Tampons too "woke" for conservatives.

[lewisnotmiller]

And I assume you provided her with what she needed. As should the parents of any such child. Which would make it essential for the parents to provide menstrual products, but not essential for the school. I had students that were diabetics, but the school didn't provide them with test strips and medicine.

We did. It's worth noting that not all parents plan ahead for their child's first period at 9 years old, and I doubt I would have. My wife is more organised, a health professional, and of course a woman. I would never have identified some of the subtle signs that her first period was approaching.

At some schools I've worked at, we ran a breakfast club because it was important to ensure students had one nutritious meal per day. Because this directly impacts their ability to learn. At some we ensured deodorant was available for the boys after lunch (funded by teachers, not the school) because that impacted on everyone else's ability to learn(!)

If you spend much time in schools (and I am not judging your experience there, I have no clue) the contrast between what parents should do, and what parents do do can be vast. And what schools should do is try to setup safe and supportive learning environments, not because it's 'nice' but because it drives better learning outcomes.

Provision of medicines to students is not something a school can easily do, as there are privacy issues associated with it, as well as safety issues (ie. You can't allow self-administration by minors where there isn't a health professional).

Instead a good school would partner with a parent, get consent where required, store and provide access to medicines as required.

When I was a teacher I would regularly have an epi pen, an inhaler, etc with me when going on incursions and excursions. Each would have a consent to use it other plan filed at the office.

It's simply different to making a readily available product from the supermarket available for access and use by individuals.

Oh, and I noticed you haven't explained how it is essential for the all boys school to supply tampons.

Why would I? It's seems completely tangential. For what it's worth, Victorian policy on provision of tampons is limited to government schools, which are overwhelmingly co-ed in nature.

I can think of one exception (Melbourne High) and would assume either there is a pad/tampon in the med kit for teacher/visitor emergencies, or they are simply exempted due to the lack of a female student body. Either way is fine with me.

I'm not sure why you'd leap to that as a 'Ha, gotta!' moment, to be honest. Seems simple enough.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

I could respect a difference of opinion on this matter. I can understand that you may not see this as something a school has to provide. (My own opinion is they shouldn't have to, but it seems like the moral thing to do, and what they oughta do, and leave legislation out of it).

I can't, however, respect the "I don't necessarily believe you". In 4th grade, I was 10, 5th grade, 11. Its not unheard of for girls of those ages to have periods. If you find me to be the type of person to come online to make up stories for the sake of arguing with people, I see there to be no point in us interacting. Take care, man.

As my daughter was one of the grade 4s, I became aware of this. There were I think 3 girls who had their period by the end of grade 4. Certainly by early grade 5 anyway.

I don't think any of them had been held back a year, but if course that can impact too. Year level isn't completely analogous with age.

Meanwhile I have another daughter who is partway through year 7 without any signs of it.

Just another piece of evidence that females are unreliable...

*flees, laughing maniacally*

 

[JustGeorge]

As my daughter was one of the grade 4s, I became aware of this. There were I think 3 girls who had their period by the end of grade 4. Certainly by early grade 5 anyway.

I don't think any of them had been held back a year, but if course that can impact too. Year level isn't completely analogous with age.

Meanwhile I have another daughter who is partway through year 7 without any signs of it.

Just another piece of evidence that females are unreliable...

*flees, laughing maniacally*

Of course females are unreliable. Just like males!

 

[Father Heathen]

As I don't need to care that you think providing tampons is schools is essential. And you are ignoring the case of the all boys high school. Why is it ESSENTIAL that an all boys high school must provide tampons?
WHY?

Why are you asking me? I never said an all boys school would need tampons.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

1) I don't necessarily believe you.

Of course not.

 

[SomeRandom]

1) I don't necessarily believe you.
2) Public policy isn't based on exceptional cases. And girls beginning their periods that early are exceptions.
3) Unless they were providing tampons to your friends that is proof they weren't essential.

Any girls that is starting menstruation at eight years old has more pressing concerns than whether her school provides tampons. Like any unusual condition she would need to work with the school staff to accommodate her condition. But...

The bottom line is, these cases don't prove that the school must provide tampons.

The average age might be 11- 12 for first menses, but that doesn’t mean that every girl will start around that age. It can start as early as 8. That’s just a fact of life.

Why would an 8 year old prepare for their first period?
It’s not like they can pop off to the shops in the middle of class, you know.
Why not have some in the bathroom or nurses office just in case?
Or would you rather they just bleed through their clothing all day?
Periods are a fact of life, sorry if nature bothers you. But schools have a duty of care. To provide tampons or pads is as necessary as bandaids.

As for boys schools having them, bit odd. But I suppose they can grab some freebies for their sisters or mothers or their girlfriends. Earn some extra brownie points.
Don’t see the issue

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Really?
Genuinely curious on this point...do you have further information?

The Architecture of Prisons Is Everywhere We Look

Buildings’ design communicates the values of a society. In contemporary American architecture, those values appear closer to control and surveillance than openness and enjoyment for all.

jacobin.com

High schools, middle schools, college classroom buildings, libraries, dorms. Many of them looked monolithic and menacing from the outside, had few windows and long corridors, and were clad in drab finishes like cinder block painted gray. Several people had anecdotes about rumors of their high schools or colleges being modeled after prisons or designed by architects who had also constructed prisons — and while most of those stories are probably nothing more than legend, it’s just as likely that some of them are true. Many large institutional architecture firms design everything — schools, libraries, hospitals, prisons — using similar principles and material palettes.


Public buildings — all buildings — perform social functions; they organize people and their activities. Prisons remove people from their environment and therefore their humanity; they discipline and isolate. In a capitalist state, where schools are charged largely with creating orderly and disciplined future workers, it follows that they would share their form with prisons.

Why prisons and high schools are built the same way

Prisons and secondary schools have something in common, that is the nearly identical design of their buildings. It can be estimated that this is because of the need for easing the actions of crowded groups of people in a limited amount of time.

themindcircle.com

The generally shared design of secondary schools and prisons is typical for structures belonging to the government in most countries. There is a phrase, institutional scale, that stands for structure built especially to stop certain people.

The Same People who Designed Prisons Also Designed Schools

According to architect and academic Frank Locker, in architectural education, we keep repeating the same formula from the 20th-century: teachers...

www.archdaily.com

In the US, many of the same people who designed prisons also designed schools. What comes to mind when you see a long hall of closed doors, that you can't be in without permission, and a bell that tells you when to come in, when to leave, when class starts, when it ends? What does that look like to you?

 

[Shaul]

Of course not.

Should I? It is a posting of personal experience that is unverifiable and off point. I didn't say I didn't believe it. It doesn't matter. Some unusual experience isn't any proof of an essential need. It is irrelevant.

 

[Shaul]

The average age might be 11- 12 for first menses, but that doesn’t mean that every girl will start around that age. It can start as early as 8. That’s just a fact of life.

Why would an 8 year old prepare for their first period?
It’s not like they can pop off to the shops in the middle of class, you know.
Why not have some in the bathroom or nurses office just in case?
Or would you rather they just bleed through their clothing all day?
Periods are a fact of life, sorry if nature bothers you. But schools have a duty of care. To provide tampons or pads is as necessary as bandaids.

As for boys schools having them, bit odd. But I suppose they can grab some freebies for their sisters or mothers or their girlfriends. Earn some extra brownie points.
Don’t see the issue

The point is quite relevant to whether providing tampons is an essential expenditure at schools. An all boys public schools doesn't need tampons. Ergo there are public schools where providing tampons is not essential.

 

[Shaul]

Why are you asking me? I never said an all boys school would need tampons.

Because you chose to reply to my post to someone else that mentioned the example of an all boys school as a public school that doesn't need tampon as an essential expenditure. That's why. So answer the question, or don't.

 

[Father Heathen]

Schools can afford to take a slice from the funding for their worthless sports programs to fulfill the biological/medical needs of their students.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Should I? It is a posting of personal experience that is unverifiable and off point. I didn't say I didn't believe it. It doesn't matter. Some unusual experience isn't any proof of an essential need. It is irrelevant.

It's not as unusual as you think, and you did immediately broadcast your doubts over something that's common enough I'd wager we all know at least one or two women who started early (probably more than that but it's not something I've bothered to look into that much).

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Schools can afford to take a slice from the funding for their worthless sports programs to fulfill the biological/medical needs of their students.

Where's the winner when you need it?

 

[Orbit]

The point is quite relevant to whether providing tampons is an essential expenditure at schools. An all boys public schools doesn't need tampons. Ergo there are public schools where providing tampons is not essential.

What a bizarre straw man. Who is telling you boys need tampons? Get real, man.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Because you chose to reply to my post to someone else that mentioned the example of an all boys school as a public school that doesn't need tampon as an essential expenditure. That's why. So answer the question, or don't.

And, by the way (not related to this post) the world's oldest documented human pregnancy was a little girl only 5 years old.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

What a bizarre straw man. Who is telling you boys need tampons? Get real, man.

No, but they need urinals.

 

[Shaul]

It's not as unusual as you think, and you did immediately broadcast your doubts over something that's common enough I'd wager we all know at least one or two women who started early (probably more than that but it's not something I've bothered to look into that much).

Again, irrelevant. It is pointless to debate how common it is. Even if it was highly common, which it decidedly is not, that wouldn't justify supplying tampons throughout elementary schools. There are many other ways to address the exceptions. Many other ways. And more effective ways too.
It is
a
red
herring.

 

[Shaul]

What a bizarre straw man. Who is telling you boys need tampons? Get real, man.

I'm not the one doing that. Those that are taking the position that tampons are an essential expenditure for schools need to answer the question, not I

 

[Shaul]

Schools can afford to take a slice from the funding for their worthless sports programs to fulfill the biological/medical needs of their students.

You seem to think you are the decider what is and isn't "worthless". The tampon was even invented until the 1930s. Yet somehow schools existed before that. Ergo supplying tampons isn't essential for operating a school. When schools don't supply tampons other solutions are found for the issue. The other solutions have worked until now, there is no reason to suggest they can't continue to do so. Supplying tampons in schools is a non-essential expenditure. It is that simple.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Again, irrelevant. It is pointless to debate how common it is. Even if it was highly common, which it decidedly is not, that wouldn't justify supplying tampons throughout elementary schools. There are many other ways to address the exceptions. Many other ways. And more effective ways too.
It is
a
red
herring.

More effective than simple distribution of an item that is needed and provided with no questions, strings or shame attached?