Jezebel

I had a friend who dropped out of chemistry because the teacher wouldn't stop looking down her shirt and rubbing her shoulder. And she was totally convinced it was all her own fault.

Now, why can't boys and men just learn not to be fucking assholes?

No, we must remove girls from school because the males can't keep their hands to themselves?

Makes sense. I do my best work and am at my most alert when I'm working out on a regular basis.

About sexual harassment - that's deplorable.

Most of my gym class trauma was inflicted not by boys, but by teasing from other girls. Fortunately, I liked taking long walks by myself, and working out at the YMCA after school. I'm not a team sports person, and unfortunately, 90% of our gym classes were just that.

The only sexual harassment I ever got in school was in P.E. and pretty consistently.

Not a good argument for single sex education in my book. If this is that boys do when they've been around girls their whole lives, imagine what it would be like if they suddenly had to interact with them in the workplace after years of gender segregation?

One of the teachers at my high school was known for being lecherous toward the girls he taught. After I graduated, I came back to visit one of my favorite teachers and she told me, "I can say this now because you're no longer a student. That man should not be around children." Apparently he had some sort of molestation issue at the school he'd taught at previously. Aside from teaching high school, he coached one of our junior high sports teams.

I was friends with his daughter and she alluded to the fact that she and her siblings were removed from the home at one point because of something her father had done. She implied it was because of his drinking, but something tells me that was not the case.

The most freaked out I have ever been was when I yelled at the male TA in front of the class (and the prof) for talking into my chest. I thought I was going to be expelled.

teenage boys can be so disgusting. i'm sure life would have been a lot different for me in HS if there were no boys around.

I would have enjoyed and participated in PE a whole lot more had I been able to choose my own sporting attire. Red shorts and a white T-shirt? So that everyone in the whole school could see what color of bra I was wearing? Thanks, high school. Thanks.

I was sexually harassed by another fifth grader when I was ten. I didn't think of it that way, and I'm sure he didn't either, but the teacher should have stopped it. I dreaded school because of him. He thought it was hilarious.

One of my favorite things about my high school was that PE was an elective. It's probably the reason why I can't run a block without passing out, but I don't care. I hate exercise.

my middle school gym teacher made another girl and i run an extra lap on the mile because we beat too many boys and "girls can't run that fast." he was completely ignoring the fact that she and i were jocks and the guys we beat were all rather overweight.

even with the extra lap, we still beat most of them.

Yeah yeah yeah. I feel like I've heard this for while. Nevertheless, I was painfully non-athletic all throughout elementary and middle school and was consistently in honors classes.

Whatever to working out in school. I doubt I burned the calories in a piece of sugarless gum in P.E.

I blame Sting and The Police for sexual harassment. They inspired to many skeevy Professors with "Don't Stand So Close To Me".

@KittenFluff: Wow, that's so sad, for the students, and most especially for his children. I cannot imagine how someone who gets found out for molesting/abusing chidlren can ever again be employed by a school. Don't they do any sort of background checking?? It's not like they're applying for a job to work around computer servers.

My middle school P.E. class forced the girls to do square dancing while the boys did wrestling. Whatever.

Question: My daughter (11) is in track for the first time at school and they coach is a guy straight out of the 1950s, very old school.

He's making the girls lift weights. My kid is a tiny, skinny thing and comes home near tears and in pain. The weights are set for the boys and he makes the girls do the same amount.

Is it safe for girls that young to be weight-lifting? I'm kind of pissed off.

Anyone know?

@petuniacat: I've been wondernig this for a while too. At my former high school a teacher was just "let go" because they found explicit e-mails to students on his harddrive oh and he was smoking pot with kids during lunch in his locked classroom. He should not be allowed to teach again, but I'm afraid he might.

Single sex education wasn't going to stop my physics teacher from looking down my shirt and calling me "princess" every day. Unless I went to all an girl all female teacher school.

I hated gym & got out of it by perfecting the "I'm about to cry if you try and make me do a trust fall/participate in dodgeball" look. And it was mainly because of other girls that I hated it so much.

@ineffable.me:
@petuniacat:

I wish gym classes had more choices. Really, the point of gym is to teach good physical health and build those habits while someone's young. So why force a child to do nothing but team sports, or say, high-impact sports, if that's not what they prefer? I'm not a competitive person and I hate any kind of competitive sport. If my gym classes had offered courses in yoga or dance or wall-climbing or swimming or spinning (which some schools do, but obviously that kind of thing costs money), I probably wouldn't have been so turned off on being active at such a young age, and I would probably be a lot healthier now.

@littlebunnyfoofoo: Regardless, she shouldn't have to do something that's causing her pain, right? Maybe she can do some isometrics or something instead.

Hope that gets resolved.....

@petuniacat: A person like that can't be employed by public schools in PA. I'm not sure what the laws are nationwide, but I always assumed that every state had something similar. In PA, if you want to be a teacher, among the paperwork you've got to provide is the state-authorized "I've never been guilty of molesting a child" form.

@littlebunnyfoofoo: It's safe as long as they're not lifting too heavy and using proper form. If she's in pain, I doubt the coach is teaching them how to lift properly. You should go to practice and check the situation out. Your daughter could suffer a serious muscle strain or pull.

@littlebunnyfoofoo: Oops! they coach = the coach (which actually = tells the older girls they need to "work off those big hips before it's too late.")

Grrrr. Stabby!

@petuniacat: yes, schools do background checks, but sometimes records are sealed/nothing was ever proved. or, the person was never caught before. we had a teacher-student sex scandal at my high school, and my dad (a teacher at my high school) told me about it right before it hit the news. he sat me down and said, "well, you'll hear about this soon, but there was a teacher caught having sex with a student." i immediately said "oh, so mr. p finally did it, eh?" my dad looked at me strangely and said "ah, no. it wasn't him. but you'd better believe i'm going to be telling the administration your reaction."

the teacher i thought it was was known among the student body for hitting on female students and being generally inappropriate-- but the one that was sleeping with a student was someone else entirely.

@vivresavie17: Yeah. Also, I think PE classes should be tracked, so that lazy schlubs like me didn't have to play football with the guys from the football team.

@littlebunnyfoofoo: I don't think weights are a bad idea when used properly, but they should certainly be adjusted to each child's ability. Same goes for adults. She should not be in that much pain!

God I hated gym, I'm just not a team sports kind of person.

I also had this handsy guy who sat behind me in the eighth grade who would pull at my bra strap, along my shoulder, all through class. I would tell him stop and he would just tell me to ignore him and he'd stop on his own when he got bored.

@AthertonMerriweather: Thanks. This guy is a real old-fashioned bastard.

Catholic schools for ya.

I failed gym... twice eighth and ninth grade. I wonder what that says about me?

@braak: What's scary is that most private schools don't have the same requirements.

@AthertonMerriweather: Oops, I didn't finish my statement. I wanted to tell you that I will try to sit in on a session. It's definitely a good idea. I fear he won't let me but I'll get BITCHY on his ass. Yeah?

My child is in severe pain and cried herself to sleep last night.
But then she's hyper competitive and probably outdid herself. I don't know. I worry.

@littlebunnyfoofoo: YOU SHOULD SAY SOMETHING.

@KittenFluff: I don't understand why schools don't remove these type of teachers. It's ridiculous. I remember when I was in high school we had a physics teacher who was pretty much known around campus as being the local misogynist and racist. He was known for making lewd comments and some rumor had it that he had touched a few students as well but no one was willing to make a formal complaint so there was nothing that the school could do (so they said). One day in class (mind you this was physics class so there really shouldn't been any idol chit chat about anything non math/science related) he said, "All women enjoy being raped and right now every single girl in this class is just aching for me" and I went batshitastic and then he kicked me out of the classroom and said that I was going to fail physics for the year. I went to a very small, private school and word spread and our head of upper division overheard some people talking about my "outburst" and he called me into his office and basically admitted to me that they had ten years worth of stuff on this asshole and that if I was willing to write everything down and would be willing to testify against him they would pull him out of the school. I was willing to do so and my mother agreed and needless to say around twenty other girls signed statements as well and asshole was fired within five hours of shit going down.
I'm sure that there are other teachers out there like that but girls are just not willing to speak up and schools aren't willing to take action. Such fucking bullshit.

@onthecornerofparkerandwoolf: It seemed like we'd get one of those scandals a year in my high school. On year it was a 27 year old choir director with a 16 year old junior (knocked her up, paid for the abortion and then promptly moved the wife to Colorado ahead of the angry mob), the next year it was the 24 year old band director and my best frienemy (who was a senior). They managed to keep it under wraps until after graduation, though the entire student body knew about it.

I was sexually harassed, and assaulted, multiple multiple times in school. I was an early developer and an easy target for the older boys. But, you know, it trained me well for the real world.

@deidreann: Depending on the state, it's very hard to fire teachers and usually schools will remove a teacher and give him a glowing recommendation to another school and make him someone else's problem. It has something to do with the teachers union which is very, very strong.

@howdybeep: Wait. Now that I think about it, both incidents happened the same year. Huh. Funny how things run together after more than a decade.

@vivresavie17: yeah, i just dont care for doing aerobics or running or playing basketball. in elementary school the only thing i liked playing was kickball. that's it. and when they brought out the trampoline and we would spend time jumping like maniacs.
other than that no thanks.

and i went to an all girls school, just in case.

@howdybeep: That sounds like my school, we had a band director-student fling, but he was much, much older. We also had a guidance counselor sending inappropriate emails to a student and a track coach getting blow jobs.

@hortense: well I had to do wrestling first year of high school while boys and girls were still in the same class. Yeah, 13 years old boys and girls wrestling together is really a grrrreat idea. It made me feel soooo uncomfortable and I hated PE even more, if that's even possible.

I thank my lucky stars that my high school experience was lovely and free of lecherous teachers. I don't remember being harassed by any boys, either. That was mostly in middle school and elementary school. I get a lump in my throat just thinking about it. But nobody really bothered me in high school. The boys in my classes were pretty cool.

@littlebunnyfoofoo: I'm so sorry for your daughter! As a parent, you have a right to observe practice. Get as bitchy as you have to. Weight training at that age can cause serious injury if not done correctly. Their muscles, ligaments, bones, etc...are still growing and a bad injury could do a lot of harm.

@hortense: We ALL squared danced at my school. I still remember that crap.
I also refused to run or play any kind of ball that wasn't kickball. I wore a bra by 3rd grade so no, I didn't wanna run much and sports bras weren't invented yet.

On the harassment point, my favorite 9th grade honors teacher played Santa that year. When it was my turn he hit on me. I blocked that out for decades it hurt so much.
I feel like I should see if he's still teaching and confront him.

@mepc: AHHHHH! That is pure horror movie! How could that go on at a private school? I understand that there's so much red tape at public schools that it's nearly impossible to fire a teacher, but I thought that was one of the benefits of private schooling--a more selective standard for teachers.

@littlebunnyfoofoo: my sister does high school track and cross country. apparently the way most track and cc teams train in general is not good for the body. your body and muscles needs to have time to rest, but unfortunately, running 10 miles a day (as a warm up at my sister's high school!) does not allow for the body to do that.

be careful! and if she's that sore, she needs to do less weight and reps.

God, I hated P.E.

The only time I enjoyed it was the quarter my friend and I were the only girls to take up the teacher's offer to have P.E. with the boys. It was awesome.

@bananaballs: Y'all are so right. I definitely will say something. (Why do surly PE teachers still scare me a little?)

OMG, I was just telling some friends of ours that I have NO fucking idea what I'd do without my petite's 3x per week, rigorous martial arts training. She gets to burn off energy, get exercise, learn to defend herself, acquire discipline and respect and ceremony, be in a community accepting/inclusive of "the gay" and to make friends as well. It's better than any crap after-school program I could possibly have her enrolled in. It's amazing. I am so lucky to have found them, and that she took to it. So. Fucking. Lucky.

while we did have one kinda skeevy P.E. teacher who always seemed a little hands on while teaching self-defense our other gym teacher was majorly harassed by us girls. He was yummy! and once we saw him out at the local bar he was fair game.
Moral of the story: The girls at my school were all drunkard floozies