Sexual Harassment On The Playground: Gone Are The Days of Double-Dutch & Hopscotch

When I was in 8th grade, it never ceased to amaze me how certain girls in my class felt that it was an ‘honor’ to get randomly felt-up by a male classmate, especially if he was the cute popular one. Back then, at the ages of 12/13, every one’s hormones were raging, but my mother didn’t raise a ‘fast-tail’ girl (that’s what my grandmother called them).

I remember one incident in particular and it took place during 7th period Chemistry class. Mr. Sakowitz had his typical coffee in one hand and cigarette in the other, yes my teacher smoked during class. As I made my way to my desk, I was approached by another classmate named Mustafa. Typically I tried to avoid him at all costs because he was a known culprit when it came to ass grabbing.

Now, that was back in 19_ _ and I was in 8th grade. I guess you can say that was typical pre-teen/teen behaviour. But nowadays it’s a whole different type of ball game.

Yesterday afternoon, my nephew and son were sitting at the dining room table doing their homework. My son called me in because he said he saw something disgusting happen at school during recess. He goes on to tell me that he saw a 4th grade boy put his hands down a 4th grade girl’s pants. It took everything for me not to curse out loud and say, “What the fuck!”. I asked him did he tell any of the teachers that were out there and he said he did, but they didn’t do anything. At this point, I asked my nephew if he saw the same thing, and he said yes as well.

My question is, what are parents teaching children nowadays? But more importantly, what are they not teaching their children?

Some people will blame it on the media, i.e, tv, video games, music. But parents need to be held accountable for the actions of their kids. My son shouldn’t have to come home from school and the subject of conversation shouldn’t be about the fresh-tail kids on the playground. Did I mention this was an ELEMENTARY school from K-5?

This morning I placed a phone call to the school and the Board of Education, expressing my concern about certain things that have taken place on the playground in recent weeks. I’ve also talked to the teacher who’s students were involved in the incident. Not only does it seem that Sexual Harassment training needs to take place in the workplace, but it also needs to take place in the school systems as well, because obviously some one’s parents have failed them.

Tags: children, fungke blak chik, fungke chik, fungkeblakchik, harrassment