I have to wonder, my friend, why is it OK to date your students?

The BBQ Pit
62

Yondan, “It is “creepy” to be in the position of a teacher and to look at the people for whom you have a responsibility as objects of lust, or even romance.” I see no reason to believe that the two cannot be meaningfully distinguished. I am attracted to one of my bosses; this in no way undermines her authority over me, and does not account for my behavior regarding our capacity as coworkers.

The ability to distinguish contextual behavior is, frankly, rampant across all humankind. since he saw them after any “power” he had over them was no longer in question, I think we can be safe in assuming that it wasn’t an issue until proven otherwise. Love that whole “innocent until proven guilty” thing, I guess. :wink:

63

Well, before you do, know that bell was defending the rights of students and professors to date. She basically said that ALL relationships have weird power dynamics (het relationships, e.g., gotta deal with the different social power accorded to men and to women), and good adults will confront and work through these dynamics; IIRC, she considered it disingenuous to forbid this one type of weird relationship while equally disparate relationships were allowed.

The essay was in Z magazine sometime in the mid-nineties; I don’t remember any better than that.

Daniel

64

(italics mine)

I would say that this relationship didn’t begin in the classroom. Yes, that is where they met. Yes, they were probably attracted to each other within the context of the classroom. Guess what? This happens all the time. That doesn’t make it the beginning of a relationship. The beginning of the relationship is when one of them says something like, “Want to go to dinner/the movies/have hot monkey sex/etc.?”, and the other one says, “Yes!”. Otherwise, it is a mutual attraction, which is hardly enough to make someone “maladjusted and predatory”. Since the relationship did NOT begin in the classroom, IMVHO you are using the wrong standard of judgement.

Note: I am, of course, assuming mutual attraction. I think that if a teacher abuses power to “blackmail” a student into sex, that’s a form of rape. To me, it is no creepier or less creepy than any other form of rape. It certainly doesn’t sound like that is the case here, though, unless further information comes to light.

65

This is a topic that is emotional to me. I am married now but the pain is still there. Not allowing students and professors to date takes on a whole new meaning in a smaller town (pop <15,000) then it does in a city.

The college I taught at did not allow profs to date students. Not a big deal I thought. I took the position, moved 1000 miles away from ‘home’ and was SINGLE.

After I started, I found out the policy was all students and not just my students. I was 24 and most everyone of appropriate dating age was attending or going part time to the college. The guy-gal ratio in Wyoming was already tilted against me and most of my ‘prospects’ were ineligible.

I was excited about starting out in a career and didn’t mind it so much. As time went on, I started wanting more and more to get a girlfriend. It was getting fucking lonely (double entendre intended :wink: )

Not wanting to violate the college rules, I never asked out students but started getting more forward in asking for women’s phone numbers after meeting them. All of a sudden, I had a couple complaints against me for breaking the rules about asking students out. I had to drag my ass into an admin’s office and explain myself. Turns out that I asked out students but I didn’t know. Seems I should have asked for their name, asked them to wait and call the college to see if they were students or something. I guess I could have asked the woman themselves but it is awkward enough the way it is without having to ask things like that starting off.

So, tail between my leg, I drug my sorry ass off to deal and I did. From then on, I asked if they were students. For the next two years, my dating life was ok, not great but I was locked out of the really interesting population. My dates tended to be with uneducated, boring women with no real excitement to me.

Now, another complaint. I went in furious because I was careful! Turns out that someone complained that I asked them out and, while not a student, they were thinking about becoming one!!! She was upset that she would have to aviod my classes since, by rejecting me, I might hold a grudge. They understood my side and agreed I did nothing wrong and then informally TOLD ME NOT TO ASK ANYONE OUT AGAIN. I verified with them that they really, really were serious that I was to never date again and they confirmed it.

I quit that year, moved to a large city and took a non-teaching job. In the first few months I had many dates with attractive, fun, interesting women and ended up marrying one. It was like a breath of fresh air.

Now, in a large city, having a taboo on teacher/student dating should work becareful of what you are asking of profs in smaller towns.

66

To be clear, the main reason I left was because the pay sucked bigtime but the above was also a reason.

67

erislover:

Yumanite:

Dijon Warlock:

Critical1:

OpalCat:

Anyone want to explain why Sua’s remarks don’t apply to what you’re saying?

This is The Straight Dope, friends. If Poster A takes Position X and defends it cogently, then when Poster B takes Position X-complement, s/he’s supposed to try to respond to Poster A’s arguments. Or do we take votes on whose logic is more applicable?

68

Okay, yeah, blah blah blah, adults doing their own thing, after finals, whatever.

The idea of dating former students makes me uncomfortable. I have taught students my age (particularly when I first started TAing) and older, and I simply do not think about my students that way . . . I do not let myself think about them like that.

Okay, admittedly, lightning can strike. You’re lecturing nonchalantly to you your Basketmaking 101 class when suddenly you find your soulmate gazing at you, neglecting his notes on wicker preparation. It happens, and I’m not going to look down my nose at two people in love because of the circumstances under which they met.

But four out of five of his latest girlfriends? That implies a certain, er, pattern of thinking about his students that I don’t think is appropriate. I’d be weirded out if he was my teacher and somebody told me he made a habit of dating people from his class. Is he teaching me, or is he sizing me up as a prospect? Ick!

But once again, adults . . . after finals . . . personal choices . . . yadda yadda.

69

I think Sue’s point is very valid. That’s a difficult thing to quantify, however. Can anadministration make rules re: “Dating is fine, as long as you treat all students fairly.”? The definition and determination of fair treatment gets complex.

It’s interetsting to read the responses against blanket comdemnation of teacher-student relationships; it does help with perspective, given my limited experience with this issue. There was one such at my undergrad institution that, while the two semed happy, caused gossip that undermined the credibility of the professor (I did avoid his classes for that reason). Also, I think my friend brings complications to the issue; he has cheated on his GFs, and one of the student-GFs was (and as far as I know still is) married.

70

Ok, I’ll take a shot RTFirefly.

First of all, legally, it doesn’t matter one fuckwit what people think of this persons behavior. The guy’s actions were not illegal. He did not date his students but waited will they were not his students. She accepted and she is an adult.

Now to Sua’s quote:

The instructor can do anything he wants with his own time. If he wants to spend much time with a woman he likes that is his choice. If he is spending all his official office hour time with these women that is another story but if he wishes to voluntarily spend his free time tutoring someone then it is his own decision. His time is his time to be spent as he wishes. If other students perceive this as unfair, then they can make a contract with him to tutor them, if he wishes, and pay him the money for his time as he chooses. If this doesn’t work out, they can hire someone else.

To say that the instructor cannot be allowed to spend his free time as he wishes is a flagrant violation of his freedoms. Of course, people seem to be very free about depriving teachers of many of their freedoms.

71

Damn it!! I misread Sua’s post! I agree with her if we’re talking about his own students. I was refering to an instructor helping a student NOT his own.

72

RT, Sua said, “Power can be misused in a “positive” way as well.” And you want me to respond to this how? By pointing out the false dichotomy underlying this entire thread: that power must be used? Or how about a different false assumption (if we accept the dichotomy), that power dynamics can be avoided simply by ruling out specific situations?

73

I’d say that’s up to you. But I’m surprised to see you disagreeing without rebuttal of any sort.

Of course, I think your perception of a false dichotomy is itself false: in general, power doesn’t need to be used in order for it to be in play. Right now, I’m in a Diplomacy game. As France, I haven’t attacked Italy. Why? Part of the reason is that he’s always been ready to meet my attack. He hasn’t used his power against me, but its existence has affected my choices.

And there’s no assumption that power dynamics can be avoided by ruling out specific situations; all that’s really being done is to add another power dynamic to it - that of the law, or of university rules. How much good that does, we can argue until the cows come home, but the assumption you refer to isn’t there, IMO.

74

RTFirefly:

I agree with Sua, in that an attraction to a student could result in preferential treatment. I also know that a professor might find certain students annoying or aggravating, and that might influence the way those students are treated. None of that is fair.
However, being attracted to a student, and thereby paying special attention to him/her, is not the sort of thing that can be legislated against, unless it takes the form of grade altering or something else obviously against the rules. My assertion still holds if no one has evidence that he has gone to such lengths. Until you have proof that something like that has happened, you can’t make a case that the guy is abusing his power, even in a positive way.

75

I disagree. They met in class, right? They interacted, right? Attraction began there, right? Seems to me like the relationship began there.

Perhaps you mean to say the romantic phase of their relationship did not begine there. I think this is irrelevant. As a male teacher in high school, I have heard other male teachers discuss in explicit terms how attracted they are to their female students and what they would like to do about it. None of them, to my knowledge, ever did anything about it, but the disturbing thing is, they didn’t think anything was wrong with:
a. thinking about their students in a sexual way, and
b. talking and joking about female students’ bodies in sexual ways.

Now, as a male teacher, I am no saint, and when eighteen year old girls come to school dressed as many girls do these days, it is very difficult not to have certain thoughts. Particularly as high school can be a very highly charged envirnment, as anyone who has any memory of puberty will recall. And, as many have pointed out, it is not illegal to think certain thoughts.

But this is not about legality. It is about ethical behavior. If I were ever to let myself get into the habit of thinking about my students as potential sexual partners, I would be doing both them and myself a terrible injury. It is my responsibility as the teacher to be the adult, to create and maintain an environment where no student has to contend with the possibility that I may or may not be attracted to them in a sexual way. I have also taught at the university level, and the responsiblity for creating a safe place to learn is just as profound there. Students must not be objects. To see them as such would cloud one’s ability to teach responsibly in ways I can’t possibly describe.

Or to put it another way, how does it sound to be able to point a professor out and say, “See that guy? He’s fucked four of his students. Of course, it was after they were in his class, not during the regular semester. Whaddaya think? Should I take his class? Would you?”

I reiterate, any teacher who behaves as the OP describes is maladjusted and predatory.

76

Excellent point.

Thinking back at high school, I remember a few girls talking about male teachers who they (the girls) sensed were gawking at them. Now, maybe these male teachers were, maybe they weren’t. (You know some girls. They imagine everyone is gawking.) But I’ll bet that in some cases, the girls were right. (And your tale of overhearing male teachers talk about students confirms this.) I remember in high school, naive little thing that I was, I just couldn’t believe it. I just couldn’t believe that a teacher would feel this way about any student. It was creepy. VERY creepy.

And even in college, I still thought it was creepy. Maybe that was just me, but I doubt it. And if I knew beforehand that a certain teacher had a habit of asking former students out, I’d feel…weird about that teacher. Come to think of it, I remember a few incidents in high school or college where male teachers treating me “weird”, and I didn’t like it. They weren’t too obvious, but a line had been crossed. A really subtle, subtle line (nothing obviously inappropriate happened, or anything). But I it happened, I didn’t imagine it, and I felt a loss of respect for them.

Just because some students may be cool with it, you have to remember, a lot of students wouldn’t. And that respect and trust that they automatically should give a teacher might be undermined.

I do think BlinkingDuck’s experiences were pretty shitty, though. What a horrible situation to be in. (And the college was completely whacked to expect him to NOT date at all!) I’m not sure what the solution would be in such small-town situations, though.

77
78

A few more things – I just want to emphasize that my reaction to this guy’s behaviour would be different if he were a high school teacher. Although they are similar in some ways, I think there are 2 reasons why the high school and college environments provoke a different response in me:

First, his students are probably all adults (not just in the legal sense), and so if one of them makes the willing decision to go out with this guy, I’m going to assume that she is not being intrinsically damaged by his acquiesence – even if it is a habit for him to date students. We don’t know anything about the woman he is dating currently, but when we call this guy creepy, maladjusted, etc, we are passing judgement on her as well, since she chose to date him. She becomes either a poor deluded victim or another maladjusted person because she likes him. That doesn’t seem right to me.

Second, the power dynamic is not the same in high school as in college. I suspect (although I don’t have a cite) there is less imbalance, since college students have resort to various appeals processes if they feel they have been wronged in class, and they are more likely to take such matters into there own hands as they are more independent. To me, that makes it less likely (although not impossible) that a teacher could dominate a student to the extent that it would be an issue.

Yondan, the minute I hear something that indicates this guy’s students or his girlfriend or his exes have cause to complain about his behavior because he was exercising preferential treatment, or leering at students in class, or trying to influence faculty against his exes, then I’m with you as far as your opinion of this guy. But I cannot and will not jump to that conclusion with the scanty info in the OP. I understand your bias in this regard as a teacher, but I have my own bias, you understand. What neither of us have is many facts about this particular situation.

79

A few more things – I just want to emphasize that my reaction to this guy’s behaviour would be different if he were a high school teacher. Although they are similar in some ways, I think there are 2 reasons why the high school and college environments provoke a different response in me:

First, his students are probably all adults (not just in the legal sense), and so if one of them makes the willing decision to go out with this guy, I’m going to assume that she is not being intrinsically damaged by his acquiesence – even if it is a habit for him to date students. We don’t know anything about the woman he is dating currently, but when we call this guy creepy, maladjusted, etc, we are passing judgement on her as well, since she chose to date him. She becomes either a poor deluded victim or another maladjusted person because she likes him. That doesn’t seem right to me.

Second, the power dynamic is not the same in high school as in college. I suspect (although I don’t have a cite) there is less imbalance, since college students have resort to various appeals processes if they feel they have been wronged in class, and they are more likely to take such matters into there own hands as they are more independent. To me, that makes it less likely (although not impossible) that a teacher could dominate a student to the extent that it would be an issue.

Yondan, the minute I hear something that indicates this guy’s students or his girlfriend or his exes have cause to complain about his behavior because he was exercising preferential treatment, or leering at students in class, or trying to influence faculty against his exes, then I’m with you as far as your opinion of this guy. But I cannot and will not jump to that conclusion with the scanty info in the OP. I understand your bias in this regard as a teacher, but I have my own bias, you understand. What neither of us have is many facts about this particular situation.

Oh, wait – you know what? I just read Cargogal’s most recent reply (don’t know how I missed it before. The guy’s a slimy jerk – not because he’s dating his students, but because he’s an adulterer. Now I’m ready to assume he’s probably not so consciencious in his classroom relations, either.

80

Since they are all adults, I think they should be given the benefit of the doubt until it is demonstrated otherwise.

81

**

**

Yeah, but people will talk that way, no matter how pure the professor and the student’s motives are, and it will undermine the credibility of both of them. Is it worth the risk?