Chapter Thirty-Two: Sex and Violence

Chapter 32: Sex and Violence

October is coming to a close; time to set the clocks back and trick-or-treat. I won’t celebrate Halloween at my school since too many newly-discovered Christians have declared it to be a pagan holiday. I try very hard to balance my own beliefs and philosophy with the cultural norms of Florida and of this community. At times this is not so hard - I am not terribly conflicted about down-playing Halloween (I can resist the temptation to buy jack o’lantern posters and candy corns for the students), but I have a much harder time bowing to community norms when it comes to sex education and corporal punishment.

Abstinence Training

I believe the primary goals of sex education are to keep girls from getting pregnant and to keep boys and girls free of disease. Abstinence is the perfect way to do this. I am fully in favor of abstinence for my students. There are not too many responsible adults who think middle schoolers SHOULD be having sex. However, since I know many of my students are having sex, I question the benefit of abstinence-only sex education. These days, questioning abstinence-only education is akin to questioning the war in Iraq, in the case of the latter you are labeled “unpatriotic” as for the former, you must be an amoral, free–love-hippie.

At least once a week, and usually more often, the local paper has a small article about the arrest of an adult who has had sex with a minor. There are also stories, albeit less frequently, detailing sex acts in the Herald County public schools: during a class video a fifteen-year-old girl performed oral sex on a fifteen-year-old male classmate; two middle schoolers had sex behind a portable while seven of their peers watched, a 14 year old girl performed oral sex on three boys on the bus; a middle school boy forcefully dragged a girl into the boys’ bathroom to fondle her. After each of these stories runs, angry letters appear on the editorial page from citizens who believe these problems are because of sex education in the classroom and a lack of prayer and religion in schools. A school board member bangs his fist and says: “The chickens have come home to roost – we had a President who engaged in these behaviors and now our students are doing the same. The preachers need to address this from their pulpits.” The daily paper runs an editorial calling for more arrests of these sexually precocious children.

The public school children who engage in these sex acts are usually expelled and end up in an alternative school, some at Prospect.

I don’t have all the answers to the problems of inappropriate and illegal sex, but I am certain more, not less, sex education is part of the solution. But given the community values, I have to compromise. I continue to have my counselors, Rosie and Rusty, talk about safe sex in counseling sessions, but I also schedule Mallory from the Herald County Health Department and her abstinence training classes.

Abstinence is an eight-week course. Mallory supervises high school volunteers who instruct lessons using videos, pamphlets and structured discussion sessions. Mallory is eager to work with my students; she knows they are at high risk for sexually transmitted diseases and teen pregnancy. Mallory feels the sessions should be segregated by gender. We plan to start with a small group of girls, once a week on Friday afternoons. On the first Friday we are short staffed. Mallory and her team say they are comfortable running the class without a Prospect teacher in the room. Mallory will be here with three high schoolers and eight of our girls.

Abstinence lesson one doesn’t go well. The girls mutiny and the high school volunteers leave in tears. Mallory is appalled. I blame myself for not putting a staff member in the room. Mallory is willing to try again with a staff member present. Counselor Rosie joins the girls and threatens sanctions if they riot again. In Abstinence lesson two, the girls are a little better but still not good. Mallory and her team quit after Abstinence lesson three. Mallory calls me to brainstorm options. Would a different day, time or grouping work better? Should we mix genders? I look at the girls who were in the room: Karla, Selma, Roxanne, Chloe, Tyryona, Estralitta, Alexia/Pilar, Adoncia. How many have been raped or sexually assaulted by step parents, relatives or boyfriends? In fact, my students are not all that unique in this respect, they reflect the statistics for all sexually active adolescent girls: 10% say their first sexual encounter was non-voluntary while 25% say their first sexual partner was four or more years older than they were. Given the nature of my students’ sexual experiences, how realistic is it to talk about abstinence?

I am reminded again of that article about married women in Lesotho who exchange “sexual favors”: for rent, transportation, etc. But you don’t have to go to Lesotho to find desperate females who have relationships with males to meet their basic needs. I think about Lorayne, living with her aged grandmother in the forest, their only vehicle a broken down pickup truck without a hood. Perpetually hungry, no coat in the winter. Then along comes a 44 year old man who wants to be her boyfriend. Forget abstinence, this is a meal ticket, a new pickup truck, a warm sweater. Too often I hear adults, even well-meaning adults who work with troubled youths, allude to these sexually active adolescent girls as pleasure seeking nymphs, but just like their own mothers who tell me they won’t banish their abusive boyfriends and husbands “because they put food on the table” how many sexually active girls have boyfriends for the same reason? When the safety net has holes, there are many ways to fill them.

I tell Mallory I’ll have to get back to her about rescheduling more abstinence training– I don’t.

Whuppins

Like sex education, corporal punishment is an area in which my beliefs differ from those of the community in which I work. My opinion, that it is never okay to hit a child, is viewed as extremist and irresponsible. Most of the residents of Lakeboro believe in the redeeming value of punishment and are certain that if they spare the rod, they will spoil the child.

One Saturday, my husband and I browse slowly through the aisles of the outdoor Lakeboro Art show. A booth is selling decorative brooms that are hand carved with fancy, intricate designs. A child walks by, stops, points and says, “Mama, look at them spanking sticks.”

In the grocery store I hear a mother talking to her friends about hitting her three year old son. When he is fresh she reprimands him. He laughs when she chastises him but then she gets the paddle and hits him and hits him and hits him and that sure stops him from laughing. But, she adds, she has to make sure she stops hitting him before it leaves marks or she’ll have “more trouble on her hands.”

Hitting children is acceptable, encouraged and frequently practiced here in central Florida. Not a day goes by that a staff member, deputy, parent or public school employee (including our custodians) says something to the effect of:

These bad kids wouldn’t be here (wouldn’t be bad), if someone (presumably their parents) gave them a whupping (took a belt to their behind, tore up their butt etc.).

Darius tells me his foster mother is a teacher in a Baptist School in town. One of the Darius’s foster brothers attends this school. Does Darius wish to go there? No! They give whuppins there, on your bare butt. Darius’s foster brother got one last week and it hurt real bad and if you start to cry they hit you harder. Darius reports it left marks on his foster brother’s butt and Darius knows, he’s seen them.

Even Dr. Henry Sevier, my public school liaison, the person in charge of alternative education for the school system and a person for whom I have great respect, calls for beating children. He and I are engaged in a discussion of meaningful consequences for poorly behaved students when he says he wants to remind me that corporal punishment is legal in Florida and I might want to consider it. His words form another crack in the growing gap between how Henry and I view my students.

No I don’t wish to beat my students or any children for that matter. But that doesn’t stop “whuppins” from making regular appearances on my campus.

One afternoon while trying to calm three poorly behaving elementary students on the bus, Rusty gets a “suggestion” from one of the older boys that he give the little boys a “whuppin’” with a belt. The boy offers up his own belt to take care of the matter, but Rusty politely declines the offer. Instead he threatens vague and awful outcomes if there are any further problems on this bus and sends the driver on her way. The bus departs, and we cross our fingers.

The bus returns 45 minutes later. It seems enroute home the middle school boys determined some of the younger children did, in fact, need a whuppin’ so they removed their belts and began whipping the elementary students, who began racing around the bus to avoid the swinging belts.

Rusty and I confiscate all the belts, much to the anger of many “innocent” students. The bus does not return again, but my phone rings and rings. Parents call to complain about the late bus, missing belts and to curse at the principal.

Another day, I am sitting at my desk when an old, thin, black man walks in. Lynne recognizes him and shows him where to sign in. I am working on the schedule but there is something unusual about the man, so after he leaves I ask Lynne who he is.

“It’s Nishonda’s grandfather.”

“Why is he here?”

“Nishonda has her uniform with her, but she refuses to change into it. I think Rusty called the grandfather to come talk some sense into her. Nishonda’s been sitting in Rusty’s office all morning. I sent her grandfather over there just now.”

“What was that thing he was carrying? It looked like he had something in his hand.”

“A strap.”

“A strap?”

“I suppose to hit Nishonda.”

In a panic I radio Rusty. I picture Nishonda’s grandfather storming into the counseling portable, swinging his strap, belting kids left and right as he aims for Nishonda. Rusty responds to my urgent walkie-talkie message by phone. He tells me not to worry, Nishonda’s grandfather already arrived, took Nishonda out back and now she is changing into her uniform and will soon return to class.

Out back?!

I am totally unnerved that a man just came on my campus and hit one of my students with a belt. It seems, however, I am the only one who thinks this is odd or wrong.

Nishonda was the first, but as the year progresses, there are more. I am guilty of being part of the problem since I don’t work very hard to stop it. Parents come on campus when called to deal with a misbehaving child and in the process of counseling their child, give the child a beating. I never witness this directly; I’d like to think if I did I would stop it. These events tend to happen in the counseling office or the parents take the child in the bathroom or out back behind the school. I want to forbid it, but I fear I would be unable to enforce the rule and my staff would continue to permit it and just not tell me. The culture here dictates hitting children is not just a right, it is what God requires of good parents. I’ve come to view this drive to punish as an innate desire for revenge.

Revenge and Punishment: Whatever happened to Empathy?

I once read an article in the New York Times that said revenge is in our genes and there is a “biologically rooted sense of justice.” If the desire to punish naughty children is seen as equivalent to the innate desire for revenge, it helps explain the passionate fervor I hear in the voices of parents, school board members and public school employees when they discuss the need to punish the bad children. The antidote for revenge, according to this same article, is to work on feeling empathy for the other person. Empathy! I very rarely hear anyone associated with Herald County Public Schools expressing anything approaching empathy for my students. They’re weeds, they’re evil, they’re vile, they’re disruptive, they’re vulgar. Where is the empathy? I know finding empathy can be hard. I struggle daily to empathize with the Prospect parents who clearly need my understanding instead of my anger. But when it comes to my students, it feels like no one in the community is even trying to find empathy. And anyway, revenge or not, no one seems to appreciate the incredible irony that most of my students’ parents have been beating them for years and yet they still misbehave.