I recently wrote about how children in elementary schools in Afghanistan are often punished when they bring up love or interest in someone or for giving love notes to one another. The taboo around such topics goes beyond love.
I’ve been teaching in Kabul for several years and every once in a while, I’m given the opportunity to question my preconceived notions about our kids. One day I learned that during break time when I was out of the classroom, one of my teachers had taught other kids about “bad words” and “drawings” that they should avoid. He had given examples of these drawings and “curse words” and they contained explicit examples about body parts, etc.
The gut reaction to something like this is often anger and an urge to punish the “culprit,” who in this case, is a child. This approach is a disservice to that child and their classmates because it assumes that the child is in the wrong without understanding why this happened, and it robs other classmates from having an opportunity to learn how to think for themselves when they come across something new, taboo, or questionable.
By immediately punishing this student, we impose our preconceived associations and meanings we’ve assigned to words and body parts on our students instead of providing them with a new frame to see things from. Instead, we can teach them that their body parts are normal and not “bad” or “shameful” and give them skills to discuss questions in appropriate ways.
I had been teaching these children for three years now and knew their habits. It was completely random and unexpected that would be using these words of attaching adult meanings to certain drawings, so I sat with the one teaching them to find out where he learned it from. I had to gain his confidence and make him feel safe so that he’d tell me. More than anything else, I was worried about him being abused because I couldn’t understand where he would’ve learned the words and know to attach shame to body parts.
I wasn’t as upset with him as I was with the situation and at thinking that parents would be alarmed if they found out what had transpired during break. I followed my first instinct and reached out to the kid. He told me that a neighbor on the street had showed him videos and taught him the words.
I was saddened to learn that my first instinct was true. While it is not physical abuse, showing children adult content is a form of sexual abuse and can be traumatizing.
To help him heal and my students to unlearn the harmful things he’d brought to the class, our lesson became to learn about our body parts as they are. We spoke about the function of our bodies and that how important they are to our daily life. We also talked about what parts of our bodies are private and we should alert someone we trust if anyone touches us. We spoke about making our classroom a safe place where we can share our thoughts and respect one another’s boundaries. We spoke about having a buddy with whom we can talk about everything and share our concerns and fears.
That day I realized that we need to establish a bond among children and parents; and among children and teachers. In this bond, the parent and the teacher will not assume the worst of the child and approach each mistake as a teaching moment. This is especially key around issues of consent, sexual harassment and abuse, and creating safe spaces for all kids to speak up if they have concerns instead of being shamed into silence due to topics considered taboo by our society.