Those are all of Bunker Hill Community College's charges against me for my reporting being harassed in one of my summer classes.
Copyright, with noted exceptions, L. Kochman, June 30, 2017 @ 11:56 a.m./No code, all policies operative, all the time. I'll publish my preliminary page and similar pages again.
THIS IS WHAT REALLY HAPPENED:
Email to my academic advisor on June 19, 2017, after class. I included everybody's name and where they were from because that was the first thing that the teacher asked everyone on the first day of class, and because the Dean's office pretended not to know who the student was who had harassed and stalked me in my Chinese class last year until, six months after I first told the school he was harassing me, he started to harass me online using his first and last name. The school kept telling me that since I couldn't identify him, the school couldn't talk to him.
Sartreina,
THIS IS WHAT REALLY HAPPENED:
Email to my academic advisor on June 19, 2017, after class. I included everybody's name and where they were from because that was the first thing that the teacher asked everyone on the first day of class, and because the Dean's office pretended not to know who the student was who had harassed and stalked me in my Chinese class last year until, six months after I first told the school he was harassing me, he started to harass me online using his first and last name. The school kept telling me that since I couldn't identify him, the school couldn't talk to him.
Sartreina,
I am sorry to tell you that another group bullying situation seems to be developing in the Elementary French class that I have on Monday and Wednesday mornings from 8:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m., taught by Professor Palix-Robasson. I wasn't sure before today if that were what was happening, but today it seems clear to me that it is.
I'm going to write this email from the notes that I took in class today about what happened:
Jean from Haiti--he had randomly sat at a desk a couple of desks away from me on the first day of class. He was never hostile before today; he borrowed my workbook pages to take pictures of so that he could do his homework and looked on with me at my textbook EVERY DAY before today, because he hadn't bought his own supplies before today. Today is Monday, June 19, 2017. A female student named Guyveline, who has never bothered me in any way, sat in the seat at the end of the first row of chairs, next to the wall side; it's a good seat because it has an electrical outlet and students can charge their phones there, which I usually do and which she was doing today. I usually sit there, but it wasn't a problem for me that she was there first today. I sat a few seats away from her in the first row. Jean sat behind both of us in the second row, next to the back wall.
During a class exercise, Jean rolled his chair forward, nearer to Guyveline and to me. He had already loudly cleared his throat before each of this answers before he rolled closer to us. As he sat there, his throat-clearing got louder and louder, and started to happen even when he wasn't about to answer a question. It happened several times, until I turned to him and said "Please don't," without raising my voice. He pretended that he didn't know what I was talking about. I said "You're not going to be able to say that I'm crazy, and you're not going to be able to laugh at me. There were a couple of guys who did this last semester, and they got in trouble. The school isn't going to believe you, it's going to believe me, because I've been through all of this before."
Professor Palix-Robasson was on the other side of the classroom. She was very focused on the subject that was being taught, for which I don't blame her; I wish that I weren't the target of disruptive behavior by people who don't care if they make school difficult for me when it doesn't have to be. She hadn't heard Jean's coughing, which didn't surprise me because he was only a couple of feet behind me, if that, and he was only beginning to accelerate the coughs and raise the volume of them when I told him to stop. Professor Palix-Robasson asked what was going on and said "I don't want tension in my classroom." I said that I understood that and I apologized for the interruption. She said we would talk about it at the break, and that maybe the student and I would be separated; she pointed at me, and then to the other side of the room, and then she said, "Maybe you over here, and him over there," while she gestured to the side of the room where he already was.
I said "I'm not moving. I'm not going nowhere," which wasn't my best grammar but which was the best that I could do since every time that something like this happens it's stressful. My feeling was that I should not have to move from where I had been sitting for all of the class up until then; I don't mind changing my seat when someone else wants to charge his or her phone, but students usually sit where they sat from the beginning of the semester unless there's a problem, and I don't want to be treated as if I am the problem. I also have no issue with it if nobody else in the class moves, either, as long as nobody is harassing me.
Professor Palix-Robasson said "We'll talk about it during the break."
She continued teaching, and soon after that, the class took a test. The class had until 10:15 a.m. to finish the test, and the break was scheduled to be from 10:15 to 10:35. I finished the test at about 10:10, gave it to Professor Palix-Robasson, said "I'll be back in a few minutes," and then left the classroom briefly. When I was walking back to the classroom, Jean passed by me in the hallway and we didn't say anything to each other.
I returned to the classroom. There were a couple of other students in the class during the break, one named Kate (Czech Republic) who, like Guyveline, was not involved in anything that happened. I don't remember who else was in the classroom at that time, except that I think it was only me, the teacher, Kate and maybe Amber and maybe Guyveline. We spent most of the break talking about the test that we had just taken. Because Jean hadn't coughed at me again after Professor Palix-Robasson had asked what was going on before the break, I did not approach Professor Palix-Robasson during the break to discuss what had happened, and she did not broach the subject with me. I hoped that the incident was thus resolved; unfortunately, when the class reconvened this proved not to be the case.
After the break, the only other American student in the class, Amber, seemed to start coughing every few minutes. I had noticed that she had coughed a lot in one or two previous classes before this week, but I hoped that it was because she might actually be sick. She also sits several seats away from me, nearer to the door of the classroom in the front row, so the sound of her coughing during those previous classes hadn't been as disruptive or seemed as threatening as what happened today when Jean had started the first part of the class by loudly clearing his throat before every answer that he gave in class and then rolling up closer behind me in his chair and increasing the frequency and volume of his coughing so that it was happening every couple of minutes and not when he was being asked by the teacher to answer a question.
What I'm thinking now is that Amber might be testing me to see if I react to her coughing, and that some of her previous behavior might also have been harassment. The two male students who also sit in the back row, Payom (Iran) and Joam (Brazil; I'm not sure how his name is spelled) and who usually sit next to each other, also seemed to cough a couple of times, quietly; I had never heard them cough at all before. I couldn't tell then if they really had to cough and were trying to be quiet so that they didn't offend me, or if they were testing to see if I would react. THE MALE STUDENT FROM BRAZIL AND THE MALE STUDENT FROM HAITI HAVE SIMILAR NAMES, BUT THEY ARE NOT THE SAME PERSON AND THEY DON'T SIT NEXT TO EACH OTHER.
Amber coughed several times throughout the class, quite loudly. Jean didn't cough at all again until the other students had; at 11:15 a.m., I heard another cough from him from behind me. It wasn't as loud as some of his previous coughing, but it seems to me that what is happening in this class is what has happened in every group bullying situation, which is that when I am successful at getting a student who is harassing me to stop, one or two other students then start harassing me for fun and this encourages whoever had stopped to start again.
At about 11:20 a.m., Professor Palix-Robasson sent the class to the Language Lab for a prescheduled listening exercise. I stayed in the classroom and we discussed what had happened. She told me that the student had told her during the break that he hadn't realized that he was disturbing me, which I told her probably wasn't true. Unfortunately, he probably never would have bothered me in the class again if Amber hadn't started coughing after the break. I told Professor Palix-Robasson that these situations have happened before. I suggested that she tell the entire class that it's important that everyone be respectful of everyone else, that we're in the class to learn, and that nobody wants the rest of the weeks of class to be awful for anyone. She seemed to think that was a good idea and said that she would say that at the beginning of class this Wednesday, before the midterm. I thanked her, and I told her that I would probably send an email about what had happened to "my advisor," just so that my advisor would know about it. Professor Palix-Robasson asked who my advisor was; when I told her "Sartreina Dottin," she had a positive response and said that she knew her. We both left the classroom cordially; I told her that I'd be at the Language Lab soon.
When I got to the Language Lab, the other students were already doing the listening exercise. As soon as I walked into the Lab, Amber loudly coughed from where she was sitting on the other side of the room. Most of the other students were already scattered throughout the Lab. Professor Palix-Robasson wasn't there. I spoke to one of the employees of the Language Lab, whom I knew when I worked at the Language Lab in the Spring Semester of 2016; we said hello and then she told me that the Professor would be back.
I sat at a computer that was nearest to the receptionist-side of the Language Lab, as far away from the other students as I could. Really all that was missing was for me to be holding a tattered blankey. I happened to choose a computer that was at the table behind where the teacher had put her things when she'd gotten to the Language Lab before me.
Amber coughed a few more times before Professor Palix-Robasson returned. When Professor Palix-Robasson walked into the room again, she asked me if everything was ok, and I couldn't truthfully answer that it was, so I raised my eyebrows and didn't say anything.
I did the listening exercise. Some of the other students finished before I did, because they'd been at the lab for a while before I got there. I didn't look up from the listening exercise when the other students were leaving, but I think that either Payom or his Brazilian friend, Joam, might have coughed at me before they left. There aren't many students in the class; there are only 8. The only other student in the class, who is from Russia and whose name is something like Azamat, was not in class today. He has never done anything to harass me.
Amber coughed loudly a few more times before she finished the listening exercise. Then she left.
I finished the exercise and started to write this email.
When everyone had finished and almost everyone had left the Language Lab, Professor Palix-Robasson asked me if I wanted to discuss what had happened this morning with Jean, the Haitian student, because he was still at the Language Lab. I told her that I didn't think that I should. I told her that I thought the situation had already gone too far, because at least Amber, if not also a couple of other students (if it's Jean and Amber and Payom and Joam, then that's half the class), had created a group bullying situation. I told her that what had happened before and after the break was exactly like what has happened in every other situation where this has occurred at school; when I am able to get a student who is harassing me to stop for a while, another student or another couple of students start the harassment, either to provoke a reaction from me or to encourage the student who had stopped harassing me to start harassing me again, or both. I told her that I would send this email to you, Sartreina, and that I would also send her, Professor Palix-Robasson, a copy of it.
I haven't done anything to provoke anyone in that classroom. As in every other situation where this has happened, they have heard about me from the Internet or word of mouth, and what started as a normal situation where students are in a classroom to learn a subject has quickly turned into a mixed-gender Lord of the Flies With Coughing, although this is the first time that a female student has initiated the coughing harassment or picked it up again to encourage a male student who had stopped harassing me to start again. At this point, I think that Amber is the most persistent harasser; I don't think that Jean would have started again after the break if she hadn't, and I am not sure that the other two male students would be seeming to be thinking about joining the group bullying effort if she weren't leading it.
Like Professor Palix-Robasson, I would really like this situation to resolve quickly and with the least amount of acrimony possible. I don't want to have to move from my seat. I don't have a problem with it if nobody else moves. I think that the entire class ought to be spoken to, or perhaps a group email sent to the entire class, that harassment is not tolerated at Bunker Hill in any setting and that it is never appropriate. The definition of harassment is gratuitous, repetitive, disruptive behavior which is intended to upset or annoy someone; if I sat in class and tapped my pencil loudly throughout the class, or near someone whom I knew didn't like it, and I didn't stop even after I was asked, and I laughed and said that I wasn't doing anything to the person, and I implied that the person who was objecting to my behavior was crazy, that would be a form of harassment. For other students then to start that behavior as a group to upset the target would be bullying. I don't do either of those things, but they both happened to me in class today, and I hope they won't happen again.
If the situation isn't resolved before or at the beginning of the class on Wednesday, I'm sure that Wednesday's class will start as badly as today's class ended and it will rapidly get worse and worse.
Lena Kochman
Email that I sent to everyone in the class on June 20, as the preamble to the email to my advisor from the day before, which I forwarded to everyone. I didn't know that my advisor wasn't in school on Monday and that that was why she hadn't responded to me by the first thing on Tuesday morning:
Hi Everybody,
I'm sending a copy of this message individually to everyone, including Professors Dottin and Palix-Robasson; I couldn't get the email to send to everyone at once.
From Monday to Wednesday is short notice for a school administrator to have to address an issue that's developing in a classroom. Since this is the third time (in three semesters), that a situation like this has happened, I thought I'd try this approach, and maybe the issue will resolve with the need for more intervention from the school.
Everything after the line in this email is a copy of an email that I sent yesterday to my advisor at school. It's not meant to get anyone into trouble; it was merely an informative email to make her aware of the situation.
First of all, I want to say that I'm sorry that I spelled some people's names wrong.
Like everyone else in the class, I am taking French this summer because I want to be able to speak and write French. The description of the course in the school's catalogue is that the class is for people who have never studied French before, or it's for people who haven't taken a French class within the last 3 years. I definitely haven't taken a French class within the last 3 years. Although I am able to make myself understood in basic conversation with someone who speaks French, as long as the person doesn't speak too quickly, I wanted to take the class so that I could remember some of the grammar and not lose all of my ability to speak what I did learn in school before.
I feel that perhaps a history of other the other two situations, in the Spring semester of 2016 and the Spring semester of 2017, that were like what seems to be happening in this French class, might help everyone to understand.
In the Spring semester of 2016, I was a new student at Bunker Hill Community College. I took 4 classes. Near the end of that semester, a student in one of those classes suddenly decided that he wanted to spend the entire 3 hours and 45 minutes/week of class coughing loudly throughout the entire class, rather than studying the material or listening to the teacher's lecture. He had probably heard about me from other sources, and, although I had never done anything to provoke him, he thought it would be funny to try to get a reaction from me.
I DON'T HAVE A PROBLEM WITH IT IF PEOPLE NEED TO COUGH, SNEEZE, RUB THEIR NOSES, OR ANYTHING ELSE THAT PEOPLE NORMALLY HAVE TO DO A FEW TIMES THROUGHOUT A NORMAL DAY. WHAT I OBJECT TO IS WHEN PEOPLE THINK IT'S FUNNY TO DO THOSE THINGS OVER AND OVER AGAIN WHEN THEY HAVE NO ACTUAL, PHYSICAL NEED TO DO THEM, SO THAT THEY CAN SEE IF THEY CAN GET A REACTION FROM ME. I NEVER ASKED FOR THIS, NOR IS IT SOMETHING THAT I DO TO OTHER PEOPLE. PARTICULARLY IN A CLASSROOM SETTING, IT IS DISRUPTIVE WHEN PEOPLE ARE COUGHING LOUDLY FOR NO REASON BECAUSE THEY WANT TO ANNOY SOMEONE.
The student did not care about the subject that was being taught. He did not care about disrupting the entire classroom for hours so that nobody could concentrate on what the teacher was trying to say. He spent all of his time coughing loudly, then laughing at me and denying that he was doing anything when I told him to stop. He also spent his time working the room so that he could solicit the support of other people to bully me; he succeeded with a few people and not with others.
All of my attempts to resolve the situation peacefully failed. When he finally harassed me at my place of work at school, I asked the teacher to tell him to leave me alone, and I also asked that she tell him that he needed to behave appropriately in class.
Unfortunately, she did not want to take responsibility for what was happening in her classroom. The student was the only person in the room who was already conversationally fluent in Mandarin Chinese, and so he ingratiated himself with her. School is much more authoritarian in China and some other Asian countries, and she did not know how to address the situation other than to label me as the problem, even though I hadn't done anything.
This is the address for the first page of Google search results for the search term "bullying in Chinese schools":
https://www.google.com/search?q=bullying+in+Chinese+schools&oq=bullying+in+Chinese+schools&aqs=chrome..69i57.4383j0j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8https://www.google.com/search?q=bullying+in+Chinese+schools&oq=bullying+in+Chinese+schools&aqs=chrome..69i57.4383j0j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
The Chinese teacher was so confused by the entire situation that she denied to the school that anything was happened. Although I had done A work in her class all semester, she tried to fail me for the class in retaliation for my having said that it was her responsibility to maintain a respectful environment in the classroom. The student and his friends lied about what they were doing in class, also.
Because I was a new student, the school's administration didn't know whom to believe. Although I had hoped to take summer classes, I felt that I had to leave school until the truth was known and the situation resolved, or to never go back to this school.
It took the entire summer for my grade appeal, and an independent evaluation from another Chinese teacher that was requested by the school's administration, to restore my grade for the class to the A that it was supposed to be. I thought that it was the school's responsibility to educate the teacher, and all teachers, about what constitutes harassment in a classroom and what to do if a student is being bullied; I told the administration that over and over, but the teacher ended up leaving the school, which I thought was too bad.
The student was such a liar that the school did nothing to confront him about how he had treated me until 6 months after I had first reported his behavior. The school finally believed me when he began to stalk and harass me online. I sent the school the proof of his harassment, and the school said that he would be confronted according to the school's code of conduct.
That's what happened last year.
This year, in the Spring semester of 2017, in one of my classes, near the end of the semester, another situation happened. A couple of students didn't feel like studying anymore; they thought it would be more fun to harass me throughout the entire class time. At first, I ignored them. When that didn't work, I politely asked them to stop. They laughed at me and said that I was crazy, and they didn't stop. I reported them to the school. This time, the school knew to believe me right away; the last I knew, what I was told by the school was that the students who harassed me were being addressed by the school's judicial system. I was fortunate in that situation that the professor didn't lie about what had happened; she corroborated what I had said they were doing, because it was true.
I thought it was unfortunate that the students in each situation had gotten the idea from somewhere that it's better to spend classtime bullying someone than learning what's being taught by the professor.
I never did anything to provoke those students, as I have never done anything to provoke the people in this French class. I am not at school to fight with people; I am at school to study.
Nobody needs to test me to find out how I react to coughing. If you need to cough, please do, but please don't cough when you don't need to because you think it's funny. What I've done when I have to cough, since coughing around people has turned into a way to harass them, is to say "Excuse me" so that people know that I really need to cough and that I wasn't trying to bother them. If I really can't stop coughing, I leave the room until I have stopped.
Also, nobody needs to punish me in a vigilante way for anything, because I promise you that I have already been through enough. I'm not asking for anyone to feel sorry for me, nor do I want anyone to feel sorry for me. All I'm trying to do is finish school.
This email is meant to be an explanation, not a threat. Anyone who feels that he or she has been unfairly characterized by the email after the line that I sent to Professor Dottin yesterday is free to contact her and to tell her that you feel that my version of events is not accurate. Anyone who wants to contact Professor Dottin and tell her that you feel my version of events is accurate is also free to do so.
Good luck on the midterm!
Lena Kochman
Email that I sent to the Dean of Students during the break in the class on Wednesday morning, June 21, 2017:
Dean Elkins,
Thank you for responding so promptly to my concerns about the situation that was developing in my French class. When Jean walked into the classroom at about 9:30 this morning, carrying some paperwork, and told Professor Palix-Robasson that he'd met with you and that he could only be in the class for the midterm, EVERYBODY got the message that disruptive behavior won't be tolerated by the administration.
Since that's the case, I don't think that it's necessary for him to leave the class or even not to be at class for the rest of the day today. It's unfortunate that I wasn't able to speak with Sartreina on Monday afternoon or on Tuesday; my concern that I wouldn't be able to have anything in place to prevent the situation from escalating before Wednesday was what caused me to write an email to the entire class on Tuesday morning, apprising people that these situations had happened before, that my not being taken seriously when I'm telling people that there's no reason to try to trigger me in class has resulted in more problems for them than for me, was my attempt to help people understand and not meant as a threat to anyone in any way.
I don't think that Jean would have continued to hassle me if Amber and maybe a couple of other students hadn't seemed to think that it might be fun to encourage him to start again. Although Amber has responded to the email that I sent to everyone yesterday by saying that she has allergies, I noticed that she wasn't coughing at all on Monday morning before the break (read the original email again for the timing of what happened). I have no reason to believe that she doesn't have allergies, nor did I request that information from her, nor do I need medical documentation from her or from Professor Palix-Robasson, who brought a medical note to class today saying that she has acid reflux.
I think that Azamat might have dropped the class; he wasn't there today. Guyveline, Payam and Joao hadn't read the email that I sent to the class yesterday by the time that class started today.
I don't think that additional action needs to be taken at this time. I included Sartreina's email address on the email that I sent to everyone in the class yesterday, and I think that anyone who has concerns about what happened in the class is free to contact her about them; I hope that's all right with Sartreina because I said in the email that people should email her if they had concerns. I also don't think that additional problems will develop; your having spoken to Jean this morning made the school's policy clear to everyone. Although I don't think that I overreacted, and I don't think that you overreacted considering that there wasn't a lot of time to make a decision about what to do and considering that my word hasn't tended to do much in previous situations without intervention, I hope that Jean will be able to continue in the class; he's already sitting on the other side of the room next to Amber, which I think is also an appropriate resolution.
Lena
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Blog Page Resumes, June 30, 2017
When I realized that the school was blaming me for everything again, I finished the rest of the workbook pages for the rest of the summer session and sent them to the Dean of Students, certified mail, with my other graded work (all As). I also did a dozen voice recordings of French readings from the textbook and emailed them to the Dean. I requested that I be able to finish my work for the rest of semester outside of class.
When the Dean's response was to say that she wanted to meet with me in her office with another school administrator, I said that I didn't want to do that unless I could be told before the meeting that it wasn't a meeting about accusing me of being the problem.
The letter of false charges against me seems to be the school's final response to my telling the school that my being harassed in one of my classes during every semester that I've been a student so far means that the school should tell the teachers, staff and students that harassment and bullying won't be tolerated, instead of taking students out of class every semester when they harass me.
Copyright L. Kochman, June 30, 2017 @ 12:26 p.m.
