Schools are a hostile place. Schools are a dangerous place. Schools are a place of torment. And schools can be a place of child abuse.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n One quote from Hermann Hesse\u2019s \u201cUnterm Rad\u201d (Beneath the Wheel) has burned itself into my brain. Since I cannot possibly translate it properly into English, I used the free version of deepl.com<\/p>\n\n\n\n “By now they had reached the country road and quickly arrived at the monastery, where all the teachers, led by the Ephorus, received the dead Hindinger, who in life would have run away at the mere thought of such an honor. Teachers always look at a dead pupil with completely different eyes than a living one; for a moment, they are convinced of the value and irretrievability of every life and youth, which they so often carelessly sin against.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n This quote simply nails it! <\/strong>Teachers casually torment students every day without thinking, maybe even without noticing. I would avoid the word \u201csin\u201d because of it\u2019s connection to religion. Still this quote expresses my opinion better than I ever could do it myself. Reading Hesse reminded me why I keep returning to that memory, even after decades. During my time in schools thankfully no fellow pupil died. But I know for certain how disgusting any speech by upper rank school officials would have sounded, given their unrestrained deceitfulness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My story is from the mid 1990s. You know, the time when freedom peaked. Outdated views had largely become a footnote in the history books. Old, pointless prohibitions were largely abolished and it was way before the time of the new, even more intense prohibitions combined with total surveillance. We still had a few idiots who openly spoke out against homosexuality, but all in all, tolerance and respect prevailed. You could even make a joke about a group without immediately being crucified (with the help of words ending in \u201cphobe\u201d or \u201cphobic\u201d). You would just get a joke about your group in return. ——-<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sometime during physical education class a doctor came by unannounced. At least unannounced to us children. Only the teacher knew about it. This doctor, presumably an orthopedist, had to assess if our appearance was \u201cnormal\u201d. Just think of a family choosing a Christmas tree. Correct size? Symmetrical enough? Standing straight? And so on. The only difference is that we were little human beings and not trees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dis-gus-ting!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n This doctor, a complete stranger, demanded that all the boys had to undress. Any form of protest was nipped in the bud with repeated, progressively louder and very authoritarian commands. Our teacher assisted. Some of us girls started giggling and stared shamelessly in the direction of the naked boys while they were being examined. Loudly the doctor disclosed his diagnosis to everybody in the room while the teacher took notes. What an example of taking medical confidentiality seriously!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I was shocked. Even at that age I knew something bad, possibly criminal, was going on. To my shame, I must admit that I was unable to do anything. Frighted and intimidated I just sat there like petrified. Today, as an adult, I know what I should<\/em> have done: Quickly burst open the emergency exit (normal doors were locked) of the huge gym, run to the administration office and report sex offense\/child molestation demanding they call my parents, a lawyer and the cops (no, I did not have a mobile phone in the mid-1990s as a kid).<\/p>\n\n\n\n By the time they finished humiliating the boys they seemed to notice something very apparent. If they continued doing the same with the girls\u2026 well\u2026 legal consequences would have been inevitable. To mitigate possible consequences they decided to bring us to another room to continue the degrading procedure without the boys watching.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I tried talking to my form teacher about this afterwards, including the discrimination the boys had faced, but this went nowhere. The incident was hushed up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Schools\u2026 Schools are a hostile place. Schools are a dangerous place. Schools are a place of torment. And schools can be a place of child abuse. One quote from Hermann Hesse\u2019s \u201cUnterm Rad\u201d (Beneath the Wheel) has burned itself into my brain. Since I cannot possibly translate it properly into English, I used the free […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[15,16],"class_list":["post-89","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal-stuff","tag-memories","tag-school"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kleinessinchen.feralnetworks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kleinessinchen.feralnetworks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kleinessinchen.feralnetworks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kleinessinchen.feralnetworks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kleinessinchen.feralnetworks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=89"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/kleinessinchen.feralnetworks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":118,"href":"https:\/\/kleinessinchen.feralnetworks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89\/revisions\/118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kleinessinchen.feralnetworks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=89"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kleinessinchen.feralnetworks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=89"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kleinessinchen.feralnetworks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=89"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
But even during this time, things happened. Serious discrimination and humiliation as well as some mild abuse with sexual connotation. Despite that freedom \u2013 and I would go as far as saying the human civilization \u2013 had reached their to date highest level in the 1990s and early 2000s, it makes no sense to look back to that time with rose colored glasses.<\/p>\n\n\n\nMedical Confidentiality and Equal Status <\/h2>\n\n\n\n