The following contains spoilers about the TV show "Glee." I was inspired to write this post after seeing the episode "Lights Out."
Dear Mr. Schu:
It started out so nice – the teacher that uses his talents
to reach out to the children of his school who may be struggling. You were a
builder! You put these kids together into a family. You gave them a home at
school.
But there were troubling things, too. Maybe the fact that
you were a Spanish teacher but you didn’t know Spanish? Maybe the fact that you
just simply transitioned into teaching history because, well, you liked it
(although there was no evidence whether you were QUALIFIED to teach it).
It’s definitely troubling that your high school students are
you only friends.
I can forgive and forget some of these things. I hate the
way your incompetence as a teacher made other teachers look. I hate the way you
just waltzed into a completely different subject area disrespects the teachers
around the nation who work very hard to be qualified and to prepare themselves.
I won’t even mention how disrespectful a bad teacher is of his students.
But.
There was an incident, Mr. Schu. And our shaky relationship
might have to end over it.
One of your students, a male, shared with your group that he
had been molested by an older teenaged
girl when he was a youngster.
Look at that, Mr. Schu. You have engendered trust to your
students. They can say these things in your presence. That’s good.
But what did you do?
First, without responding with any sympathy, empathy, or
love, you blurted out, “I have to report this.”
Yes. You do have
to report it. You’re correct. And maybe it was important to get that out in the
open before he continued in case he wanted to censor himself in the light of
that admission.
But, well, that’s basically all we got from you.
Immediately the other boys started giving your student the
predictable, culturally appropriate (AND WRONG) responses — asking him why
getting molested (at 11 years old!) by an older girl is anything but awesome, telling him that
he’s the man, etc.
AND YOU SAID NOTHING.
NOTHING.
This, Mr. Schu, was more important than a teaching moment,
although the opportunity to correct the way these boys viewed molestation was
there. It was (and is) necessary to address.
You left your student, already vulnerable, floundering. You
left him there as his friends dismissed his pain. You said nothing to alleviate
that — at the very least you could have stopped the other boys from saying
these things in your presence. For a teacher who prides himself on addressing
bullying, who gathers together groups of students some would consider
marginalized, you were silent. At one of the most dire, important, and
necessary moments for you to speak, you were silent.
Your student left the room saying fine, he agreed, the other
boys were right, he was the man. He didn’t mean a word of that, you know. He
may never speak up again to you. He wasn’t even allowed to claim his own experience, call it what it was.
The other boys left the room with their assumptions affirmed
— that of course being sexually involved with an older woman is awesome, even
if it was forced, even if it was illegal. That young men can’t possibly be
victims in this situation.
Your millions of television viewers left the room. Maybe
some didn’t see any problem. Maybe most were so shocked by Ryder’s story that
they didn’t notice your silence. Maybe some rolled their eyes at his story
because they have the same beliefs your other male students have.
This viewer left
irate.
Ryder’s story wasn’t shocking. Abuse happens — statistics
say 1 in 4 girls are sexually abused by age 18 and 1 in 6 boys are sexually
abused by age 18.
But you had an opportunity to educate. And you squandered
it.
And your silence affirmed the stigma.
And I hope that some child watching doesn’t stay silent
because they saw that even the most empathetic teacher on TV didn’t believe
that this abuse was a problem.
Sincerely,
Stacie
For the national sexual abuse hotline, please visit: http://www.rainn.org/get-help/national-sexual-assault-hotline or call 1-800-656-HOPE.
No comments:
Post a Comment