“Being passive is not atypical.”
One of the focuses of the university I attend is its General Education program. It is a set of core classes titled “The Human Community” and all students, regardless of major or class year upon entering the university are required to take approximately 14 classes in areas including Wellness, The Global Experience, Literature, Critical Thinking, and various math and science fields. The mission of the program, as quoted by the website (http://www.jmu.edu/gened/) is below:
The program is committed to helping students develop their ability to reason and make ethical choices; to appreciate beauty and understand the natural and social worlds they live in; to recognize the importance of the past and work towards a better future.
I’ve enjoyed our general education program because it has given me the opportunity to take some pretty interesting classes. I learned a bit of Arabic in my Islamic Civilization humanities course; I learned the argument behind evolution and the theological counter-perspective in my Biological Anthropology Class and I will never forget my health teacher stretching a condom onto her arm and then licking it, proclaiming it to be orange-flavored. I’m not even halfway done with my college experience and I can say that the classes I’ve taken already have made a big impact on me. That’s not to say that my high school education wasn’t beneficial; I had an overall great high school experience and much of it shaped the person I am.
Much of high school and college activities revolve around social pressure. (Think Mean Girls, though not AS dramatized.) But beyond the “no means no” campaign, in my past almost fourteen years of formalized American education I don’t recall leaning much about sexual assault other than steps you can take to prevent sexual violence. But that’s just prevention, and only prevention for yourself. What are you supposed to do in the moment, when someone is being raped or assaulted in front of you?
Johannah Cornblatt’s Newsweek article “Bystanders No More: Teaching Kids to Respond to Violent Crime” says that two dozen gawkers have been identified and six arrests have been made in connection with the two-and-a-half-hour alleged gang rape of a 15-year-old girl outside of her school’s Homecoming dance on October 24th. But, it took a tip from a student who was never present at the scene to lead police to the semiconscious and naked (from the waist down) alleged victim. Says sexual assault expert Dorothy Edwards, of the University of Kentucky, the fact that witnesses failed to stop the attack is not surprising:
“Everyone likes to think, ‘If I were there, I would’ve done something.’ But being passive is not atypical.”
Many sexual-assault awareness programs have focused on the role of the victim or the perpetrator. But now thanks to the Mentors in Violence Prevention Program (http://www.sportinsociety.org/mvp/index.php), the witness role of choosing to support or challenge violence is emphasized.
From the Newsweek article:
“As part of the MVP program, students sit in a classroom and talk about the menu of options—from getting a group of friends together to calling 911—available to them. At the heart of the program is a set of scenarios that allow students to imagine what they might do in a variety of situations. Each scenario comes with a list of viable interventions for bystanders.”
Similarly, the University of Kentucky’s Green Dot program has “‘spread like wildfire’ to more than 20 states.” Green Dot focuses on the “3Ds” of direct action, delegation, or distraction for witnesses of violence to utilize.
“While socially confident students might be able to address the problem directly, shy bystanders could make an anonymous phone call, send a text to a friend, or divert the perpetrator. “You can be just as effective by delegating,” Edwards says.”
As far as delegation goes,
“Most people want to do the right thing,” Edwards says. “You can’t just say to teenagers that it shouldn’t have mattered if they were afraid to stand up in front of their friends—because it does matter. We need to give people a broader tool chest that takes into account their obstacles.”
What are the results of these bystander-awareness programs?
“One study found that after the Sioux City School District in Iowa implemented the MVP program, the number of freshman boys who said they could help prevent violence against women and girls increased by 50 percent.”
50 percent. Wow! I’m very hopeful that programs like these will show continued success. Sexual violence does not have to be a reality for American youth and adolescents.
The full article can be found here:
