That’s weird, because normally it seems like (at least when I was in high school), teachers and administrators were big on cracking down on any kind of PDA (public displays of affection) - yelling at students for kissing in the halls, that kind of thing. You’d think they’d be so paranoid these days of sexual harassment charges that no one would dare push questions about having a boyfriend or say anything about boys kissing a student. I can believe one clueless/pervy adult there, but more than one is surprising at the very least.
If she’s so out of place she literally can’t understand and converse with the other students, and gets so frustrated she starts speaking Hebrew, then what are the odds she understood this situtation correctly? It may have been a bad joke, or she may have simply completely misunderstood what happened, but I too have an extremely hard time believing it happened as she interpreted it.
I feel bad for the girl, she needs some in-person social interaction with someone outside her religion/culture if she’s going to manage at the school, but it’s going to be hard to find someone like that, especially if the other students think she’s making fun of them. Of course, maybe they don’t think that and they’re just giggling at what seem like silly answers to their questions.
[quote=“Lamia, post:41, topic:508561”]
The kindest spin I can put on it is that the principal might have been concerned that she’d be especially depressed or angry about going to a new school if she had a boyfriend somewhere else.
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That’s exactly what I was thinking. Lame attempt to connect in a school where “half the girls are pregnant” and everyone is sucking face in the hallways. He probably kept asking questions because he didn’t understand WTH she was talking about.
Does she speak English? I am seriously at a loss as to what could have been said that she could possibly have misinterpreted. It’s highly unlikely that a teacher would assign a journal topic about kissing in the first place. We had journal topics like, What American author do you most admire? and If you could change one thing about your childhood, would you? and so forth.
My 2 cents on helping her integrate: Do not speak any language other than English. It looks pretentious, and the other kids WILL make fun of her. If there is no dress code, try to dress to blend in. At least that way she won’t stick out too bad visually. Join the band or something to get involved with other students. Watching that movie Mean Girls is a good recommendation too.
I hadn’t thought of it in terms of reporting it/seeing what happened as rape. So much of rape prevention seems to be, “Don’t do anything remotely dangerous with boys and don’t stay out late” so I guess I tend to view it with a lot of eyerolling.
Anyway, I think we’re all in agreement that this this kissing business is just bizarre. You’d think most teachers would be really wary of even joking about that considering how sensitive people can be these days.
Yeah, I know what you mean. That kind of “rape prevention” works about as well as “abstinence only” sex education.
I think the best rape/molestation prevention measure for girls would be to teach them to stand up for themselves and that if they’re uncomfortable with a situation, to get out of it, even if it means “being rude” or displeasing someone.
I don’t know WHAT’s going on, but in light of your comments here (and my own reasoning skills) I am very, very confused. Add another very. And you know what/ There’s nothing I can do to check it out. She lives in Texas, I don’t know anyone else who knows her, and it’s not like I can go dial up her mom. I want to ask my own mom for advice, but I’ll have to be careful, because I promised her I wouldn’t tell anyone her name and my mom has met her.
Too bad you can’t ask your mom because that sounds like a good idea. Do you have another mom-ish type you could ask? An aunt, friend’s mom, teacher? Ideally someone who is part of the Orthodox community and can be trusted not to blab and/or try to get involved?
When you say she ‘starts speaking Hebrew,’ do you mean actual Hebrew, or American Jewish, my native dialect, in which most words are English, with a sprinkling of Hebrew/Yiddish/Aramaic words that better express certain concepts? Either way, it’s not a good idea for her, but I understand the frustration at constantly needing to ‘translate’ if one isn’t used to code-switching that way. My first time in a summer program that wasn’t specifically for Orthodox Jews, when I was eleven, I was surprised by how often I needed to stop and rephrase things before speaking so that the other kids would understand me, although I didn’t have any problem communicating. Of course, I wasn’t emotionally overwhelmed by a situation for which I was completely unprepared, either.
If it happened as you say, someone should get involved. That’s definitely sexual harassment.