I spotted this article about an uproar in a UK school today (thanks to the HomeschoolBlogger Front Porch) and couldn't help but think about how many legal issues would arise had it happened here in the US. Apparently it all began with a headmistress who declared that male and female children, ages 10 to 11 years old, would be required to change clothing in the same area -- together.
My gym has a child care area right next to the women's locker room, which hosts a curtained changing & locker area and showers, along with separate toilet areas and a sauna. It is the closest bathroom to the children's area where kids of potty-training/potty-trained ages are cared for, thus it's the bathroom the caregivers take the kids to. There are signs posted on all of the doors into the locker room stating that during child care times, children up to the age of 10 may be brought in, including children of the opposite sex. I assume that boys ages 10 and up are allowed to use the men's locker room for their bathroom needs, but up to that age, they need to be escorted by the (female) caregivers, who can't enter the men's room.
However, as an adult female, I have been warned and have the right to use the facilities to change, or not use them, depending on my comfort level. Thus far I've only seen little kids enter the main corridor anyway, and the caregivers have directed them straight to the restroom area. Am I comfortable with a five-year-old boy wandering in by mistake? Naw. Would I raise a ruckus if he did? Naw, probably not.
Would I flip out if I looked up to see a ten-year-old boy purposely pushing through the curtain? YEAH. But I couldn't say I hadn't been warned. Again, though, I'm an adult. Not a child, who is not only not given a choice, but whose adult teachers are trying to force such interaction in the name of safety or efficiency.
I can't help but think of how angry and mortified I'd have been had I been in these girls' position at that age. My word. I don't even want to think about what my mother would have said or done about the situation, either. While I can understand the basis of the comment from the headmistress, with her concerns about "safety" and "supervision", I cannot fathom why she would feel it was appropriate for prepubescent children to strip down to their underclothes in the same room, at the same time.
Heck, I didn't even like changing in a locker room with other girls at that age! Granted times have changed -- but all the more reason to allow modesty and privacy. Aren't our children confronted with enough sexuality as it is?
As a woman, what would you do? When you were a girl, would you have submitted because it was the rule, or would you have headed to the lav like this brave young girl who stood up for herself? Is it really the child who should be punished in this instance, or the headmistress who has betrayed the children's safety, most especially that of these young girls, being peered at (understandably so, kids are curious, especially about bodies and their differences!) by boys in their class?
You decide.
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