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THE FOLLOWING LETTER APPEARED IN A RECENT EDITION OF THE GAZETTE:
To the editor:
Why is our Croton leadership obsessed with blaming students for a curriculum designed by adults and taught over multiple years? First we had the School Superintendent blaming the kids for forcing the teacher to write filthy sex slang on whiteboards and PowerPoint slides. Then we had the Mayor saying those who objected were prudish. Now former village trustee Andy Simmons continues the theme (The Gazette, week of July 21/27).
Mr. Simmons says it was the teacher who was the victim: “[F]ar from the teacher teaching kids new-fangled synonyms for deviance, the students were the ones schooling her.” If the students were “schooling” their teacher in this manner, there are serious problems in the Croton school system.
The teacher is not a playground buddy of her students. She is not their slumber party confidante. In a properly functioning school system, the role of the teacher is to impart knowledge and serve as a role model. I fail to see why teachers in the Croton schools need to be up to date on vulgar sex slang, but if there is a legitimate purpose then this information can be obtained on the internet—you don’t have to devote classroom time each year to know the newest sex slang.
Students in high school are approaching adulthood. They will soon be entering the workplace. If they decide to “school” their boss or the person from HR who is conducting the workplace harassment training, they will find zero tolerance for such language. The behavior tolerated in Croton classrooms would not be tolerated in any workplace.
Mr. Simmons claims: “Though many reveled in the knowledge that the words were dirty, just as many were ignorant of their true meanings or the impact they might have on young boys and girls.” You can’t have it both ways: either the students are worldly and have porn and vocabulary definitions on their smartphones, or they are ignorant of the “true” meanings.
Even back in the 1970s and 80s, tenth graders knew sex slang. I went to public high school in Westchester before the days of smartphones and the internet. We knew those words, just as certainly as we knew not to say them in front of adults—let alone our teachers. I don’t for a minute believe that Croton high school sophomores don’t know the true meaning of the f-word, nor the transgressive impact of saying dirty words in a classroom setting.
Usually around the age of 5 or so, we use a naughty word and get a firm correction from our parents. I suspect that is still true, but if in 2022 the parents of Croton wait till their 15 year-old lets loose with a stream of vulgarities, then that is a parenting flaw that is not going to be fixed by a teacher writing filthy words on a whiteboard.
School Superintendent Walker has justified the dirty words exercise because of a sexual assault that occurred at an off-campus party. Croton Mayor Pugh said that people objecting to the school curriculum are being prudish. Now Mr. Simmons comes in with a shocking disclosure linking those statements together, and confirming that this has been a pattern with off-campus behavior.
According to Mr. Simmons: “At parties and other gatherings, my daughter and her friends would find themselves bracketed by guys bantering back and forth, shouting many of those very words, likely oblivious to how uncomfortable it made the girls.”
As one who believes in the right of a parent to raise their child in accord with their values, I am uncomfortable with “schooling” Mr. Simmons on how to raise his child. But at the risk of sounding like an old fogey: has Mr. Simmons ever heard of talking to his daughter before she goes out to a party? Things like knowing where it is being held, who is going to be there, and what adult supervision will be close by. And when she comes home, finding out how it went.
Mr. Simmons speaks of “changing times.” In the letter appearing just before Mr. Simmons, Croton resident R. Pearson talks about how the local police blotter items have changed over the past 40 years. They are both correct. Times have changed, and more importantly—parents have changed.
When I went to high school 40 years ago, we had parties. Our parents were always clear as to where we were going, and they were clear as to their expectations for our behavior. What Mr. Simmons describes as going on in Croton today should disturb any parent. Boys surrounding a bunch of girls and shouting vulgar slang for sex acts is not OK. It is at minimum harassment if not assault. If that had occurred at even one party, my parents would have been on the phone to the parents of the party host.
Mr. Simmons uses euphemisms such as “bracketing” and “bantering.” He says that the boys are “likely oblivious to how uncomfortable it made the girls.” Mr. Simmons’ attempts to minimize what is going on are a big part of why boys at parties engage in such behavior.
This is not a one-off event. Mr. Simmons says this harassment of girls occurs in Croton at “parties and other gatherings.” Back in the day, if my sister had come home from such a party, my father would be having a heart-to-heart chat in person with the fathers of the “bracketing and bantering” boys. Fathers are different in these “changing times” and they expect that a tenth-grade teacher will fix the problem.
I don’t understand why this is occurring at multiple parties and gatherings. This should have been firmly dealt with by the parents the first time it occurred. Tenth grade boys know better than to surround girls at a party like a feral pack and “banter” with filthy sex words—times have not changed that much, Mr. Simmons.
If anything, the risk of becoming a viral video should deter such behavior. Rather than getting “schooled” by her students, the teacher should be pointing out the consequences of getting dragged into juvenile court proceedings and landing on the sex offender registry. In an age of omnipresent smartphones with video, joining a “bracketing” and “bantering” group of partying boys can take a bad turn very quickly and result in lifelong consequences.
Mr. Simmons also excuses the boys by claiming that this is a new development in our “changing times.” He says that in Croton today, girls “know just how fetishized their bodies have become.”
Back when I was in tenth grade, we tried to get into an X-rated movie (without success). We thought one guy’s older brother was cool when he showed us his Playboy Club Key. A few years prior, there was a popular movie containing a song titled “A Secretary Is Not A Toy” and a movie where Jack Lemmon kept an apartment for men in his office to have sex with their female staff. Some of our fathers had served on US Navy ships where scantily-clad pinup girls were commonplace in the workplace.
Nor is peer pressure to have intimate relations new. Forty-five years before Croton’s mayor was calling his constituents “prudish,” Billy Joel put it more crudely: “Come out Virginia, don’t let me wait. You Catholic girls start much too late.” Mr. Simmons takes much the same boys-will-be-boys view as Mr. Pugh and Mr. Joel.
Girls’ bodies have not “become” fetishized in today’s Croton; they have been so since the beginning of time. Packs of boys have always “bracketed and bantered” with girls. What has changed is that fathers used to step in, rather than expect the very teacher being “schooled” by the boys to show those boys how to respect women and how to respect themselves as men.
What is going on at these off-campus “parties and gatherings” and what is going on at Croton’s high school is not “awkwardness.” It is sexual harassment or worse, and it is caused by an abdication of our parents who turn a blind eye to such behavior.
For many years, we have heard talk about the intensity of peer pressure at Croton schools. When the party incident happened a few years back, there was talk that this was not an isolated event and that the school district swept stuff under the carpet. The letter from Mr. Simmons is evidence that the critics were correct. This is a broader problem than just a vulgar sex ed class at the high school.
Several parents who I spoke with were troubled by how the class was not only offensive, but sent the wrong message since teenagers are not going to want to stick out—especially if they are going to be deemed prudish. The conduct of Croton students off-campus as described by Mr. Simmons is not surprising in light of how the sex ed curriculum is taught.
The school administration and school board need to teach students how to deal with peer pressure, at off-campus parties and in gatherings with their friends. Such tools are useful not only in rebuffing unwanted sexual harassment, but also in avoiding pressure to vape, drink, smoke pot, etc.
The school should never put students in a position where it is a teacher who is leading the sexual harassment. It says something about the classroom dynamic in Croton when a teacher and administration think that the onus is on a teenager to walk out of class when filthy sex slang is the lesson of the day.
Parents need to step up. The school board needs to step up. Croton’s School Superintendent, Croton’s Mayor, and former village trustee Simmons should act like the adults in the room, because while they don’t want to admit it….they are the adults.
--Paul Steinberg, Croton-on-Hudson
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