Another story of a teacher forced out of a job because of something they posted on a website that got found by the wrong people:
Don’t get me wrong. I think teachers need to keep their sexual hi-jinks out of the classroom. But when they are away from the classroom, I think they should be allowed to be sexual beings. So long as they take reasonable precautions to see that their sexual stuff stays out of class, they should be allowed to do what they like, so long as its legal. This teacher was apparently posting her stuff under a pseud. Passes the “reasonable precautions” test for me.
I really don’t see how being a goth vampire chick prevents her from teaching math, history, reading or whatever.
Apparently she was teaching for a church-run high school. It doesn’t exactly surprise me that a religious-affiliated school doesn’t like vampire erotica.
Morals aside, I can see how it could be considered disruptive and counterproductive to teaching if all the kids in class are snickering amongst themselves about seeing sexy stories/pics on her websites. I would have been pretty creeped out if I had discovered as a teen that one of the middle-aged teachers at my high school had erotica websites (but back when I was in high school, hardly anyone knew about the web, thank goodness ).
When you have a career where you interact with the public, I think you do have to err on the side of caution about what you post online.
I’ve always thought this is a really lame argument. If the kids continue snickering after class starts, they should be sent to the principal and given detention. Since the tecaher won’t be teaching in the halls, there no harm in letting them snicker there.
It’s about respect. That was merely an example of a lack of respect.
In spite of the idea that people should be free to do anything they want to outside of work, what you do can dramatically affect how people see you at work, and when you are the example for children it is imperative that they respect you. Without that respect you’re wasting the time of all involved and hurting the future of the children you are teaching.
But that’s nothing but conjecture. If you can demonstrate that the teacher’s kids come out of her class not knowing key concepts from the course, then it’s a different story. A teacher gets kids’ respect by knowing the subject. They don’t need to know what the teacher is in real life, or approve if they do.
Just once I’d like to see one single for the oft-repeated claim that high school students will “lose respect” for a teacher with a sex life outside the classroom. Just. Once.
Does anyone even remember high school anymore? Who were the cool teachers, people? The ones who had a life! The ones who went to Europe and performed in the theater and dared to deviate just a little from the curriculum to encourage you to read good books that you *liked *in order to learn about symbolism, and who admitted that Faulkner is boring as shit. Y’know, the real people. The ones we knew were getting laid more than we were.
I’ll trot it out again, just like the last three “OMG, the 17 year olds might find out that their 35 year old teachers know about penises!” threads: my high school geometry teacher was indeed in Penthouse, and every year it was “discovered”, and every year someone brought in the pics and every year we giggled about and whispered scandal before class and every year as soon as she started teaching, we didn’t give a flying fuck and we shut up and we learned. Because she was an excellent teacher, and seeing her snatch didn’t affect that one bit. This wasn’t back in some nostalgic era when children respected their elders, this was in the early 90’s. Kids today, if anything, are MORE savvy about online personas and their separation from everyday life.
I remember the time – late 60’s – when the high school history teacher came in with a hickie on her neck. Now understand me, this was no Sear’s hickie. This was an industrial strength hickie just short of a vampire bite visible from the back of the classroom. (I don’t know why she didn’t wear a neck scarf. Hell, maybe it happened 5 minutes before she left for work and considered herself lucky to have a change of clothes. )
Ya gotta know we said something.
All of us …]
And here’s the surprising part – for all of about 60 seconds.
Yup, one minute.
As I recall, she turned red, made a feeble effort to deny everything, refused to answer any questions, blushed, laughed at some of the pithier comments (AWRIGHT Miss C!!! complete with whistling, stamping feet and scattered applause)…
…and went back to teaching.
To give you an idea of the demographics, morals and mores, it was
[ol]
[li]a public school with something of a “greaser” reputation (N.B. not the derogatory definition. See Greaser (subculture) - Wikipedia for disambiguation)[/li]
[li]40+ years ago[/li]
[li]in middle-class Wheaton, Maryland.[/li][/ol]
And that ended it. Nobody complained. No sanctions. Life in suburban DC went on pretty much the same as before.
I have no idea what the parents of these high school kids thought they could be “impressioned” with that they hadn’t already come in contact with at this stage of their development.
What happened to the teacher in the OP makes me want to spew. :mad:
We respected Mrs Imaz TONS for talking to us straight about sex. Our parents sure didn’t. And it’s not like anybody can think that a woman with 8 kids has never done the naughty
I’m thinking that St Christopher’s Church of England High School has more leeway in this regard than, say, Margaret Thatcher High School.
I’m thinking that St Christopher’s Church of England High School might object on the grounds that, in their view, vampire erotic fiction is inconsistent with Christian teaching, whereas Margaret Thatcher High School, not being involved in Christian teaching, would have more trouble making that point.
)
