<p>For what reasons is the EMT activity considered “inappropriate”? I would like the OP to answer that question. Also, is it considered inappropriate for the male students as well?</p>
<p>This huff post article should give you some insight</p>
<p>[Hatzolah</a> Controversy: Group of Orthodox Jewish Women Seek To Join All-Male EMT Corps In NYC](<a href=“HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost”>HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost)</p>
<p>Why does the school think that this activity sinks to the level of “running around” and therefore behaving in a way that contradicts their faith? </p>
<p>Would they be against young people participating in aid efforts to the injured during war-time in their homeland? </p>
<p>I understand and respect faiths that want to protect the chastity & reputations of their young people, but I don’t see how working in an organized supervised group that aids injured people does that.</p>
<p>But, I’m not Orthodox Jewish either, so maybe I’m missing an important aspect.</p>
<p>This is why I could never be an Orthodox Jew. Given how restrictive a girl’s life is from an early age, I am surprised you got this far in an EMT career. As soon as I saw the title, I knew this was someone from an Orthodox Jewish community. Good luck.</p>
<p>To the OP, quit now, finish your degree, and then MOVE ON. You can be an EMT in nine months when you graduate.</p>
<p>P.S. My daughter is an EMT. It is a male dominated field and they very much need more women EMTs. Congratulations on getting that EMT license…you will certainly be able to use it in the future.</p>
<p>Well, that article linked above supports the idea of working with females, both colleagues and patients, so it will be interesting to see what happens with that for young people like the original poster.</p>
<p>I am curious though. My EMT class had both males and females in it, and we worked on each other. How have you gotten through the class itself?</p>
<p>Although I’m not Orthodox myself, I do want to clarify that not all Orthodox Jews feel this way at all. There are plenty of Modern Orthodox women who engage as fully in the secular world as men do, albeit perhaps dressed slightly more modestly.</p>
<p>If OP’s school is this extreme, they aren’t going to budge. There are Orthodox schools that expel kids because they come from households with a TV. Given that she has the internet, I’m guessing her school isn’t even remotely one of the worst out there.</p>
<p>Since it is senior year, if transferring to the public school or a different day school is not an option, either/both because of incompatible requirements or parental refusal, I suggest that OP just wait out the year and do everything - and I mean everything - in her power to make sure she’s in a different kind of environment next year, both academically and religiously. </p>
<p>Good luck, OP. As you probably know, there are many, many types of Jewish communities out there, including other Orthodox communities. You can find a place more congenial to your own beliefs without going “off the derech,” whatever the narrow-minded elements of your community may think.</p>
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<p>Bad choice of words on my part. Can you instead simply accept the premise that some communities prefer that interactions between their young, unmarried men and women be either quite public (a transaction in a store, for example) or supervised? The standard is the same for men and women, and working in a coed ambulance crew would simply not pass muster. (And this is certainly not unique to religious Jews.)</p>
<p>Not just interacting in a coed ambulance, but also working on the patients or clients, some of whom will be the opposite sex, maybe in various states of exposure. Not what some conservative religions envision for their 17 y.o. gals.</p>
<p>I have absolutely no respect for this sort of religious restriction, even though it applies to men as well as women. And I don’t care which religion is involved. I feel absolutely no obligation to pretend that I do. I do respect people’s RIGHT to hold their beliefs, whatever they may be. (Even people who withhold life-saving medical care from their children have a right to those beliefs, although whether they have the right to act on them and kill their children is another matter. But that is outside the scope of this thread.)</p>
<p>At this point, you appear to be stuck. Either you persuade your parents to allow you to go to another school, or you quite the EMT program for now.</p>
<p>It is up to your family whether they wish to conform to this type of expectation. Jews run the gamut from secular to ultra-orthodox. Most ultimately define their own level of observance, in my experience…except, perhaps, the ultra-orthodox who have a choice between conforming or being estranged from their community.</p>
<p>At some point, you will find yourself making your own decisions about the life you wish to lead. But as a minor, you are going to be constrained by your parents’ wishes.</p>
<p>The biggest threat you can make to this school is threatening to go public to local media.</p>
<p>There are many laws against all kinds of discrimination (such as against National Guard), but no one has ever discriminated against an EMT before, so no one wrote a law against it.</p>
<p>Many public and private colleges operate their own EMT volunteer staff, to provide a quicker initial response than regular ambulance crews, and to provide a resume builder for their pre-med students.</p>
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<p>LOL, but if you must, do this after you graduate. </p>
<p>Getting expelled is really not worth the hassle. Just conform until you graduate. They must cooperate with you applying to secular colleges though. That would be my big concern.</p>
<p>So according to the Huff Post article, men in the Hatzolah EMT service treat women, but women aren’t allowed to serve, even to treat only women!</p>
<p>From the article:
Bingo. Every religion that represses women uses the excuse that they are being protected and kept pure.</p>
<p>People, get a grip.</p>
<p>OP- you are a teenager living under your parents roof. Your parents chose this school- unless you are being tortured or abused there, live out your senior year and then start to make your own choices.</p>
<p>I can’t imagine a conversation where your parents agree for you to drop out or get expelled from HS all to support your constitutional right to be an EMT.</p>
<p>I know many Haredi families, and I agree with ClassicRockerDad- getting to college is a far bigger hurdle (and frankly, a battle worth fighting) vs. this silly fight over riding in an ambulance. Don’t aggravate your parents over this minor skirmish; save your powder for the bigger issue of going to college.</p>
<p>Are you in high school or college? </p>
<p>Personally, I would suggest that you contact the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). They should be able to tell you whether you have any rights while staying in the private school. </p>
<p>The ACLU may find your “case” very interesting, and they can bring a lot of pressure to bear if they do . . .public pressure . . .might be worth a call.</p>
<p>Yes, the first amendment guarantees a minor the right to participate in an extra curricular activity that her parents object to.</p>
<p>My kids should have sued me for not allowing them to have toy guns in the house; for not allowing them dirt bikes; for insisting that they take public transportation instead of having me quit my job to chauffeur them to their activities after school.</p>
<p>Exactly what right is being infringed upon here? OP may object to how the (private) school is run which is certainly her prerogative. But unless she wants the hassle of being expelled, dropping out, or having her senior year become a stink bomb, she needs to wait this out. Nobody is making her take crystal meth for god’s sake… she wants to engage in an activity which is culturally unacceptable, and therefore, she needs to wait until the end of the school year to participate in it.</p>
<p>This is worth the ACLU’s time??? I will rip up my membership card if they spend 15 minutes of a lawyer’s time on this groundless and frivolous matter. No insult intended to the OP- but really- they are dealing with transgender kids getting beat up walking home from school every day, and tens of thousands of African Americans being denied their right to vote by illegal polling practices-- can we agree that there are bigger fish to fry than this???</p>
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<p>Okay, people? That should be the end of this discussion.</p>
<p>Sorry, but no newspaper, no lawyer, and no civil rights advocate is going to be interested . . . so let’s drop it already, okay?</p>
<p>I agree that this is not something that the ACLU should waste its time on.</p>
<p>But I highly object to being told to “drop it.” If people want to discuss it, they have the RIGHT to do so, as long as they don’t transgress the TOS.</p>
<p>Let’s continue to discuss- but in the vein of giving the OP some helpful coping strategies, rather than encouraging her to go to the media, hire a lawyer, or take it to the ACLU.</p>
<p>Posters here sometimes forget when they are talking to a teenager, who is reaching out to strangers on the internet for perspective, information, and guidance which for whatever reason, they can’t get in real life. To me, that means being conscious that your advice could set a kid wildly astray (like to try and get expelled from HS senior year to prove a point) even when you would never, ever, give that kind of advice if it were your neighbor or a kid you were mentoring in your own community.</p>
<p>We all had stupid rules to follow in HS. Let’s maintain that perspective, even if talking to a kid who comes from a religious or cultural tradition you don’t understand and even actively disdain. I don’t buy in to Texas football culture, but I would never tell a kid from Texas who was posting in despair about the lack of social options for a kid not so inclined that her community is sexist or stupid or oppresses women. I think MommaJ’s posts might have crossed the line but I’m not a moderator and I don’t get to decide who violate the terms of service.</p>
<p>Good points, Blossom, re talking to a teen.</p>