shuggy's blog
I sometimes wonder whether the whole doctrine of Human Rights isn't bogus. I suspect that Civil Rights is nearer the mark; our rights are specific to the civis of which we are part, and being part of a civis brings duties too.
Surely this isn't just a matter of the age of the pupil anyway. It arises because the teacher is invariably in a position of authority over the pupils in his school. Teachers are trusted not to take unfair advantage of that authority. So any relationship is a betrayal of that trust. It is the same for the medical profession and their patients, regardless of age.
Probably the worst are the slime-balls who allow the situation to develop but cover their backs by waiting a few months until after the pupil has left.
It arises because the teacher is invariably in a position of authority over the pupils in his school.
Agreed - but the point is that what would be properly understood as an abuse of trust and a violation of professional ethics in any other context is classed as child-abuse in the case of 16-18 year olds.
Probably the worst are the slime-balls who allow the situation to develop but cover their backs by waiting a few months until after the pupil has left.
Yeah - manipulative creeps. What gets me is the way some people insist that 'these things happen'. People make them happen.
I am not for talk of 'slimeballs'. Nor can I see the value of restricting your terms to sex. Sex is what happens at the end of a process. What actually happens at the beginning and in the course of that process is actually more potent and destabilising, i.e. romance / desire, which an extraordinarily complex range of feeling, so complex I can't even quite decide which of the two terms to use. Nor is it considered a dishonourable state of being, a dishonourable process. People are attracted to each other on various terms and it's not always simply because they want to screw each other. If that was all they wanted, almost anyone would do. That is pathology. The rest is just life.
Life is: you put normally attractive people in the same place together for some time and you don't expect them to notice it.
We cannot and should not legislate, or even attempt to legislate, against feeling and thought. We legislate against action. We act against action.
But action is not entirely divorced from thought and feeling so it is far from easy. Laws about incitement to action are notoriously difficult to apply without infringing on freedoms we might be sorry to give up.
Forget the 'slimeballs'. The issue is not desire. The issue of the 'slimeball' who waits until the student has left is the same as the issue of the man who waits to light a cigarette until he leaves the premises. Just think of that! The slimeball! All that time he has been wanting to smoke!
Let's not fall into the common danger of collapsing categories when it suits us. Slimeballs don't need school or other institutes of education. Most of the time we are dealing with people who behave, on the whole, like most normal people. That at any rate should be the basic assumption.
The only thing that matters is the contract and its moral and other implications for duty. If a teacher has an affair with a student the job must suffer in every respect. Objectivity vanishes. Bad tensions are set up in class. The problem with the 'slimeball' might be that the potential relationship becomes a problem in the class: that it prevents the fulfilment of the contract.
Feel what you like, but act according to your contract. If you don't like the contract, leave the job. If you want to keep the job, stick to the contract. In that, I agree with Shuggy.
I suspect use of the term 'slimeballs' is transferred frustration. When I was in school, a rather gorgeous female teacher was reputed to be going out with the rugby captain. Big bloody oaf! we thought. What the hell does she see in him? We expected her to be concerned with more than his potential in bed. And this 'we' included all those who sang rugby songs about shagging etc. As I remember the 'affair', it passed and nothing much happened. This was about 1966. Maybe the World Cup distracted us.
We generally assume it is men leching on girls. But it could be women on boys and sometimes has ben. And it isn't necessarily l
To finish my sentence - and it was the last one:
We generally assume it is men leching on girls. But it could be women on boys and sometimes has been. And it isn't necessarily lechery either. Which is the point of my comment. In other words, let's not be bloody stupid or hypocritical about it.
A cigarette is not a person, nor has it been groomed to be receptive to being smoked.
If for a couple of years a teacher has been wanting to shag a student and has arranged or manipulated matters so that he can do so when it is 'safe', then I'll stick with 'slimeball', despite the complexities of romance/desire.
I suspect use of the term 'slimeballs' is transferred frustration.
Suspect away.
You stick to shagging then, Don, and grooming and slimeballs, and the rest of the vocabulary.It's all there in the News of the World. Five or six wiords should do it.
It is not unknown for people to develop slightly more complex relationships.
Just saying, like.
Know what you're saying George but I've heard of teachers who do this on a regular basis. There's nothing 'complex' about this - these teachers like shagging young girls whom they wouldn't have been able to come within five miles of in normal social contexts like pubs and clubs. This strikes me as pretty simple really. Don is right to describe this as 'grooming'. If you don't like the term 'slimeball' what would you use? Also...
I suspect use of the term 'slimeballs' is transferred frustration.
C'mon man - spare us the amateur psychology. There's enough of that kind of crap in the blogosphere already; it's unworthy of you.
Know what you're saying George but I've heard of teachers who do this on a regular basis.
Is that knowing or hearing, Shuggy? If it's a genuine case of 'grooming' the other part of my argument applies. It is still against the contract.
I don't think slimeballs is a bad term for some, but I am generally against the use of News of the Screws terms in normal life.
I always think excessive heat in arguing something suggests a more than normal excitement. And why? Where is the moral outrage directed? I am not suggesting Don or anyone else is guilty of that which they charge others of, I just wish people wouldn't immediatly resort to tabloid clubs to beat people over the head with. It looks like witch-hunting to me. Like beating up paediatricians because you mistake them for paedophiles. All paedos.
It doesn't have to be very complex.Just complex enough to make it possible to talk about without spitting and gouging.
I loathe talk of 'those' slimeballs. It's like the teachers you have 'heard of'. If you know, produce the evidence and do something. The rest is self-righteous crap.
Anent the first comment: 'civis' is Latin for a citizen; 'civitas' is, among other things, a union of citizens in the sense used in the comment. Just saying, like, to coin a phrase.
What is "just saying, like" in Latin?
Given that the phrase, 'Just saying, like' is used almost always in the ironic mode, I imagine that something like 'tu quoque, cinaede' would do the trick.
Like beating up paediatricians because you mistake them for paedophiles. All paedos.
It's nothing like this at all and you saying it is makes me think you've completely missed the point of my post, which was this: the present legal position is that a teacher who has an affair with a 17 year old pupil is treated like Gary Glitter. Well not quite - but they are both legally deemed to be guilty of child abuse. This strikes most people, including myself, as a rather stupid situation that fails to do justice to the human situation. However, this should not deter us from expressing our strong disapproval of those who either don't seem to understand, or do understand but don't care, where their responsibilities lie. Don and myself don't think it is inappropriate to call the latter 'slimeballs' - or something with similar import. I have to be frank here George - the idea that this puts us in the same category as those who beat up paediatricians is as absurd as it is offensive.
Missed this:
If you know, produce the evidence and do something.
You've implied in a number of different ways that there's some kind of emotionalism behind what myself and Don have written here. I can assure you that I was, and am, perfectly calm when I have been writing here. But I'm seriously beginning to wonder why you're getting so worked up. What - I've to produce evidence of something that is not only not a crime but technically isn't even a case of professional misconduct and 'do something' about it? Because you say so? What are you on about? I, we, are simply saying it's a bit creepy. I think most people would agree. You, on the other hand, find 'complexity' everywhere. Whatever.
Yes, I get cross when people throw around terms that seem to me irrational and potentially harmful. Of course you, personally, are not going to beat up paediatricians. But the people who did, did so because the News of the World prepared the ground for them.
I'd get just as worked up if you started dividing the world into blacks and whites in News of the World language. The quarrel isn't with your original post - I fully agree with your definition of duty - but with the stoking up of it with 'assholes' and 'slimeballs'. I suspect there are relatively few determined exploiters out there. Those people clearly should not be teachers. They shouldn't be allowed near positions of personal responsibility. There we agree.
We do actually know, however, that attraction between teachers and students is pretty natural and common and sometimes hard to handle. Do tell me if you disagree with this. If you don't disagree, ask yourself what follows from it. I know you do agree because of what you write:
As a teacher you get pupils who fancy you and would potentially make themselves sexually available to you not despite the fact you're their teacher but because you are their teacher. Either you recognise this but don't care, in which case you're too bad to be a teacher - or you don't, in which case you're too stupid to be a teacher.
Most of us will have been aware of such things one time or another and do care. Most of us will have handled it. Not that you say how it should be handled, but that should not be expected from anyone, just ad hoc. The point is we know that we are dealing not only with people's lusts but their feelings. And I mean the feelings of the students even more than the feelings of the teachers.
Yes, it is absolutely our duty to deal with it and if we can't - even if we are not slimeballs or arseholes - we shouldn't be teaching. We should at least be taking a break and considering our position. I would suppose this to be the more likely position most of the time. I have known teachers and lecturers who have married their students. I mean known, not heard of. They're happily living together even now.
Which takes me to your comment on my second italicised (by you) statement. What you write is not an answer to it. I was setting knowing of against hearing of. Most troubles come from hearing of. Do you really think there is no difference? I don't believe you don't.
And let's forget the personal stuff. I know I raised it, but I raised it because it is precisely the personal stuff that gets heated. I did not raise that temperature. I was pointing it out. Anyone who has any awareness knows this is not simply a problem out there with slimeballs and arseholes, but in us, male or female. This stuff is, by its nature, personal.
To pretend that this is all simply a matter of arseholes and slimeballs is stupid. We should not be charging in, waving banners, and calling names. That is stupi
-d.
I did not raise that temperature.
Uh, yes George - you did. Not happy about the know/heard of distinction you're making. I know - or knew rather - a teacher who's friend, she says, does this. She doesn't approve but he remains her friend. Ok maybe she's lying but it would be a pretty weird thing to say about your friend, don'tcha think?
that attraction between teachers and students is pretty natural and common and sometimes hard to handle. Do tell me if you disagree with this.
I think you're mixing too many things into the pot and thereby obfuscating the issue - plus adding a lot of personal anecdotes that are frankly irrelevant. So you know - actually know, you stress - teachers who have lived happily ever after with stuidents. Really don't care George - and I'm not interested in lecturer-student relationships, my interest is in schools. Attraction to pupils common? Of course it is. Hard to handle? Yes I do disagree - very much so. I think all this stuff about the human condition, complexity etc. is used (I'm not saying you're doing this) as a smokescreen to cover something that we should be clear about. Every teacher worth his or her salt understands that to do your job properly, you can't be the pupils' friend. So how many lines does a professional have to cross before he ends up in a 'complex' 'romantic' relationship with a pupil? A lot, I reckon. Pointing this out doesn't make me a tabloid hack.
I imagine that something like 'tu quoque, cinaede' would do the trick
"you also, sea-fish"?
George,
My choice of words seems to bother you more than the issue of adults abusing their position over those in their charge.
It is not unknown for people to develop slightly more complex relationships.
As Shuggy has clearly explained, that is a decision you make.
Simplistic tabloid oik as I am, that leaves three choices;
Don't develop the relationship.
Resign.
Slimeball.
Oh, and the fourth, The Woodhead gambit, see it as"experiential and educative on both sides".
Is the use of "like" in folks' comments a conscious imitation of Will Rubbish?
Simplistic tabloid oik as I am, that leaves three choices;
Don't develop the relationship.
Resign.
Slimeball.
In my opinion it leaves just the first two.
The third isn't an option. It is a name.
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