Quote:
Originally Posted by coachjock  After writing my post last night, I had a flashback to my freshmen Health class for PE majors in college (late 70's). We were actually told that we had a legal responsibility to monitor (ie--watch) the showers, as we were legally liable to:
a-prevent any dangerous play (including hazing) or injury that might appen
b-to monitor kids for physical signs of abuse such as bruise, scars, etc..
In the case of b, there had actually been PE teachers sued because they had not reported abuse that they should have seen if they had been properly monitoring students. In my own career, I have reported at least a few cases of abuse that no one else was clued into, based on scars on the back or legs. Two of these were kids who were burned with irons as children by their parents.
Interesting how our desire to prevent abuse may in fact be keeping us from spotting more of it. |
This post is finally bringing a major change in how coaches and teachers were perceived professional then and now. In those days a teacher and a coach were considered professionals who worked with children. They were right there with the nurses and the doctors in terms of contact. There wasn't even a nurse required in my state until 20 years ago. In those days, an elementary teacher was expected to clean up a small child that had an accident in class. Today with a nurse available, the nurse is suppose to do that. Some schools will forbid a teacher from doing that. So if you have a sixth or seventh grade boy in the middle of puberty have some kind of problem, broken arms from an accident, whatever, and needs help going to the restroom and the boy doesn't want the female nurse helping him, the male teacher who the boy feels comfortable with is not allowed to do that. Why? That is not part of the professional duties of a teacher now.
There was a time when the coaches did use the shower situation to check for health problems, child abuse, etc. and could be sued or fired for failing to report or failure to check for these problems. Today, that same very coach in the very same school could be sued for checking for those same very problems. Why? Then it was part of the coaches professional duties. Now it is not.
So if the school hires a female nurse and for whatever reason, the rules are going to require that the boys be checked out head to toe to look for evidences of child abuse from home, the coaches who took a course in that can't do it, it would be the female nurse that would have to be standing there checking out each boy as they came out of the shower.
It is all about being professional and doing what your professional duties are as determined by your employer and/or your profession.
There has been a vast change in what our culture views as professional duties of teachers and coaches. We find that true in scouting as well and I'm sure in other areas as well.
As for the comment earlier about a 50 year old guy sitting in a chair watching all the boys shower, I would feel freaked out to. But the fact that he was older, younger or the same age wouldn't be the reason. That is just weird.
If a coach needs to check out all boy P.E students for evidences of child abuse as part of his job, I would suggest that he tell the boys that is what he is doing and let them come one at a time rather than having a big group of boys being watched the whole time they are showering and putting on their clothes and let it be a mystery to the boys why he is doing the checking. Talk about pouring gasoline on a needless fire!
That is the part that alarmed me. Doctors and nurses would not do that this way. That isn't the best professional way to do it.
Again, until this thread, I hadn't really thought about the professional part of it. We are taught at an early age about professional duties and what are not professional duties of each profession.
To many people now, that child in first grade who is sick and has messed big time in his pants and the school can't get in touch with this or her parents? The nurse takes care of it. But the nurse is gone to a meeting and won't be back for two hours. In some schools the child would be expected to sit in diarrhea for two hours for the nurse to return causing major diaper rash rather then let his or her teacher who the student knows and loves like a parent take care of him or her.
In the 50's and 60's a first grade teacher who refused to clean up one of her first grade children in that situation would have been fired.
For the professional child predator watchers, there has been and always will be children six and under who have to be changed by some adult. All we can do is determine which adult we will allow to do it and which adults we would bar from doing it. Surely, no one sees anything sexual about which profession is in charge of duties that someone has to do. Which gender, I can see in some situations.
It is about doing what is perceived is the professional thing to do in your profession at that particular point in time.
Hehehe.
