Table of Contents
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Show notes
Dr. Charol Shakeshaft is a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University who studies the prevalence of educator sex abuse towards students and tools for prevention.
Discussion Topics
- How much abuse of kids is happening and has it gotten better?
- Why has there been so much scandal around the catholic church and so little around
- The power of grooming students, colleagues, parents, etc.
- Uninterrupted and unobserved time with students.
- Much still occurs in the school fact to face.
- We don’t know how much this is happening, nor do we know whether it is increasing or decreasing.
- UAWW data surprisingly showed that students had been touched inappropriately by adults, when the study was looking for peer interactions.
- 10% of kids report being sexually abused by a teacher or administrator
- People don’t want to fund research in this area.
- Predominant genders involved
- Districts are very closed when these things happen and don’t allow much to be said.
- Organizational decisions that get made about what is reported or disclosed.
- Structural issue rather than an individual issue.
- Challenges of a school system: not judging a colleague, closed rooms, nobody
- Did you see the signs? Why didn’t you say anything?
- The culture is such that they don’t feel safe saying something.
- SESAME Organization
- 133 superintendents – Too much passing the trash. We took care of the problem so “our” kids would be safe.
- By not saying anything, we are giving people permission to expand a prediliction
- Schools don’t just allow this to happen, schools help people find this in themselves.
- “It must be OK” if adults aren’t calling it out.
- Pay attention to how a student reports. Kids don’t say it straight up.
- Think of addictions, and what sets people up for doing that addiction.
- Start out being lonely and then it leads to another thing.
- Prevention – look at the organization – Policies (do they follow them?), Training (not just mandatory reporting), Hiring practices (not calling references), Response
- Grant from the Centers for Disease Control to study the effectiveness of Presidium training
