As Bad as Georgie Peorgie?

In Maryland, a five-year-old is the latest youngster to be accused of "sexual harrassment" at school. He's not alone.

During the 2005-06 school year, 28 kindergarten students in Maryland were suspended for sex offenses, including sexual assault, sexual harassment and sexual activity, according to state data. Fifteen of those suspensions were for sexual harassment.

And he's not the youngest in the nation:

School administrators at a Texas school in November suspended a 4-year-old student for inappropriately touching a teacher's aide after the prekindergarten student hugged the woman.

"It's important to understand a child may not realize that what he or she is doing may be considered sexual harassment, but if it fits under the definition, then it is, under the state's guidelines," [Maryland official] Mowen said. "If someone has been told this person does not want this type of touching, it doesn't matter if it's at work or at school, that's sexual harassment."

How can a school that calls a prekindergarten hug "sexual harrassment" teach anything to anyone? What can they possibly know about children when they can't figure out that a 5-year-old isn't sexually harrassing someone, but just being rude--or playful?

On the other hand, maybe they assume that the perverse sexualization of the culture we see all around us really does make everything about sex, one way or the other.

Comments

[Nick]

My daughter, if she wasn't a girl and in school, would likely get in the same sort of trouble. She doesn't realize that she can't just kiss what's a lip level. Thank God she's with us and we can keep an eye on her gently nudging her towards dealing with the "real" world rather than throwing her before a court.

[GL]

It may be that some of the children have been abused and so have acted out what was acted out on them. In many other case, perhaps most (at least I hope in most), it's likely innocent and represents yet another case of over reaction by teachers and school administrators. One would have to know the circumstances of the individual cases to know which applies to each instance. In either event, whether a child is acting out because of his or her own past or current abuse or whether he or she is a victim of over reaction by teachers and school administrator, this is a sign of a very sick society, but then we all already knew that.

[Tony Esolen]

I'm always stunned by the cruelty of the self-proclaimed softhearted people who run our schools. I know about the cruelty, I hear plenty of examples of it all the time from people who flee the schools to teach their kids at home -- and yet I'm still stunned by each new example I hear. Talk about teaching the poor kid a lesson.

[Pr. Dave Poedel]

Unbelievable, but incredibly sad.

I am blessed that the small school district where my grandchildren attend has not yet gone to this level of insanity.

While conceding the points raised by "GL", there has to be a way, short of Christ's Second Coming, of bringing us to our senses. On second thought, MARANATHA!

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>I'm always stunned by the cruelty of the self-proclaimed softhearted people who run our schools. I know about the cruelty, I hear plenty of examples of it all the time from people who flee the schools to teach their kids at home -- and yet I'm still stunned by each new example I hear. Talk about teaching the poor kid a lesson.<<<

As a collective entity, a bureaucracy cannot be cruel, anymore than a large machine can be cruel. Bureaucracy has a very mechanicstic quality to it, since it runs more or less autonomically according to a set of pre-programmed rules, the entire purpose of which is to remove discretion, and thus responsibility, from the individual.

"Zero-tolerance policies" are but the logical conclusion of the bureaucratic imperative. In order to minimize risk to the bureaucracy (an instinct widely known as "cover your ass"), whole categories of behavior, thought and expression are simply proscribed after being defined in the broadest manner possible. This relieves bureaucrats of the necessity of applying intellect and discretion in their jobs. In place of leadership, they have a rulebook, applied ruthelessly and without thought.

The results are predictable.

[Judy Warner]

Sometimes, though, the people in the bureaucracy exhibit some humanity and don't follow the rules. I'm sure that throughout Maryland there are many little children who could have been written up for sexual harassment and weren't.

Since this incident happened in the county where I live, I'll give you an example of a bureaucrat NOT following the rules. When my daughter was briefly attending school in first grade, we went on an overnight class trip to the Outdoor Center, a sort of nature camp run by the school system. On the wall of the dining room was the Johnny Appleseed prayer, but with "the Earth" substituted for "the Lord." "The Earth is good to me, and so I thank the Earth...."

At lunch, a teacher stood up and said, "Now we'll pray." She pointed to the prayer on the wall and said, "The Lord is good to me, and so I thank the Lord...." Everyone joined in.

At dinner, though, a different teacher read the prayer to the earth as written. (I later complained to the county school administration about the prayer to the earth, and I understand it was taken down.)

[DGP]

>>they can't figure out that a 5-year-old isn't sexually harrassing someone<<

They can, but it's not about the truth. It's about the lawsuit.

[mairnéalach]

The daycare where my preschool son attends is a non-profit co-op operated by federal employees at a major bureaucracy. Needless to say, the culture of the moms & dads is a world apart from that of the sweet ladies who care for & teach our children.

When I met my son's preschool teacher, I was surprised to see the Abeka curriculum had been chosen. I knew his mother, the antichristian who'd divorced me after meeting and becoming infatuated with another "good person" like herself, would be apoplectic. Sure enough, within a few weeks, the teachers had been instructed to mark out each religious reference within the books in order not to offend the four year olds--on order of his mother, concerned citizen that she is.

Soon afterwards, her good new man, a computer specialist, volunteered to delete from the school computers all the little exercises which were "violent" (such as little lizards shooting letters & numbers off a vine with their tongue).

The mind boggles at the arrogance and inhumanity. Of course, I got the defiled woman back, by giving my son a suction cup bow & arrow for an early Christmas present before I went back to sea a few days ago. I suspect he will enjoy it more than the $400 bauble she intends to give him. That's just the sort of chap he is!

[Judy Warner]

Abeka at a federal daycare? I'm speechless. This isn't in Washington, is it?

[Katie]

As a teacher who works in the public schools, there have been multiple occasions where I am accidentally or unknowingly touched by children who mean nothing by it. But I know they're just children who don't mean any harm. In the incident with the four-year old, I would blame the teacher's aid for taking offense, not the system which has to come to her aid. If she complains to the school district, they pretty much have to do something about it. She's the one who should think, "wait a minute, this is just a small child who doesn't realize what he's doing" and have it stop right there.

[mairnéalach]

Judy, I was stunned also. I knew when I saw it that it would not survive five minutes. I still don't know who was responsible for putting it into place, God bless their subversive soul. The center isn't in Washington, and is more of a parent co-op than an official state organ, but nevertheless it is culturally a full "pinch of incense to Caesar" place, although shot through with a few committed Christians here and there.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>She's the one who should think, "wait a minute, this is just a small child who doesn't realize what he's doing" and have it stop right there.<<<

Ah, but a 'zero tolerance" program doesn't work like that. Employees have to report ALL incidents as defined in the rules, without exception. Failure to do so is grounds for termination. As I said, zero tolerance removes all discretion, and thus all common sense. In this way, the system grinds down the last few holdouts who have enough intelligence to see how absurd it all is.

[mairnéalach]

In spiritual terms, 'zero tolerance' simply provides a way for folk to feel good about themselves by their scrupulous observance of The Rules. Since most folk are that way, such policies are always a surefire legislative bet. There is a remnant who chafe under it because they sense its pitiless inadequacy.

[Judy Warner]

It's an example of the increasing dependence of Americans on the government to tell them what to do. On the other hand, people chafe at it and laugh at it, and it's apparent that it goes against the grain of any normal person, so perhaps it won't last that long.

I heard Michael Medved the other day talking about a young man in Georgia who was given a 10-year prison sentence for a sexual act with a 15-year-old girl at a party when he was 17; because of their ages, he was classified as a child molester, a felony charge that would stay with him the rest of his life. The judge was just following the law. The legislature was so appalled at the result of this zero-tolerance law that they changed it. That doesn't undo the prison sentence; only the governor can do that, but it is clear that a zero-tolerance policy can be unsustainable when it hits the real world. I'll wager that whoever put the now-much-publicized policy in place in our ridiculous Maryland state government is being forced to rethink it.

[Kathy Hanneman]

While I know that this thread is on "sexual harassment",we've also been discussing "zero tolerance". Locally a boy (I think sixth grade) found a pellet gun in the washroom. He picked it up and turned it into the principal's office. Instead of being called a hero for keeping someone else from getting hurt with the gun, he was expelled. They had a "zero tolerance" policy for weapons and during the time between the washroom and the office he was in "possession of a weapon". According to the school, he should have told someone about it and not touched it. How many children think like that?

[Judy Warner]

How many children think like that? Any child who has been through the NRA's Eddie Eagle program, which teaches kids that when they see a gun they should stop, don't touch, and tell an adult. However, by sixth grade a child should be able to exercise some judgment in the matter, and the kid in question obviously showed good judgment.

[Juli]

a young man in Georgia who was given a 10-year prison sentence for a sexual act with a 15-year-old girl at a party when he was 17

With any age of consent, there will be cases involving someone just over that age molesting someone just under that age. Would the charge of statutory rape be more justified if he were 18? If she were 14? 13? If both parties were boys?

[Judy Warner]

It wasn't statutory rape because it was oral sex. The law has a "Romeo and Juliet" exception for sexual intercourse, but this didn't fall into that category. I'm certainly not defending what he did/she did (apparently with a number of boys at the party), but 10 years in prison and being marked as a child molester is ridiculous.

[Francesca Matthews]

>>"Zero-tolerance policies" are but the logical conclusion of the bureaucratic imperative. In order to minimize risk to the bureaucracy (an instinct widely known as "cover your ass"), whole categories of behavior, thought and expression are simply proscribed after being defined in the broadest manner possible. This relieves bureaucrats of the necessity of applying intellect and discretion in their jobs. In place of leadership, they have a rulebook, applied ruthelessly and without thought.

The results are predictable.<<

Good point! Bring on school vouchers! The fat cat administrators who feed off these bureaucracies, and feather their nests by hiring lawyers to protect them from having any accountability for their own incompetence, drain a disproportionate amount of funds away from children.

[Christopher Hathaway]

It seems to me that "zero tolerance" should mean no tolerance for the offending action, when that action is clearly and narrowly defined. It should not mean zero tolerance for anything remotely associated with the act intended to be proscribed. Common sense should always be in play (as in all things) in determining when the proscribed act has been committed.

It is sad that we apparently don't beleive in common sense anymore, or have the courage to defend it against its villainous attackers. Alas, this type of willful stupisdity has been with us awhile, at least since it has been criminal to merely utter words sounding like "hijack" in an airport.

Stupid and cowardly is a most dangerous policy position for a government to take. How much easier it would be in the first place to simply have the courage to call a spade a spade [heedless of potential lawsuits from the NAACP ;-) ] that it is to create a labyrinthian system of forbidden potential thoughts and actions lest we stray unknowingly into a crime that only a court can ascertain.

[Christopher]

"How can a school that calls a prekindergarten hug "sexual harassment" teach anything to anyone?"

It can't, which is why Christian's and other reasonable people should never send their children to these so called "schools". It's all part of the break down of the culture, and why we are headed to various 'ghettos' of various kinds...

[Andrew]

The people here with a problem are the adults at the school making a problem out of an innocent act. They have perverted a childs innocence and sexuality in general - a gift that god has given us.
They should be ashamed of themselves - the world has gone crazy and they are harassing sexuality for the wrong Reasons!

[Michael Martin]

Let's face it, the public schools are the Conditioning Centres (as in Brave New World) where our society's schizophrenia is to some extent created. The same places that decry this so-called "inappropriate touching" (since none of us, I think, really knows what happened) also hold out homosexuality as an acceptable "lifestyle choice" and encourage teenagers to explore those choices,however implicitly. Kids who don't agree are becoming the outsiders--which reminds me of a passage from Brave New World:

"The nurse shrugged her shoulders...[she said]"It's just that this little boy seems rather reluctant to join in the ordinary erotic play."

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Let's face it, the public schools are the Conditioning Centres<<<

That's just how John Dewey wanted it.

[o.h.]

Juli,

A jurisdiction can deal with the problem you bring up--and many do--by including a minimum age difference in statutory rape laws. This solves the just-over-the-age and just-under-the-age problem.

[Judy Warner]

As I said, the incident with the 5-year-old happened in my Maryland county. Our local paper has a regular column of phoned-in comments from citizens. Today it is full of comments about this incident: people are horrified and angry and think the school personnel are out of their minds. The most common remark is that a five-year-old is not thinking about sex and the school personnel must have dirty minds to interpret his action this way.

[Labrialumn]

It never fails to amaze me how school bureaucrats act as if they've never outgrown the concrete operational phase.

Yet, I've seen this maliferous nonsense taught as absolute law in a -Christian- (allegedly, at any rate) college of education.

[Labrialumn]

The "statutory rape" laws are something of an abomination representing the absolute sexual license beliefs of the bicoastal elites.

What if we just went back to "married sex - good" "fornication and adultery - bad".?

[GL]

>>>Let's face it, the public schools are the Conditioning Centres<<<

That's just how John Dewey wanted it.

Isn't that what we all want school to be, whether it is public, private, parochial or home? The area of dispute is not whether children should be conditioned by education but in what world view and beliefs they should be conditioned.

[Judy Warner]

I'd rather have my child taught than conditioned. I know young people who say "I'm offended by that" as the definitive answer to an argument. That's conditioning; there's no content to it, it's a knee-jerk response to statements that contain facts or opinions, usually about race, ethnicity, or sex roles, that are supposed to be beyond the pale.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>sn't that what we all want school to be, whether it is public, private, parochial or home? <<<

Um, no.

[GL]

I want my children both taught and conditioned. I can see in the light of the discussion of Brave New World were my remarks could be taken to mean to make them into automatons, but that is not the only meaning of conditioned. Conditioned can also mean to prepare or to make fit, in the sense, for example of an athlete. An athlete is not merely taught how to play a certain sport, he is also conditioned to play it. I don't merely mean put into shape, but I also mean to act in response to certain stimuli almost as if it were a reflex.

For example, Ozzie Smith didn't become a great shortstop by merely being taught how to play the position, but by actually playing it. Children don't learn how to think by merely being taught how to think, but by actually doing it. Ozzie Smith didn't just practice what he was taught any which way, but in a certain way so that he was conditioned to respond in that way when in an actual game; children must be conditioned to think in certain ways. In Judy's example, a parent or teacher can condition a child to respond by immediately by saying "I am offended by that" or by saying "I need to think about that." The former is bad conditioning and the latter good conditioning, but they are both conditioning.

Learning by rote was a form of conditioning. It was used with great positive effect until Dewey's revolution in education. It is still used in a variety of settings to good effect. Dewey rejected, emphasizing critical thinking. In fact, both are needed. Learning by rote, even though more conditioning than teaching, is important. So is teaching the pupil how to think about what he has learned by rote.

That is all I intended by my remark, but I can see how it could be misunderstood.

[James A. Altena]

Dr. Peter Toon has pointed out how Dewey tendentiously promoted his goals by changing the age-old phrase for memorization from "learning by heart" (that is, as forming one's character inwardly) to "learning by rote" (as a metaphor for the mass-production machinery of the Industrial Revolution).

[Michael Martin]

"Learning by rote was a form of conditioning. It was used with great positive effect until Dewey's revolution in education."--How do you know this is true? Were you conditioned to think so? What were the positive effects? Don't think I'm defending Dewey. I'm not. But I don't think romanticizing the good ol' days helps anyone. Least of all children.
I recommend you read Kieran Egan's books "The Educated Mind" or "Getting It Wrong from the Beginning" where he reimagines education in a way that is refreshing. In the latter, he argues that Dewey and the other great social engineers (Piaget, Comte) started modern education off on the wrong foot--and it's never regained its proper stride.
Having said that, let me just confess that I am a private school teacher who, with my wife, am homeschooling my own children, or at least the last six!

[GL]

Michael,

For anecdotal evidence, I will cite my father, who could recite long sections of literature, especially poetry, which he learned by rote (or by heart -- thanks, James, I like Dr. Toon's description better). He would call them up in his mind and recite them when a situation arose which made them applicable. He recited them without error more than 40 years after he learned them as a school boy. (He died in his 50s or else he could probably still do so, more than 65 years after his school days.) That he could recall them verbatim shows the benefits of learning by rote. That he could apply them to appropriate circumstances shows that he was taught their meaning. This can serve as an example of the benefits of combining conditioning and teaching.

I am not romanticizing the good ole days, just suggesting that there were some aspects of the old methods which should have been retained.

[GL]

By the way, I would think that playing a musical instrument is another example of combining conditioning and teaching. One must be taught how to play the instrument, but through repeated practice of a piece, the musician conditions himself to play it better than if he merely sat down and played it without such conditioning, though he could play it based only on what he had been taught. He comes to be able to make the appropriate movements without having to even think about it, but he couldn't have played the piece in the first place had he not been taught to do so.

[Michael Martin]

Dear GL,

I agree that learning poetry "by heart" is a good thing for children--and the adults they become. I can rattle off a few poems meself. I have taught my own students many, many poems(I typically have the same students for two or three years), including some lengthy pieces like Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind." But I wouldn't call that "rote" learning. It is an immersion process.
I also like your music analogy. But the point is, I think, that children when working with the arts in this way, develop a love and appreciation--even insight--for the topic in addition to building skills (also noted in your baseball analogy).

Perhaps the issue is one of semantics. I don't think of the skill-building, arts-related examples we've shared here are examples of "rote" learning. To me, rote learning is the mindless memorization of facts and/or formulae that are rarely digested by students, only to be regurgitated at test time. Take, for example, diagramming sentences. How many hours and hours did students spend on this "skill," only to lose all grammatical sense once away from the drill for even a short time?

I'm sorry if I jumped all over your earlier comment. "Conditioned," in an educational sense, sounds too much like "brainwashing" to me. And the public schools do that very well.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Take, for example, diagramming sentences. How many hours and hours did students spend on this "skill," only to lose all grammatical sense once away from the drill for even a short time?<<<

I dunno about you, but diagramming sentences, and parsing, are both excellent skills for developing and understanding parts of speech and proper English grammar, which stand one in good stead not only in the writing of English, but also in the learning of foreign languages. My wife and daughters, the linguists, all agree on the latter.

[Judy Warner]

Young people absorb and remember facts far better than older people. Any of us who are older than 30 will attest to that. I think recognition of that is probably what is behind the traditional method of stuffing children full of facts, even ones they don't fully understand. If they have the facts, they can use them when their brains mature.

Nowadays, though, the educational mantra is "teaching children how to think, not what to think," in direct contradiction of biology. As a result they teach few facts but lots of politically correct ways of thinking. So kids are full of opinions based on nothing. Then if by chance they decide to learn some facts later on, it comes harder to them.

[Michael Martin]

Stuart,

It doesn't work half as well for students as teaching them Latin. Then, English grammar (as it is taught)is based on Latin grammar. Ever wonder why a preposition is something you can't end a sentence with? Because it's IMPOSSIBLE to do so in Latin. It is not impossible in English, obviously.
On the other hand, teach a class of seventh graders grammar some time, and ask their parents (all former sentence diagrammers and not professional linguists) to help them. Most will be utterly lost.

[GL]

I'm sorry if I jumped all over your earlier comment. "Conditioned," in an educational sense, sounds too much like "brainwashing" to me. And the public schools do that very well.

I understand. I saw that as soon as I read Judy's and Stuart's responses. My use of the term was undoubtedly ill-advised. That is the reason I thought I needed to clarify what I meant.

Stuart,

Diagramming sentences and parsing are important skills for lawyers as well, in a variety of areas (e.g. interpreting and applying statutory law, case law, and contracts). We actually do a little of this in my Cyberlaw class -- much to the shock of the students -- when trying to figure out the meaning of some statutes related to copyrights and technology. I tell them that they should have paid more attention to those lessons years earlier. Unfortunately, members of Congress could use some refreshers in this area as well and some of their sentences defy such analysis. ;-)

[Judy Warner]

I can't help reporting that when I told my daughter about the discussion on diagramming sentences, she said that she greatly enjoyed it and didn't find it a rote exercise. However, she and the teacher were the only ones who liked it.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>It doesn't work half as well for students as teaching them Latin.<<<

My daughter found it very good background when she began studying Latin--which she later gave up for Russian. And in Russian class, she found that parsing and Latin put her miles ahead of the other kids in her class.

Churchill, in his autobiographical "My Early Life", wrote that he was considered such a dunce that he "could learn only English." However, he said, "I learned it thoroughly. . .Thus I got into my bones the essential structure of the ordinary British sentence, which is a noble thing."