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Day’s Verses:
“In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and confidence shall be your strength.”
Isaiah 30:15
I sought the LORD, and He heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.
Psalm 34:4
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Ian Quote:
“I saved all my money by eating pocket lint.”
Warning: this post is over 1,500 words long. Read only if your attention spans greater than 3 minutes.
On our walk today Ian and I began talking about sexism in schools as documented “Failing at Fairness: Hidden Lessons,” by Myra and David Sadker. In their article, the authors claim that the education system consistently mistreats females both physically in terms of sexual harassment and in terms of quality of education. They state, “Tolerated under the assumption that ‘boys will be boys’ and hormone levels are high in high school, sexual harassment is a way of life in America’s schools. While teachers and administrators look the other way, sexually denigrating comments, pinching, touching, and propositioning happens daily.” (pg. 423) I emphasized the section regarding teachers and administrators because from my experience at BCS—not, I admit, a representative sample of all school situations—teachers worked hard to prevent just such harassment. Perhaps, though I never experienced it, such sexually denigrating experiences are common to many high school girls; but knowing the feel of today’s society is it possible to imagine school administrators turning a blind eye to potential law suits? Schools constantly struggle against sexual harassment with the best tools they have. Additionally, this article seemed to focus on teachers mistreating females, while the majority of harassment almost certainly (again, I haven’t done the research to support this) passes from male students to female students. They don’t offer nearly enough evidence to support the claim that “sexual harassment in schools is dismissed as normal and unavoidable” (426).