Teen Dating Education in All Schools

Linda always knew what she wanted to do in her life. She wanted to go to Brown University, major in education, and become a professor or at least a teacher in a private school.She met Tim when they both were in their Junior year. He was a football player, but that made no difference to Linda, she loved how he treated her. Suddenly, in their senior year, he changed. Nobody knows why he changed, but he suddenly needed to know where Linda was all the time. He needed to know who she was with, where she was, and why she was doing those things without him. He began making comments about the speed in which she answered his texts, and started questioning why her Facebook posts weren't talking about him as much they could.

During their first semester finals, Tim sent Linda a text asking what she was doing. Linda was in the middle of a very stressful, very long, Trigonometry final. She knew that if she answered the vibrations that continued again and again in her pocket, she would fail the test. She needed to get an "A" on this test. The door of the classroom swung open and Tim walked directly over to Linda. Before the teacher or Linda could do anything, Tim yelled at her about ignoring his text and punched her across the face. Linda flew out of her chair, and by the time she hit the floor of the classroom; Tim was gone.

Tim and Linda were both pulled into the office immediately. They were both suspended for fighting. Tim's father screamed and yelled about his son's future in football, and how there were scouts at the next game. If his son was suspended, he wouldn't be able to play and wouldn't be able to pull out his "C" average. Tim was allowed to come back to school in order to win the game and take his finals. Linda was forced to make them up after school.

When the new semester started, Tim was in every one of her classes. The texts get worse, but this time, they were hurtful and mean. They also weren't just from Tim anymore, they were from every student who thought they knew what happened. Unfortunately, they only knew Tim's side. Linda couldn't handle the stress or the fear of being hit again, and dropped out. She decided not to go to Brown, and went to the community college down the road, so she wouldn't have to be around Tim or any other boys. Tim did get picked up by Brown University and went on to play football for them.

This is a reality for many women and men in our schools right now. For this reason, the Florida legislation put through an unfunded bill in the summer of 2010 that states every student in Florida State schools must go through teen dating abuse education in sixth grade, seventh grade, eight grade, ninth grade, tenth grade, eleventh grade, and finally twelfth grade. They believe students need this much exposure because the more a person hears a message, the deeper it sinks into their head. Not only are the schools forced to teach it, they are tasked with creating a curriculum and a set of policies on teen dating violence.

The Department of Education has partnered with the Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence to create both the curriculum and the policy. Starting in the 2011-2012 school year, the middle school and high school students of the counties of Florida will begin being taught about the value of humanity, the value of a loving relationship, and finally the evil that is teen dating violence and abuse.

Hopefully, Linda's story will no longer be the norm as it once was.