Speaking Up For Myself

Speaking Up

When did it become acceptable in society to be okay with breaking the rules? When did it become okay with not speaking up when you see something that is against the rules or when you feel threatened? I feel like we are living in a society that gets offended when you speak up. This is not in reference to LGBTQ+ or anything like that as I have no issue with that. This is in regard to institutions and people who need to be held accountable for their actions as they will keep breaking rules and getting away with it.

I attend an institution that breaks its own rules. Before you even start the program, they tell you that you cannot miss 4 days in a row, or you will be dropped. They break that rule all the time. I understand if you have excused absences, but these are unexcused absences. In addition, every course has an academic honesty policy quiz which states that they will fail us or kick us out of the program if we are caught cheating. They break this rule. A girl was caught cheating by multiple other girls and caught on camera and she is still in the program. She even stole money from the teacher's purse and is still in the program. Another person was upset that other students were not doing her work for her and was threatening us with bodily harm and brought a gun to school. She left it in the car but was heard on the phone telling her children, "If anything happens to me, you know where everything is, don't you?" She admitted that she brought the gun but did not bring it in since there were too many students in the class, and her targets were too far back in the classroom. She has been repeatedly caught in lies and they have even watched the cameras and caught her in lies but she is still in the program. They moved her out of our class to the afternoon class and the admin person is doing her work for her.

The missing classes is a minor thing but the cheating and threatening to shoot people or beat them up is unacceptable. How can this be acceptable to an institution? They obviously only care about money and not our lives. I sent a professional email to the admin person and cc'd my teacher and the admin person just replied that I had "valid" concerns and she would address it. Her solution was to put this person in the day class and do her work for her and sit in on our class. How is that a solution? What does she think this will solve? Is she hoping to "fix" something? She should have been in the class when this person was threatening bodily harm as it happened multiple times.

I wonder if this is just a systemic issue with society. Are we so afraid to offend someone or are we afraid of lawsuits or what? If this person had come in and shot up the school and killed people, then there would have been lawsuits against the school. Have there not been enough school shootings? I think that working from home for 12 years has really sheltered me from how much society has changed since I have been out there and interacting with more people.

Having a child with special needs I have a had dissimilar experience then these girls in the class. I am the oldest and I am married and only have one kid and also all of them could be my children so there is a generational gap. I was brought up to do the right thing. I do my work. I do not cheat. If I have to miss class, it is for a good reason, and I let the teacher know. I wear my scrubs like I am supposed to. I participate like I am supposed to. I take notes like I am supposed to. You get the idea. I brought up my child that way. Granted she has autism, so her world is black and white. So, you have right and wrong and there is no gray area. She does not understand gray areas. She stresses me out as all children do their parents, but she is an incredibly good kid who strives to do the right thing. Really is not that all a parent could ask for. I am trying to raise a child to be as independent as she can be which is hard when they have special needs but at least I know she is going to do the right thing. The point of all of this is that it starts at home with at least trying to instill right and wrong in your children and hoping that it sticks.

Will I become jaded when I get used to working out in society again? I seriously hope not. I do not want to okay with accepting others breaking the rules and places being okay with it. I do realize that businesses are about money but the people who work for that business should be important too. Without them there would not be a business. We as a society need to have a no threatening of violence or no violence policy in our workplaces and institutions of learning minimally.