Opus 4, Harassment Anyone?

This week at school we had an example of your tax dollars at work.  Each week we have a 45 minutes session called Advisory.  Think of it as homeroom on steroids.  We are supposed to share and discuss important topics like drugs, bullying, planning for college (in 7th grade?) and so forth.  This week’s topic was harassment.

Let me start with two definitions:

    1.  “Harassment is any inappropriate, unwanted, or cruel behavior that targets a particular individual or group.”
    2.  Harass, “to annoy persistently”

Guess which one came from the dictionary and which came from the PC educational police.

I started off by asking the students to tell me how the definitions were different.  I pointed out key words in the first definition:  any, unwanted, behavior.  I then asked what “persistently” means.  By the first definition the students are harassing me on a regular basis.  I am also harassing them on a regular basis.  It went on to talk about bullying and involving the legal authorities.  This is scary mind manipulation.  Fortunately the students don’t listen much.

The real issue that touches our society as a major problem, sexual harassment, was only mentioned in passing.  I spend some time explaining how it was okay to ask someone out but it should stop when they say, “No.”  They understood that part.

I learned some new terms for harassment.  We were warned about “size-ist harassment” and “look-ist harassment.”  Since I am overweight and going bald I could have students interviewed by legal authorities every day, but instead of being PC and needing the government to protect me, I rebel and laugh along with the kids.  Somehow it seems a better response.

Political correctness, brainwashing, education