDS is preventable with education. AIDS is preventable when people are smart about practicing safe sex.

As a teacher, I worry about all of my kids. I worry that they do things because they are teenagers and think they are immortal. I worry about the day a student of mine tells me they are HIV positive.

I long for the day that those words are not a death sentence.