A Rant about Bystanders and Rape.
So this may seem very sudden and out of the blue, but yesterday, I had to attend a training called "Bystander Training." At our college, it is required for every single student group to attend this lecture in order to receive any sort of funding from the college
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Reminds me of when I started teaching at the local college (adults, mind) and all new p/t lecturers had to attend a seminar about safeguarding children.
I expected the usual PC stuff - don't close the door if you're in a room alone with a student, don't give closed hugs etc. - and I was already half-way up in arms about the whole lot because it seemed that it was more about protecting myself from my students.
What we got instead was several levels of horrific. How to spot when a student was being abused by a parent or family member, indications of rape - and not just in girls, self harm, drugs, starvation, (for heaven's sake we're in England!)... you name it.
It worried me that we needed to have a lecture like that in the first place. It worried me even more, that they thought it necessary to teach us rules about what to do. That says to me that many of us ARE bystanders, reluctant to act... which is just plain awful.
And like you said, we really shouldn't be that way.
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