Teachers, pupils/students and intimacy

I spent six years of my life teaching kids in English schools. Between 1973 and 1979. So long ago it sounds like ancient history, but some memories linger in spite of everything that I have experienced since.

The kids who crossed my path were between the age of 11 (definitely kids) and 18 (legally adults, essentially to be treated as young adults, but still there to benefit from your knowledge and wisdom). In between was, of course, that horrible mish-mash known as adolescents.

After I left teaching I was ribbed time and again by certain colleagues in IT about how I must have misused my position to get intimate with my charges. I can also actually quote a number of cases that I read in the papers in the 1980s of young male teachers who ended up having sex with one of their pupils (usually 14 or 15) and ended up in jail as a result.

There have since been loads of stories from the USA and Australia where male "students" (UK English "pupils") of 13 or 14 have ended up having sex with female teachers (some as old as 35 - you wonder how that could have come about). And then there was the case of an ex-colleague who was in court on a charge of homosexual rape with an 18-year-old boy who was in one of his classes. Eventually he got off on the grounds of consensual sex, which the boy denied and denied and denied! My ex-colleague's career though was finished at this point, consensual or otherwise, and frankly he only had himself to blame in that respect.

As a teacher myself, and as an outsider to the industry since, I have always held to the unwritten rule (and I think that it should remain "unwritten"). Namely that you simply should never, ever, get intimate with your charges.

And that is not as easy as it might sound.

The implication in these cases is usually that it is the wicked teacher, evilly salivating at the thought, who is the person who makes the first move. In fact in my experience it is the reverse. Teenage kids who are discovering their sexuality often become obsessed with the prospect of getting intimate with one of their teachers.

I was not that handsome, not that tall, not that interesting, rather distant and aloof. In six years teaching I was propositioned three times (seven girls involved in total, they never come alone! Average age approximately 14 and a half!). Knowing what to say is not easy as you are shocked by the situation. Saying "no" firmly without giving a reason was the preferred course of action. I have known a colleague who did exactly that, though, and the next thing that he knew was that a rumour was going round the school that he must be Gay!

But saying "no" also does not mean that they will not persist. One case that I recall from the early 1980s in Manchester involved a case of a guy who finally gave way after refusing several times, and ended up with his career ruined and 12 months in jail for his pains.

Eventually it is a question of professionalism. Distance is a prerequisite in teacher-pupil relationships. Getting too close is never to be advised, and learning to keep your distance is an absolutely essential part of that professionalism. Anything less than maintaining the rigid requirements involved can easily be at the cost of your career and your reputation.