Sexual Harrasment Awareness at School

Today my son came home all excited telling me about what they learned in school. My son mind you just turned 12 so it isn’t education that is on his mind at the moment. No sex isn’t either, for him (thank goodness) it’s all sports which works for me. Before I get off topic though it appears they are teaching them about sexual harrasment. When he told me I think he expected me to say no way, he did laugh a little though and reminded me of the time he did get in trouble for sexual harrasment at school.

IMG: Sxc.hu

Lets go back a few years, it was his very first year in public school and the third grade. This was a very bad year for our family, especially due to one teacher that told me flat out she hated homeschoolers. They were doing a cultural thing at school and watching a film, I guess SoccerBoy said something that was bad. I worked at the school every day back then, I’ve since never volunteered to help at any school. Part of me blamed myself for the way the teacher treated him, maybe she just didn’t like me so she took it out on him. Even if we never ran into one another, it embed a seed there. She waited four days to tell me about this, it happened on a Thursday, I heard nothing on Friday and finally she approached me on Monday.

“So Did you talk to SoccerBoy?” Teacher asked.
“Umm, yeah.”
“And?”
“Is there something we should’ve talked about? Did something happen at school?”
“Nevermind, if you don’t know SoccerBoy didn’t talk to you.”

In the end she finally did spill her guts and told me that while watching a movie of a two guys beating on drums SoccerBoy told the kid next to him, “I wish they had two sexy girls instead of these two fat guys.” When she told me I was left with my jaw open. She asked, “You’re surprised too.” I shook my head and asked exactly what wasit that he said that was bad. What the bad word was, I couldn’t figure it out.

I ran the sentence through my head twice before asking her just to make sure I hadn’t missed a curse word. But I couldn’t figure it out. The bad word….sexy. Oh and she didn’t understand why he’d prefer girls over guys. Ummm, if my son were stating he’d rather watch sexy men, wouldn’t that have came out WRONG?

Back to today, I smiled and asked exactly what they learned. “We learned what could count as sexual harrasment, both verbal and nonverbal types including physical.” But that’s as far as he got. Guess I won’t be learning anything new today. At least he didn’t get in trouble for anything though. Hopefully I can get to hear more of what was taught so I can hit on it more or write about it here.

I have noticed in the years since I was a child things have definitely changed, back in school it was okay to hold hands, pass notes or even hear a guy whistle. These days these are all against the law type of things, a student can get written up for any of them. I’m glad it is being taught how to conduct oneself around others but I also wonder if some of it isn’t going too far. I mean the word sexy in regards to my son not wanting to watch a bunch of guys dancing on a stage. She told me she could’ve had him suspended worse.  What do you think of sexual harrasment? Are they teaching everything that needs to be taught, or is there more?