Having recently heard about another teacher/student scandal, I started thinking back to my own school days and how dramatically things have changed since then. I don't remember large chunks of my school experience but I do remember that although I wasn't technically popular with my fellow students, I was well-liked by most of my teachers. I wasn't one of those who knew the answer to every question and had to one up the other kids, so not really a teacher's pet. But I knew a lot of answers, I loved to write and create (some things never change huh) and I was very meticulous about finishing my work on or ahead of time. Sometimes I wonder how many of those teachers who sent notes home to mom about my sister and I being 'a pleasure to have in class' (direct quote) even remember us. They must have gone through thousands of students before and after. But then I only remember three teachers having lasting impacts on me (one was a dude, so I'm not gonna talk about him in this post given the overall subject). I liked a good amount of my teachers but I remember only having crushes on two during my high school years. But it's a long way from crush to being booked for being too hands on as an educator and I think I can safely say that neither crush ever went past the crush stage. There was never even a tiny little thought that it could be more than that.
It seems to be way too common now to see stories of a high school teacher sleeping with a student. And it seems like these kids are getting younger and younger and I really don't get is what the big attraction is. It's not like the teachers are ridiculously good-looking or anything, the mugshots I've seen have all been pretty 'meh' (but then it is a mug shot and they all seem to have terrible lighting). I guess part of it is the forbidden factor that comes with but I can't help but think there's something seriously wrong with the teachers who allow themselves to cross that line. I'm sure there are a number of other factors; kids being sexualized too young, the teachers being book educated but emotionally delayed, etc. But I'm sure another part of it is the always connected world we live in. I've heard a ton of stories of teachers friending their students on FB or teachers sending text messages to their students as if they're friends. That to me sounds like the last step before something shady goes down. It's like there's no such thing as an innocent crush on a teacher anymore, which is kinda sad since it used to be like mini rite of passage. I've know very few people who didn't have at least one teacher crush in their lives.
My first teacher crush was on an art teacher, who was originally supposed to just be a year-long substitute for the main art dude who had been caught with a flask of whiskey in his desk. (Two things here - 1) Yes I did go to an inner city school but there was surprisingly little drama or teacher turnover and 2) I woulda drank too if I'd had to teach us). Honestly this teacher wasn't all that attractive to me in looks, it was all personality and creativity. There was a kind of bond between us, but nothing that wasn't PG. She was definitely one of the best teachers I ever had, in any subject, because she was genuinely interested in what her students were doing with their lives. The majority of her students didn't really invest in art class because they weren't the artistic type, but she still made it a point to ask them about their other interests. When I started the film program (which was at a different school than my HS, I'd spend half the day at one school and half at the other), it left me with a free period before I had any academic classes and I'd spend the free period in her classroom. She was always genuinely interested in what script I was writing, what film I was making, whatever it was that I was excited about at the time. She even attended the year-end screening of my film, which I didn't expect at all. She was this invested in all of her students, not just me, and It didn't matter if they shared her passion for art or not. She was there for whatever problems any of us had, and it's kinda funny to think about what a great teacher she is (she now teaches elementary school) when you realize she never really wanted to be one. She always wanted to be an artist, and she is a pretty successful one on the side now. I think what I learned from her is that people who are blessed with the ability to create art should never be ashamed of it. And that helped me tremendously in my film career because it was one of those programs that my peers were either fascinated by and wished they could get into or that they made fun of because they didn't understand it. I still keep in touch with this teacher to this day.
The second teacher I had a crush on, this one a MAJOR crush, was the Literature teacher I had my junior year. As a Freshman I took mostly AP courses (except math) and AP Lit teacher was an older lady whom I couldn't stand because she ruled that classroom with an iron fist. I always felt like she wasn't as hard on all of her students as she was on me and that seriously pissed me off (I later found out she was hard on me because she thought I was one of the better writers she'd taught). Even so, I was thrilled to be liberated from her class and even happier when I saw my new Lit teacher. This was another case where part of the attraction was that she was just good people. She was always interested in my writing and what I was doing in art class and what I was working on in film. At one point I was spending at least two hours after school every day in the art room to work on a side project (one not for credit, just for me) and if she were still around at that hour she would come by to see my progress. I remember her classes being a lot of fun too, always projects and group projects to work on, and she let us do it in our time with music going on in the background. There were deadlines and there were rules but nothing as strict as any other teacher in the school. Part of this method may have been that it was her first year as a teacher but obviously she's doing something right because she's now a principal at another school.
I think the majority of teachers are good, they just all have very different methods of teaching. It's kinda sad though that those teachers continue to be underpaid and under appreciated while the rogue teachers who get involved inappropriately with their students make headlines. It's especially sad when you realize that there seems to be much more expected of teachers nowadays because some parents consider their kids to be the school's problem during school hours, not theirs. But hopefully it's some kind of consolation for the good ones that they are genuinely making a difference in some kids' lives.
