Why Public Schools are Better

by | Jan 10, 2022 | Author | 1 comment

I am happy to be included in this publication with a short bit of writing. I would like my excerpt to be memorable and cautionary and above all empathetic. I survived a lot of bullying both in grade school and high school and I am proud to carry forward my attitudes about politics in parochial grade schools and other forms of politically rigid advanced education over time.

I was a farm kid and my mother decided I would be educated better in a parochial school. When someone waves a Bible around and spouts extended passages from that volume from memory, that person is considered well educated because of the religion he is a member of. So complete scoundrels can be clothed in the trappings of religious piety. And if the bigger churches are located in a school system which frequently is highly motivated by an abundance of political attitude, parochial schools are rarely looked into or criticized.

My crime was that I was a healthy farm girl with a very beautiful figure and face (although at the time I was oblivious to that) and I just tried to get along with everybody that I had just met. First impressions are telling and revelatory. And if the pretty girl senses she is being treated differently from the pack her antenna go up and she becomes wary and mistrustful. To fit in she keeps her peace and tries not to be noticed. She just wants to be accepted and fit in with everyone and she keeps her mouth shut. If she notices that the more awkward classmates have a harder time of it in class with teachers and classmates she keeps her head down.

That can go on just so long before it becomes suffocating. What she sees is a fractured truth that is taken at face value without any critical inspection. Only she has seen better by a father who had seen his mother beaten by his own father, and Christmas Eve the father simply had to confide and the daughter accepted it because she had seen versions of it go on at school with an implied agreement of the teachers who were directly above them, who were afraid that their jobs would be in jeopardy if they protested. This basic truth hits me the hardest at Christmas – the falseness – the direct lying and the fact that those in power in those religious schools have to put up or shut up, and so the lying and falsehoods go on. And so the aware students have to wait until their early 20s to privately see a shrink to get some meaning back in their lives so they can go on to fulfill their potential with a level of permanent trauma factored in. No one can deny what they have seen in a bad school. It’s baggage they carry the rest of their lives. I saw a shrink so I have been able to categorize and file away the abuse I sustained in grade school and high school.

I am an accomplished coloratura soprano, but I am the proudest of the one lawsuit that I filed pro se . . . . . . .

Sue Hassel versus TDS. It is a landmark decision for sexual harassment in the state of Wisconsin , and I wrote my own brief pro se. Of all my operatic successes (and there are many), I am proudest of that lawsuit, and though the harassment continued on after I filed (by the superior who just had to have me recant which I refused!?!?!) . . . . that was the high point of my childhood cum adult.

The parochial school abuse I sustained would have been far less likely to have happened today since today public schools have better oversight by political officials and parents who are encouraged to speak up – and they do speak up. After all we live in America, not Russia.

Sue Hassel

Website: www.suehassel.com

1 Comment

  1. Michael DiGioia

    An outstanding cautionary tale which I am sure will help others. I would love to read more from Ms. Hassel.

    Reply

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