Posted on 09/26/2018 6:14:31 PM PDT by mdittmar
We’ve all been reading and talking about Brett Kavanaugh and the allegations he’s facing of sexual assaults committed in high school and college. Regardless of one’s political affiliation, the nomination of a judge to a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court is something to be taken seriously and should not be rushed.
I have called on Senators to have the FBI fully investigate each allegation before they move forward with the confirmation process. The allegations against Judge Kavanaugh are serious and should not be brushed aside.
Beyond my concerns about the rush to confirm Kavanaugh, for me as a mom, grandmother, and educator, one of the most important elements of this discussion is what our students are taking from it.
National reporting in recent days on teens’ experiences tells us that for many of them, the discussions aren’t just hypothetical. Far too many children and teens are survivors of sexual assault themselves.
What they are hearing and seeing in this moment is giving them insight into, as an NPR story puts it, “whether the adults in power will take these claims seriously, and whether speaking up results in harsher consequences for survivors or for those accused.”
They’re wondering: If I tell my mom or dad or teacher or counselor that I was assaulted or harassed, will they listen? Or will they ask me to deny my feelings about what happened? Will they wave it away with some version of forgive and forget? Will they insist that what happened wasn’t that bad, or that it really didn’t happen the way I said it did?
As educators and parents, our top priority is to create safe spaces for students. Within those spaces, we want them to learn, grow, and discover. None of that happens unless they also feel heard and believed—and unless we actually do hear and believe them.
The good news is that in the recent “State of Gender Equality for U.S. Adolescents 2018” survey, three-quarters of students said they had heard about the #MeToo movement. Most of the girls and a third of the boys said it made them feel as if they could tell someone if they were harassed or assaulted.
But the same survey found that three-quarters of girls ages 14 to 19 “felt judged as a sexual object or unsafe as a girl.” Furthermore, 81 percent of girls in the same age group “said they had at least one friend who had been asked by a boy for a sexy or naked photo.”
Deborah Tolman, a psychology professor quoted in a New York Times article about the research, said, “This is the contradiction we put in front of girls: You should be confident and do well in school and do athletics, but you’re supposed to also be a good sex object at the same time.”
We must do a much better job of addressing the “boys will be boys” narrative, and we must bury it, once and for all.
If you’re looking for resources for talking to students about harassment and sexual assault, please see these:
Exactly
Your male students are learning why previous generations had chaperones for their co-ed activities.
They are learning that the NEA is a hypocritical organization. YOU were the ones who supported BILL CLINTON even after the allegations came out. YOU were the ones who dismissed Paula Jones as trailer trash. YOU were the ones that said Monica Lewinski was a liar. YOU supported CLINTON and EVERY DEMOCRAT THAT RUNS FOR OFFICE. YOU are why we are in this place.
By the way...how come YOU make MORE money than ANY teacher in the country?
Here’s the message I’d give the male students:
Start keeping a diary today. Ensure you write down all the rumors you hear as well - it doesn’t matter anymore if they’re true or not. Truth is as dead as the rule of law.
“The next person who refers to an FBI report as being worth anything obviously doesn’t understand anything,” Biden said during Thomas’s confirmation hearing. “The FBI explicitly does not in this or any other case reach a conclusion, period. So, judge, there is no reason why you should know this. The reason why we cannot rely on the FBI report — you wouldn’t like it if we did, because it is inconclusive.”
10-12-1991 Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings from https://dailycaller.com/2018/09/25/biden-fbi-report-clarence-thomas/
THAT YOU ARE GUILTY UNTIL PROVEN INNOCENT.
!&€%/:** the NEA!!!!!!!
lying commie bitch needs to teach the children about witchhunts and The Crucible.
Stalinists lie. Always
As the Kavanaugh nomination proceeds, what messages are our students getting?
NEVER, NEVER, EVER VOTE FOR A DEMOCRAT!!!
And who in the FBI would investigate? The same players who were DNC controlled to initiate the FISA warrant?
The NEA Czar need to teach children to speak out against inappropriate touching, sexting, etc especially when adult female teachers are making sexual moves on the children.
#CultureOfCorruption
#MeToo
Hopefully they learn that Democrats are assholes.
>>nd one of the democrat pound me too (#metoo) women went to 9 separate rape train parties because the first 8 apparently didn’t disgust her.
wasn’t she 3 years older? why was an adult cruising teenagers’ drunken orgies?
the NEA treats every teacher who diddles children as an isolated event and no evidence of a pattern of rape culture in their profession
They are learning that in a circumstance like this, that a lie is better than the truth.
The lie more readily fits the narrative of the media and the masses.
Instructor?
Pretend your a dem.
Pretend you are a democrat and you can literally get away with murder.
There is money to be made ruining men.
The NEA is a vile hate group. On par with any worldwide terrorists organization.
I got my fill of “The Crucible” in high school. If was used to teach the evils of McCartyism.
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