I watched a movie for one of my classes this week called “Killing Us Softly” about how advertising negatively influences views of women. In it, the speaker talked about how the objectification of women often leads to violence against women and then of course everything in advertising anymore is sexualized. So it is easy to imagine how mixing those two together could lead to a bad outcome.

Anyhow, in class we discussed how we could integrate teaching against such advertisements in with the normal curriculum requirements created by the board of education in whatever region we are teaching. I could not help but think about a particular teacher I had in high school, who also happened to be my advisor, and how she was exactly how I DON’T want to be like when I finally get to be an actual teacher. After I was sexually assaulted senior year, the school started scrambling trying to save themselves because, although it was late October, we had never done the required sexual harassment “talk” in homeroom and had not signed the paperwork that went along with that either. So one day we had to go to homeroom specifically to do all that. Everyone knew why and several of the guy’s friends were in my homeroom group, so naturally it was already awkward and embarrassing enough to have to go through that in itself but then my insane advisor started making everything worse. She actually had the nerve to stand there and say girls who wear certain things, such as skirts and shirts that show bellies etc., are asking for something to happen to them. And she went on and on about this and all those guys started chiming right in with her. So not only did I feel specifically targeted ANYWAY, I was wearing a skirt that day naturally. There was nothing wrong with it though and it met the school dress code, wasn’t overly short and I had a sweater on with it and everything. I can’t hardly ever remember being so mad in all my life so I got up and walked out of the classroom, slammed the door behind me and went straight to the principal’s office. Not surprisingly, nothing ever came out of it, none of it really. The only thing I learned by turning that jerk (to put it nicely) in was that I could not really rely on the system to back me up. However, if I could go back and do it all over again, I would. I would not change that it happened, but maybe I would go back and kick some butt…a little harder than I already did :)

But getting back to the point here, is this what we should be teaching our students? That when something bad happens, the school is not going to be there for support? Children today, especially teenagers, get all these negative influences on how they should look, dress, act, etc. (all sexually!) but when something bad happens to them at least in part “because” of this, they can’t turn to the people who are supposed to be working solely to be a guide.
I want to be a teacher to be a support system and the stability in my students’ lives. That is why I want to do it, not because I particularly want to stand around and talk about English grammar or sentence structure etc. all day (even though all that is also important), I just want to be able to teach my students important things I have learned in life, and continue to learn. I think it would be important for them to discover the value in learning from negative experiences they have gone through but also from what their peers have gone through. This not only broadens their knowledge of problems but they can work together to collaborate to find better solutions. I think it is also very successful in creating a great learning environment because when they start opening up to each other they realize how alike everyone really is. So, I hope someday instead of being an evil old lady like my past advisor, I can provide support for my students through not only myself, but also my classroom in general.