More thoughts on pervy teachers...

Yeah, I know I blogged about this on Wednesday, but somehow I ended up clicking through to Greta's blog and some of her comments got me thinking about the issue again.

Miss Pathologically Positive deviates from her usual course and writes:

Are parents too trusting, too busy to care or has this always gone on and now we are just doing something about it? I think the latter. This has been going on forever and now we are taking action against those who prey on minors and children. Many may disagree with me on this one, and that is fine, you are entitled to your opinion. Yes, we expect schools to raise our children these days, but I personally do not believe that is the entirety of the problem. I think there have always and will always be people in positions of power that take advantage of children or those under them, whether children or not. There will also always be pedophiles and that scares the hell out of me.

Well, maybe y'all expect schools in Mandeville to raise your children, but the trend has swung back the other way, particularly in New Orleans. The pedophile priest scandals of the 1990s pretty much scared parents into not abdicating their parental responsibilities. I expect my son's teachers to teach him, not raise him.

She is correct, though, that there will always be pedophiles, but lumping the two teachers who were banging the sixteen year olds with the janitor who was playing with little boys clouds an already complicated issue. Greta makes it worse when she talks about college coaches:

When I was an athletic trainer for college students, I recall several cases of coaches having relations with players. The coach suddenly "left" their position and everything was brushed under the table (not going tabloidish on you here & will not give specifics). Even though these were 18-22 year olds, it still happened and it was WRONG!!!

It's difficult for me to consider the teachers having sex with sixteen year old girls as pedophiles, and certainly the coaches who are having sex with adults are not pedos. The age of consent is 17 in Louisiana, so doing a 16-year old is considerably different than the adult male trolling the mall for 12-year olds. What is so hard to determine here is the level of consent involved. While there are some who will argue that no minor can consent to sex with an adult, 16-year old girls are considered consenting adults in the UK and many other countries in Europe. The two high school teachers are going to get probation if they plead out.

What is more of a concern to me is the predatory nature of the behavior of the teachers, as well as the coaches Greta mentions. A case where we're talking about a one-on-one teaching situation that goes horizontal, it's all about intent. In the case of the Destrehan High band director, the story in Da Paper makes the guy out to be a predator, and predators have no business in schools. It's not about the sex, it's about the control.

Is the guy wired to be a predator? Now that's a tough one. If there's one thing I strongly believe, it's that we don't give Education majors much guidance as to what they're going to find when they're on their own in a high school classroom. My firstborn is currently a sophomore in Nuclear Engineering at Ga Tech. He's taking a very interesting ethics class that's raising a number of good issues for these kids. Prospective teachers need their ethics sharpened and challenged in the same way. Make it clear to teachers that they're not to treat students in their classes like low-hanging fruit, ripe for the picking. Whether they're 16 or 22, it's wrong to exploit the relationship. When the temptation is put before a teacher, s/he needs to be able to think back to the warnings about how they'll never work in education again if they get caught.

Of course, Greta manages to remove the nuance from the entire issue as she closes:

As for what should happen to these 3 sick individuals - I hope they get sent to the general prison population with a sign that says "I molested underage children." Unfortunately, that won't happen and we can all only hope that our justice system keeps them off the streets forever!

For openers, as I mentioned earlier, it's not likely that either of the high school teachers will do time if they cop a plea. The janitor is a different story. Certainly none of them will ever work in a school again, if the system's background checking works properly. Greta's characterization of what they deserve should they do prison time is a concern, however. It's time we all acknowledge that this conservative view of incarceration simply does more harm to our society than good.