I’d worry more if this was 1990. These days any 9 year old can go to google image and search on" tits sex" etc and see extremely xxx graphic images.
Somehow a few sexually descriptive words in a limerick pale in comparison.
As a parent the issue is not if my freshman has seen worse (which actually I am not so sure my daughter has, despite the fact that she clearly could) but the judgement of the teacher and what it says about the risk he represents.
Imagine a teacher molested kids and was determined that he had this in his past and was allowed to continue to work with 14 year olds unsupervised … what do you think would happen?
I agree the teacher’s actions are disturbing. Its like a final F U to his job before quitting. He’s permanently burned his bridges now. He won’t get another teaching job anytime soon.
Google Image search is strange. Tits gives clothed results. Sex is racy but not explicit. Search on Tits Sex together :eek: it gets XXX a flood of porn images
funny how one word doesn’t trigger the porn results. Seems to require two.
In high school one of my math teachers explained what a convex was was by drawing a cartoon penis (picture “ono” with a tall “n”).
Sure got everyone’s attention in the classroom, buy I’m sure anyone present would have thought insane to get the teacher in trouble over it.
My HS math teacher was about 5 years older than time. I doubt he would have remembered what was below Eve’s leaf.
The year was 1969 and miniskirts were in fashion. My sixth grade teacher was about 70 years old, morbidly obese and was considered to be the meanest, toughest teacher in the school.
She got talking about miniskirts and then asked the question: “Why do they call them duck skirts? Because they barely cover the quack.”
A moment later she blushes and said “I probably shouldn’t have said that…”
Reminds me of when my wife and I went to watch the rather raunchy movie “The Sweetest Thing” a few years ago. My wife noticed that there were a couple of older women (meaning: with gray hair) a few rows ahead of us. I didn’t really take note but at the point when the character played by Cameron Diaz made like she was going down on the character played by Christina Applegate while they’re in a moving vehicle the two old women took their leave. Might’ve made sense to read the reviews on that one first, ladies.
That reminds me of “The Ballad of Big-Ass Lil and Yukon Pete,” which would make Eskimo Nell blush.
Okay, I have a bit of a problem with the content - certainly not appropriate for any adult, let alone a teacher, to be reading to a bunch of kids. But I have a much bigger problem with the fact that that is a fucking terrible poem (and a terrible fucking poem I guess).
Agree only with the first clause: “This OTOH was inappropriate behavior”. It’s bad poetry irrelevant to a Math class, and identifies him as a failure as a teacher. Needs supervised instruction if he is ever to become a teacher.
If the school system can’t or is unwilling to provide supervised instruction, yes, fire him: sad, but I don’t want incompetent teachers.
The jump from “incompetent” to “as risk” is unsupported. Two different things. Not related. Speaking as an ex-student, ex-adolescent-male, ex-teacher, ex-trainee-teacher, I’ve seen people make mistakes exactly like this when failing as teachers or failing as foolish ignorant adolescents. Sometimes just when distracted and off point, which is something that happens more often to failing teachers.
And disagree with that.
This wasn’t JohnGalt’s 70 year old teachers mistake of a moment - or most of the other “oops, I forgot I was talking to kids” or “did I say that aloud” instances. Every human being does that. This is a long recitation of poetry (bad poetry). That’s not distracted and off point. That indicates some premeditation. Which indicates some really bad judgement about what is appropriate around his students. Which indicates there is risk.
My teacher friends avoid such ordinary language as “that sucks” due to the sexual connotations. They don’t want to get into trouble.
And probably has masterbated at some time in his life, maybe even browsed porn.
I think that the original discussion was about his behaviour in class. This is the first time I’ve seen a suggestion that he should be fired because at some previous point in his life he committed bad poetry to memory.
If at some future point, he did something bad, you’d be able to say “I knew there was something wrong with him”. On the other hand, if someone else did something wrong, you’d be able to say “I never expected that from him”. Both are common reactions: prediction is notoriously difficult.
Being a bad teacher is predictive of being a bad teacher. Criminal behaviour is predictive of criminal behaviour. There is a natural inclination to make up patterns and associations between random events: it’s how the mind works. But most criminal behaviour by teachers is by teachers who love kids and have a very good teaching reputation. There is equal evidence to support both the contention that “bad judgement” such as described here is both a predictor of risk and is a protector against risk of criminal behavior.
This just reminded me that up until a couple years ago I had a wrong idea of the anti-class-division couplet “When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?” Delving in this case referring to literally creating holes in the ground, i.e. farming, and “span” being the past tense of “spinning” fabric, and not creating a span for Adam to delve into :smack:
The problem isn’t criminal behavior, the problem is the civil liability created by ignoring this behavior. IF something happens, this incident will be pulled out, and the school - and citizens in the form of tax dollars, will be paying for it for a long time. Other kids will suffer as budget cuts are put in place to pay for the schools negligence in letting him continue to teach.
If something doesn’t happen, but he gets accused of something without witnesses, this is going to be a strike against him - and some sixteen year old is going to watch him fry over a bad grade. And the district will still take a hit.
If he has such bad judgement not to understand that, teaching isn’t a good profession for him anyway.
Maybe he put no kids at risk and is of no risk to kids, however, his behavior put the district at financial risk. You don’t get to expose your employer to significant risk and keep your job.
Which is why we should take every opportunity to point out that letting him continue to teach is not negligent.
I was sitting at home last night watching TV as a victim of school negligence quoted from the letter of recomendation about the the teacher who abused him, and questioned why the school administration would write such a letter. Schools should be held responsible for negligence: bad teachers are a distraction from the real risks.
OTOH, there’s Sir Toby’s comment on Sir Andrew’s hair in Twelfth Night: “it hangs like flax on a distaff; and I hope to see a housewife take thee between her legs and spin it off.”
Bad teaching would be if this was an English class and he presented it as an example of literature for serious study, on par with pointing out the dirty jokes in Shakespeare. Or if he was ineffective at explaining math concepts.
What he did was not bad teaching. It was not teaching at all. It was abusing a position of power over freshman students in a manner with sexual connotations with no teaching connection whatsoever.
Is this as abusive as molestation? Of course not. Does it flag someone as a significant increased risk for that? You betcha. No cite, sorry. But no way as a parent would I allow that teacher to be in a position of power over my 13 year old daughter. This was not ineffective behavior, it was disturbed behavior.
Does he do it when he’s teaching class? :dubious:
This is stupid. If someone presented that poem as part of their official duties at work, they would get fired. Why should we hold hold teachers to a lower standard? Threats aside, it’s inappropriate and shows poor judgement.