Hot For Teacher, Episode #248
When I got my first teaching job in 1980, my Principal told me that the fastest way to get fired from that job was to fool around with one of my students. He said, “...it’s OK to be friendly with your students, but you can’t be be friends with your students.”
Always amazws me that these so-called adults can’t find meaningful relationships with people their own age. That’s indicative of serious problems.
Posted by MAJ Mike
12/14/2005 at 08:15 AM
A part of me wants to agree with you but there are also 2 other voices I hear.
One of course is the part of me that says “man, why couldn’t that have been me when I was 15???
The other part says that in the case of boys (oh yeah I know, its a double standard) we are making more out of these deals than they are. You would really have to look far to see any long term harm that has been done to these guys.
Tell me all of you guys out there answer me this question: if some reasonably attractive female teacher had come on to you when you were that age, would you have been harmed? Would it have been worse than any of the other relationship diasters that you have suffered thru during that period or since?
Until you can answer those points honestly, I think we should stop looking to get people’s heads on a platter.
And yes, it is different for boys than girls. While the female adult might get pregnant she is old enough to understand the need for birth control. The female youth does not, and a girl with an older man is totally different because the emotional issues are different. These kinds of relationships just do not leave the lasting effects on boys that they do girls.
”Lasci-vicious Battery” I love it!
I’ll bet there are plenty more male teachers doing this that don’t make headlines.
Posted by Oink
12/14/2005 at 09:08 AM
All valid points.
However, a sufficiently mature ADULT should be making choices other than those depicted in these recent news stories.
Like they say, “...15 will get you 20!” For me, a false accusation of fraternization is more damaging than anything else I could think of in the classroom. I make it a policy to never be alone in a classroom with a student and I’m very careful about being “huggy/squeezy” with my students.
Again, I’ve always followed my first Principal’s advice about being friendly, but not friends with my students.
A classroom isn’t supposed to be a source of dates for the instructor.
Posted by MAJ Mike
12/14/2005 at 09:42 AM
Geeze, back in the stone age when I was in school, the teachers were doin’ each other. That’s the way it’s supposed to be done, if only to have something for the students to gossip about.
Then there were the drunks. You could catch a buzz if you knew which teacher to have breath on you after lunch. I used to catch my homeroom teacher near the end of the day for the aroma of one of Scotland’s finest products.
Will Durant, anybody?
SinKerr:
It was, indeed, a Golden Age.
Posted by MAJ Mike
12/14/2005 at 01:29 PM
I thought the blonde teacher was better looking....
I guess it was the sexist, age-ist era I grew up in, but in my school daze the hot young teachers fresh out of college always taught kindergarten to third grade. The ones teaching high school were all in their mid- to late-forties and older. And married too. Is that such a bad thing really?
I went through 12 years of Catholic school........there was not a hint of scandal involving students & teachers, even tho we had a couple of priest teachers that were absolute “hunks”...............but we never entertained ideas of seducing these priests...........we had a couple of girls become pregnant & they left school to go to a “home for unwed mothers” - we never heard from them again................How times have changed!!!!!!
Posted by Dottie
12/14/2005 at 09:11 PM
The worst behavior by my teachers was that two of them smoked in the school furnace room. One of our Seniors was slightly preggers at the Prom. I met her at the 40th Reunion, a great gal, funny and full of verve.
Posted by Oink
12/14/2005 at 09:30 PM
Hmm seems like these cases have increased here since the crazy class-size ammendment was voted in..... kinda like the no pig gestation crate ammendment… Useless… the student-teacher ratio doesn’t matter much if awful teachers are being hired.. an awful teacher will be the same with 5 kids as they are with 40 while a good teacher will be at ease in a class of 25-35 students… notice this was a new hire and might not have even been hired if the school districts hadnt been under the gun to meet the class-size ammendment’s requirements..
heh, luckily the ocala judge didn’t agree with the no prison time because she was too pretty for jail defense.. looks like that 1 will be going back to trial..
Oink, how can you be ‘slightly’ preggers? Isn’t that like being ‘slightly’ dead?
*looks innocent*
Btw-When I was in high school(’84-’88) one of the male gym teachers-he was the guys track coach too-was ALWAYS flirting with the ladies-even ME!
a couple of years after I graduated he was charged with statuatory rape.
It seemed that the student who he was sleeping with-I knew of her-got ticked after a spat and decided to get even.Posted by Annoying Little Twerp
12/15/2005 at 10:06 AM
Barb: We had a H.S. teacher who was sweet on the girls and gave them unfair breaks in grading. But he was a grandfatherly type who never had a whisper of a rumor that he touched them sexually.
There was a case at my kid’s public schools of teachers doing the Wild Thing in nooks and crannies at the school. Also a principal was arrested for soliciting other men at a public toilet. Classy. All were prompty canned.
Posted by Oink
12/15/2005 at 11:34 AM
Ah, to be young again back in the good ole days
Now we have to worry about the “No Bureaucrat Left Behind” Act and listen to people who haven’t taught a real class in 15 years about how awful teachers we are (OK—it’s tangled and a run-on sentence, but you get the drift).
We’re worried more about guns on campus than we are chewing gum in class.
I blame it on Global Warming!!
Posted by MAJ Mike
12/16/2005 at 09:53 AM
Tangled but we get the drift? Are you in the math department?
Just what kind of harm do authorities believe was done to the 15 year old boy? His friends probably suffered from terminal envy, but I couldn’t see that he suffered anything beyond incredible luck.
Posted by Mad Jack
12/16/2005 at 10:18 AM
