The Worst Thing

I've been debating over whether I should post this, but it's the kind of problem that remains ignored for too long anyway in my profession, so I feel that more words on the subject are required. An incident has happened at my school. The particulars of this incident are still being sorted out, and I will not name the parties involved. But whenever anyone has asked me how school has been over the past week, I've had only one response and it's a question: What's the worst thing a teacher can do? The answer that people have given has always been the same, no matter who I've asked. No one talks about beatings or belittlement or any of the other far more common teacher sins. There's only one worst thing a teacher can do: have sex with a student. And that, in short, is the accusation that is currently creating a storm of distrust, concern, and complete bafflement at my school.

A male teacher has been accused of sleeping with a female 11th grade student at my school. You won't find this in the national headlines, so don't bother checking. See, if you want to find national news stories about teachers sleeping with students, it has to be a female teacher with a male student. Those stories are all over the news, brimming with a sick, smug satisfaction that borders on tacit approval of such behavior. It's almost seen as a socially acceptable thing for a young male student to get it on with an older woman. Van Halen was apparently ahead of the curve regarding this cultural bias.

There's no similar sentiment regarding the opposite situation. A male teacher who goes after one of his female student is almost universally regarded as a creepy old guy preying on innocent children. I'm not sure why we seem, as a society, to be less likely to view female sexual predators in a different light than their male counterparts, but at the same time I'm concerned about the lack of concern for the opposite charge. I don't think the dearth of reporting of male teacher/female student relations indicates a lack of reportable cases; I think it indicates the fact that such situations are too common to be considered newsworthy. Examples of female teachers behaving badly are still uncommon (and, apparently, titillating) enough to sell some serious newspapers. But I cringe when I consider how many incidents are being quietly swept under the rug in order to keep up appearances at schools all over the country. One doesn't have to look far back into history to find other instances of child abuse on a sweeping scale being covered by bureaucracy, deception, and a cynical shell game.

In this particular instance, I don't know if the accusations against this teacher are true. I've obviously known him for all the years that I've been teaching in my school; he's a man with whom I've shared drinks, meals, laughs and many conversations. I have many fond memories of this man. But every last one of them has been stained by this new information. It's like my radar's been broken. If this did actually happen, how did I not know? How did I miss the signs? Were there any signs to see? The worst part of all of this is that I don't find myself dismissing the allegations out of hand, as I'm sure I would were they brought up against most teachers in my school, or anywhere else for that matter. He never was a teacher to play by the rules, and always seemed to err on the side of being too friendly with the students. I can't say for certain that this isn't another line that he would cross.

One thing I always tell my students is that, though I'm friendly with them, I can never be their friend. Friends cover for you. Friends will lie for you and keep secrets. I can't do that. I have people I need to tell, if my students tell me certain secrets. I have professional obligations that demand that I keep a professional distance, no matter how much I want to help my students sort out their messed up lives. It's clear that the accused teacher at my school has not lived by the same boundaries. He got too close, he was more of a friend than an authority figure, and now it's impossible to separate fact from fiction in what has become a classic case of he-said-she-said.

I'm appalled that a situation ever arose where such an accusation could even be plausible. I'm sorry that I can't completely dismiss the possibility that it could have happened. Most of all, I'm sorry for my friend. The damnable thing is that I like this guy. I'm angry that he made decisions which caused these allegations to have some weight. I'm disgusted by the possibility that they might be true. I can't help thinking that I should have been able to see this coming. I'm hoping against hope that everything will turn out to be a big misunderstanding.