Girls at the Brookfields School

I found this week's Sharkey article on girls' education in Sierra Leone especially interesting, particularly the section about normalized violence and the mistreatment of girls at the Brookfields School. I can't understand why the principal and teachers fostered a school environment where violence, humiliation, and berating of students was normal. These actions are counter-productive to what the school's mission sets out to do. While the principal gets angry at parents who may be mean to the girls, she acknowledged the physical and verbal violence of teachers towards students, she doesn't even believe in the rights of girls, and she condoned teachers not showing up on a regular basis. I don't understand why the principal would be able to say these things much less believe them. If the institutions that are educating girls' in Sierra Leone don't even really believe in promoting their status, then who do they have on their side? Girls will continue to be taken advantage of and not be able to socially move up after being abused and targeted for much of their lives. I can't even imagine what it must be like for those girls to constantly live in fear and have to remember all the abuse and atrocities they've seen. Knowing that this happens to girls in Sierra Leone and in other countries I'm sure makes me value my own education and how I've been granted the right to it with no problems at all. I admire the girls who actively take a stand against their system in hopes of a better life.