Monday, December 13, 2021



About 100 middle schoolers walk out of class at East Village school over complaints of sexual harassment from fellow pupils saying school officials have not done enough to stop it

Around 100 students from a New York middle school left class in the middle of the school day on Friday to protest what they say is 'rampant sexual harassment from peers'.

The young students, consisting mainly of teenage girls from Tompkins Square Middle School, headed to nearby Tompkins Square Park to air their grievances and make their voices heard in public.

The group addressed their fellow classmates as they detailed how girls who attend the school are subjected to unwelcome comments and touching from boys who go there.

The protesting teens said they had to take their voices out onto the street after feeling school officials were doing little to curb the behavior.

'We hear rape jokes and sexual assault jokes being made left and right... nothing is being done about it,' 13-year-old Esme Thorne, who helped to organize the demonstration, told the New York Daily News.

'I've gone to the bathroom crying multiple times because of it… it's really sad we don't feel safe in our school anymore,' Esme added as she explained how a boy who harassed her was given an in-school suspension where the boy was able to complete school work from the office. 'That's no punishment,' Esme said.

Aside from being abused physically and verbally, the students are also subjected to homophobic and racist jokes to the point at which some students are unable to concentrate in class, another protesters said.

'Kids are super distracted from their work because they're so afraid to be in their classrooms,' organizer 13-year-old Rain Barak, explained.

One girl told how she would wear 'sweaters with my jeans because I feel uncomfortable to walk around school with revealing clothing. 'I should be able to wear what I want without worrying I'm going to distract this boy, because I'm not wearing it for them, I'm wearing it for me,' the student added.

Teachers at the school believe online learning that was required during the pandemic saw toxic behavior among students worsen because of the distinct lack of informal lessons on how to behave in society, coupled with the increased amount of time the children were spending on the internet and on social media.

'These kids just finished a year and a half with functionally no structure,' one teacher from the school told the Daily News. 'During that time they were online the entire time… and the internet is a terrible place. Homophobic, racist, sexist comments were normalized by virtue of these kids having free rein on the internet 24/7.'

Some teachers say they felt constrained through online teaching, particularly when it came to sex-education classes, with worries they might be being watched or recorded by parents at home.

******************************************

Satanism on Display at Local Library: Inappropriate, Sexual Books Placed Next to Bible

A war is being waged in Fairfax County, Virginia — one that will have implications far beyond its local influence.

In September, local mother Stacy Langton confronted the school board after finding questionable content in the library at Fairfax High School. The resulting video of her presentation went viral.

The two books she addressed were “Lawn Boy” by Jonathan Evison and “Gender Queer,” a graphic novel by Maia Kobabe.

While many would shrink from confronting school officials or stating so specifically why they find these books objectionable, Langton made it very clear what the offensive content was and what was at stake.

take our poll - story continues below
Who would you vote for if the elections were held today?
“The illustrations include fellatio, sex toys,” she said at the meeting, describing and illustrating in the books’ own words and images just how explicit the content was.

At one point, the board urged her to tone it down and appeared to be cutting her off, saying that there were children present — an ironic concern, given the subject.

“So, this is pedophilia here,” Langton later explained in a call with WRC-TV in Washington. “This is a man having sex with a boy. Here, the character is masturbating.”

“I don’t know how you defend this. Why would you write such a thing? It’s so — just garbage. It’s absolute filth,” she said.

The school said it would temporarily suspend the two books — but two months later, the books were put back in the library.

According to WJLA-TV, two separate committees composed of students, parents, librarians and school administrators “unanimously recommended that the books should remain available.”

Langton isn’t finished, and many other parents have since voiced their disapproval of these texts being available to their children, but it appears that this is only the beginning.

Recently, the two books were prominently placed in a holiday-themed display at Fairfax County’s Dolley Madison Library in McClean. But this time, they were displayed alongside a Bible — which ruffled quite a few feathers.

Based on photos taken of the glass-enclosed holiday display, each book was paired with a plush gnome, and the Bible was posed against a gnome wearing a rainbow hat and outfit.

The librarians reportedly declined to comment about the incident, but the display was taken down.

“The Dolley Madison Library holiday reading display was intended to highlight the freedom to read and the fact that many library patrons have more time during the holidays to do so,” Fairfax County Public Library Director Jessica Hudson said in a statement, according to The Washington Times.

“It was not the intention of staff to create a display that could be construed as offensive. The display has been removed.”

Many have not bought that explanation, and a protest is planned at the library on Saturday, spearheaded by “Mama Grizzlies” Langton and Xi Van Fleet.

************************************************

Australia: Final exam score no longer relevant to rising number of students given early university entry

The anxious wait for the postman carrying a yellow envelope or suffering through the slow lag as a webpage loads final Year 12 marks was a rite of passage for generations.

Whether it was called the TER (Tertiary Entrance Rank), UAI (University Admissions Index) or ATAR (Australian Tertiary Admission Rank), university admission hung on that all-important number.

The days of waiting on these much-anticipated scores could well be on their way out with a massive rise in the number of early round offers being made to students nationally.

Figures compiled by the ABC show some universities have more than doubled their number of early offers, with many delivered before final exams have even begun.

While the institutions have long had early rounds of offers, the programs were given a kick along by COVID-19 as universities tried to adjust for the disadvantages of remote learning.

Now early offers look set to stay, with a growing number of universities finding that not only do they alleviate final exam stress, they also recruit better students.

At the Australian Catholic University, offers have nearly tripled, up from 3,000 last year to nearly 9,000 this year.

At the University of Canberra, they've doubled between 2019 and 2021, with up to 2,000 offers already made for study next year.

Charles Darwin University has had similar success, jumping from 548 to 963 offers between last year and this year,.

At Griffith University, offers are up more than 6 per cent this year.

South Australia's Flinders University has made 2,026 offers for next year, up from just 181 back in 2019.

In Victoria, La Trobe University has also had strong growth in offers, going from 2,287 pre-pandemic to 3,032.

But it's the Western Sydney University (WSU) that's been the stand-out performer, with early offers rising from 7,000 in 2019 to 15,000 in 2020.

It's made 9,000 offers so far for 2022, but expects numbers to rise as its program remains open until January.

Early offers have benefits for unis and students

The sharp increase in early offers is spread across the range of disciplines, including health sciences and education to law and criminology.

Largely attributed to the pandemic, the rise is, however, seen by others in the industry also as evidence of a sector competing for market share among school-leavers.

There are reports of universities encouraging their new recruits to officially enrol before main-round offers have been rolled out so they can lock in the best student talent.

Australian Catholic University Provost Belinda Tynan said it had moved into early offers in response to students' desires to organise family and work-life elements before the university year began. "Our early offer students can receive their study timetable as early as October the year before," she said.

University of Western Sydney's Angelo Kourtis oversees its early admissions program and said that, for WSU, it was an acknowledgement the ATAR could be a "blunt instrument" for measuring student ability. "We recognise that students are more than just the ATAR," he said.

"We think it actually disadvantages many students, especially students from regions."

Early admission selection criteria can include individual subject and exam marks, Year 11 results, or the portfolio work of creative arts students.

"If a student wants to do an arts degree, then we will look at their performance and things like history and English and languages and other related subjects," Mr Kourtis said.

The program at La Trobe University also recognises a student's contribution to their community.

Flinders University has also continued a practice it began in response to the pandemic in 2020, and makes early offers based on Year 11 results.

"Schools have told us that the early admission scheme allows students to focus on specific subjects for their particular university degree rather than simply achieving a high ATAR score — really helping to take the pressure off," said interim deputy vice-chancellor (students) Deborah West.

It's not just domestic school-leavers reaping the benefits, either.

Charles Darwin University made 1,254 offers to international students for next year, up from 750 pre-pandemic.

Early admission leads to better outcomes

Mr Kourtis said WSU's internal analysis showed early admission programs often recruited better students overall.

The university compared typical applicants with those admitted through early admission, and found early entrants went on to achieve a higher grade point average than their peers in more than 50 per cent of courses.

"We found their performance is as good, and in some instances better, than students who were admitted solely on the basis of the year 12 result," Mr Kourtis said. "What these programs do is actually challenge the primacy of the end-of-year-12 exams or the ATAR."

The University of Canberra has had a similar experience.

"With early offers, we are continuing to see very strong academic outcomes from students who have entered through this approach," its deputy vice-chancellor (academic) Geoff Crisp said.

***********************************

My other blogs: Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

*******************************

No comments: