Always Wear Sunscreen

Stories like this one make me want to strangle someone.  What we have here is a couple of kids who were at school and they went on a field trip.  They were outside for five hours, but the children were not allowed to put on sunscreen.  Why not?  Because according to either the "school policy" or the "statewide law" (it's a little unclear as to which means of asshattery was involved her) "...teachers are not allowed to apply sunscreen to students and students can only apply it to themselves if they have a doctor's note."  What the actual eff is going on over there? 

According to the Huffington Post, a one Jesse Michener of Washington had two of her children come home from a school field day with sunburns that were so bad that they "hurt to look at".  After seeing pictures of the kids, I'm going to have to agree with that assessment.  Behold!

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The kid on the left looks just miserable.  Not that the kid on the right has fared any better.  But holy canoli, is that a bright red sunburn she's got there.  Ms. Michener has documented this incident on her blog, "Life. Photographed." She says that after contacting the principal and asking why her children were not provided with sunscreen for the outing, the response "...centered around the the school inability to administer what they considered a prescription/medication (sunscreen) for liability reasons."  And this is where my head starts to explode.  See, if you buy something in the store and you don't need a (wait for it) prescription in order to purchase it, then it is by definition NOT a "prescription".  And since when is sunscreen considered to be a "medication"?!  It's sunscreen, for cryin' out loud!  But wait!  There's more! 

 

In the telling of this tale of administrative idiocy, she mentions that during said field trip, "...their teacher used sunscreen in her presence and that it was 'just for her'."  Oh, so the teacher knew enough to put sunscreen on herself, but wouldn't put any on the children for fear of some sort of liability repercussion?!  You have got to be kidding me?  How much of a sheeple is that teacher?  Good Lord.  Follow the policy to the letter of the law or else!  Never mind whether or not it's an asinine rule that will do more harm that good!  That's what it says, so God forbid if you actually do some thinking on your own and do something about it!  Nope, just let those kids get massive sunburns and then you can sleep well at night knowing that you followed the ridiculous rule because that's what you are supposed to do!  Good job, moron.

Now, maybe you're sitting over there and I haven't quite incensed you just enough yet.  Maybe you're sitting there thinking, "Well, if they couldn't wear sunscreen, they should at least have worn a hat to keep the sun off of their faces."  You'd think that, wouldn't you?  But guess what?  No, really.  Go ahead and guess!  I'll wait.  Did you guess?  OK, if you guessed that hats are not allowed at school even on field trip days, step forward and claim your prize!  That's right.  They don't allow hats and they don't allow kids to use sunscreen unless they have a prescription and put it on themselves.  (Have you ever seen a little kid put on sunscreen?  Let's just say that they're not very good at it.  You know why?  Because they're little kids!  They're not good at much!  They haven't been around very long!)

As you can imagine, this received quite a bit of attention, mostly from Ms. Michener being angry as hell that she had stupid people in charge of her children during the day.  She actually received a call from the Director of Elementary Education in Tacoma Public Schools. According to her blog, "...a new law – just on the books since June 7 – allowed for districts to make their own distinctions about what is and isn’t allowed at school with regard to sunscreen and other over-the-counter medications."  And while all of that is fine and good, let's just back up a little bit.  At some point, I'm guessing that more than one person came up with the previous policy.  And more than one person had to have said, "Yeah, I think that's a good idea.  I think it's good that the kids need a prescription from a doctor in order to put on over the counter sunscreen.  And if they're out in the sun for an extended period of time and they don't have a prescription, I think it's a fabulous idea that they not be allowed to use any.  I completely agree with this policy.  Let's implement it immediately!"  And they DID.  Who ARE those people?  They need to be removed from their jobs because they are so concerned with "liability" that they can't DO their jobs effectively.  What sort of liability could their be with sunscreen?  Is the kid going to be too slippery for a little while?  I don't get it. 

People that are in positions of authority and decision making who only go by the rules in the book should not be in those positions.  It goes without saying that if something is going to be run by the rules in a book, then why bother having the person there in the first place?  Just follow the rules and things will be fine.  There's no need for personal intervention.  It's all right there in the book.  We are fast becoming an over-regulated society which is void of people who are able to think for themselves and on their own.  Couple that with a bunch of morons who make non-sensical rules and regulations in the first place and it's a recipe for the sort of disaster that Ms. Michener's small children got to experience first hand.  Doomed, I tell you.  We're doomed. 

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Bad Example

No one likes homework. And you know what people like even less than homework? Homework where the word problems use slaves and slavery as an example. For reals.

Let's go down to Norcross, Georgia and head on over to Beaver Ridge Elementary School. It is there that we learn from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution about the math worksheet that some third graders received. Apparently, some dimwit teacher down there decided that it would be a good idea to use slavery as the basis for some of the word problems. That's right. Slavery. Now, I don't know how anyone could think that would be a good idea to begin with. It's not as if there aren't a gazillion appropriate topics to choose from in the first place. But that someone would actually knowingly go with the slavery reference is really a head scratcher. Nothing else sounded good, eh? Puppies? Flowers? Trucks? Decided to go with slaves, huh? All right then. Interesting choice. And just what were some of the questions. Well...

"Each tree had 56 oranges. If 8 slaves pick them equally, then how much would each slave pick?"

And...

"Frederick had 6 baskets filled with cotton. If each basket held 5 pounds, how many pounds did he have all together?"

And...

"If Frederick got two beatings per day, how many beatings did he get in 1 week?"

Let's see, two beating per day...is this your standard 5-day work week? What's that? Oh, right. Slaves. Yeah, so seven days. Time two beatings per day. That comes out to be the most ridiculous example that a particular educator could have chosen for a third grade math problem. For cryin' out loud, what is wrong with people?

And it's not just the person who put that on the worksheet whose sanity I'm questioning right about now. I'm also wondering about the mental status of the district spokeswoman, a one Sloan Roach, as she said, “Clearly, they did not do as good of a job as they should have done." Well. That seems like a pretty dumbed down understatement if there ever was one. Oh, wait. No, I was wrong. This Roach person added, "It was just a poorly written question.” Really?! I don't know, I think that this involved something just a little bit more than just poor writing. Someone had to think of it first! That involves poor thinking! I love how this woman is just trying to blow this off as if someone forgot the "I before E except after C" rule.

(I do want to just interject here and say that I'm glad that none of the articles that I read about this referenced the race of anyone. I'm so glad that this didn't turn into a story about racism when it is clearly a story about stupidity. Just thought I'd mention that. Carry on.)

But it would seem that this sort of asinine thinking is common in that particular school district. I say that because, in regard to what is going to be done about this, "...district officials said the elementary school's principal will "work with teachers to come up with more appropriate lessons." Work with the teachers?! Are you kidding me?! I'm just going to go out on a limb here and say that if the teacher can't figure out on their own that it is inappropriate (at the very least) to include slavery references in math problems, then I don't think that they can be helped. Seriously, that seems like the most basic of all basic common sense things that you would have to noodle through at some point as a teacher. I don't know that they have enough gray matter to work with. Give them some severance pay and send them on their way. Perhaps direct them to a nice community college. Or a store that sells helmets. But you can't teach a pig to sing. It frustrates you and annoys the pig.

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Infodots Versus Reality

I'm a big fan of the website Reddit. It's basically just a website for link sharing. The website calls itself "The voice of the Internet". I'm good with that. I realize that it doesn't help in describing it any sort of concrete terms, but since I included the link above, you'll be able to figure it out. I like it because they seem to be able to have interesting and on-topic discussions about a variety of subjects in a rather civilized manner. And oh, the things I have learned. Naturally, first and foremost, I've learned that we really are scroomed.

For example, one Redditor started this topic: "My teacher didn't allow us to say the term "bullet points" because it "promotes violence". Reddit, what are the stupidest rules that your teachers/instructors have made?" (The teacher made them use the made-up moniker "infodots" instead. And you thought the story couldn't get any more ridiculous this early on! That's not a word!) Naturally, I was hoping that it would turn out to be a very short conversation, as I was already in enough pain from smacking my head against the wall after reading about the forbidden bullet points terminology. (For reals? Who are those sort of people? Does the teacher who made that rule realize that the bullet points aren't made out of real bullets? Apparently not. I'm also guessing that the teacher in question didn't realize that the sort of things like the banning of the term "bullet points" is what really "promotes violence". Moron.) There ended up being at least 3,401 comments on this topic. And on the good side, I'm always looking for a reason to drink. Trust me, this gave me more than enough reasons. Let's begin.

Here we have a memory from someone with a clearly psychotic Spanish teacher who may or may not have had some sort of Hispanic 'Easy Rider' complex going on. "My spanish teacher deducted marks if we didn't get on our imaginary spanish motorcycles (hand gestures and everything) when we had to say a word with two r's next to each other (like perro)...Everytime we reved the engine (not quite sure what the correct term is when you put your hand on the handlebars and move your arm in a circular motion), we had to intensify the "rrrr" sound". I understand wanting kids to get the hang of the rolling r, but deducting points if you don't make yourself look like a jackass in class? I'd like to think that I would have failed that class out of sheer refusal to participate in such nonsense.

Reckoning back to a topic I touched on recently, "Children at my kid's school are not allowed to play tag because it would require someone to be "it". Why, yes! Yes, it would require that! It's not like you're going to be "it" forever! And it's not like you would have to do things like that scary-ass clown in that movie of the same name. The people who made up that rule must not understand the game very well. And that really explains a lot.

Even though there isn't any reasoning to any of this, here's one where there really wasn't a reason: "We weren't allowed to say 'brain storm' and had to say 'thought shower' instead. I don't think there was even a reason why." Maybe they were afraid it would offend epileptics? I don't know. Again, I'd like to think that I would have refused to follow that rule out of the sheer principle of the matter. That being I don't like to be told to do things that are patently ridiculous, not to mention completely inane.

Going from ridiculous to absolutely asinine..."A school I went to didn't allow running, you could only skip because some how that was safer. I kid you f***ing not". And as a result, the kids all played a FABULOUS game of flag football.

In the category of "Worst Advice Ever", we have this lovely nugget: "My sophomore High School English teacher instructed us that every essay should begin with "This essay is about..." He insisted that this is the format that college professors would expect." My response is about how completely moronic that is. That is moronic. In conclusion, I responded that it was moronic.

From the "You're Trying Too Hard" file: "We weren't allowed to use "dice" in math class. They were to be called "number cubes". Reason? "Dice" promoted gambling." I can't imagine how someone with such shallow thinking skills is actually a math teacher. Call them what you want, they are what they are. What part of that is confusing to that person?!

"At my school, they allowed us to play dodgeball, but instead of calling it dodgeball, we had to call it "happy fun ball". After a year, we weren't allowed to have the word ball in it. We had to refer to it as "happy fun time". This was high school." This makes me want to cry. Oh, wait a minute. There appears to be a slight salty discharge emanating from my tear ducts. I appear to be weeping for humanity. (I'm going to try to resist asking the question of why they were playing dodgeball in high school. It's really hard. That's what she said.)

And finally, mainly because all of this has driven me to drink (not that I was objecting): "My teacher told us not to use the term "white-out" because it could be deemed racist. We were instead told to use the term "correction paste". You have got to be dry shaving me! It's not even spelled the same! Idiocy has seeped over into phonetics?! Is that what you're telling me? Just because something is white doesn't mean that it is racist! There are lots of white things that are not racist!

In conclusion, I'd just like to reiterate that the inmates are running the asylum and we are all scroomed. Thank you and where's my drink?

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Then What WAS The Motivation?

If you're on a quest to find who is possibly the world's worst psychiatrist (or minimally, the least observant psychiatrist), stop right now. Have I got a lead for you.

Let's go to Waterloo, Iowa and learn from the fine, fine reporting of KCRG. That's how we learn about the misdoings of a one fifty-three year-old (and obviously old enough to know better) Larry Twigg. Mr. Twigg, who is a former teacher, was arrested in February 2010 after being accused "...of having a 17-year-old student shower in chocolate syrup and play strip video games". Let's just stop right there for a minute, shall we?

I don't even think that I know what the majority of that sentence even means. You can "shower" in chocolate syrup? Like...through a shower head? A squirt bottle? It's a rather thick substance. How do you shower in it? Is that just a metaphor and they really meant just "pouring"? I don't know, but I can't spend too much time on that because I'm really scratching my head over "strip video games". What the what? I fancy myself a video game enthusiast. A connoisseur if you will. But I am rather unfamiliar with the strip video game arena. And really, while I thoroughly enjoy video games and I thoroughly enjoy what can come from stripping, the two really don't go together. How can you concentrate on both of them at the same time? You can't! They both deserve your utmost attention and probably should not even be combined.

But back to the issue at hand. So, this guy gets arrested for, in short, being a weirdo. Now he's trying to have the case dismissed because in Iowa the "...law says the offense requires that the act is done to arouse or satisfy a sexual desire." No problem, right? Wrong. See, that's because "...the psychiatrist hired by the state will offer an opinion that Twigg's acts weren't sexually motivated." Wait. What now?

Correct. You have as much information as I do. Showering at 17-year old with chocolate syrup and playing strip video games is not motivated by the need to satisfy a sexual desire. To which I must ask the seemingly obvious question: How so? That seems to be the only thing that would be motivating this sort of activity. What else could it be? A love for chocolate syrup? A fondness for the suspense filled moments of who is going to have to remove an article of clothing following a loss after an exhilarating round of Mario Kart? Could it be either of those things? Technically? Yes. Was it either of those things? Hell no.

This psychiatrist hired by the state...is on glue? I'm dying to know what in the world he thinks was the motivation behind this very, very odd, odd behavior. I would expect this sort of lunacy from a psychiatrist hired by the defense, but this guy was hired by the state. I don't get it. I really don't. But I'm open to hearing an explanation. In fact, I look forward to it. In the meantime, I'm going to go play some video games with all of my clothes on and without a drop of chocolate syrup in sight. Boring, perhaps. But legal and totally explainable.

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Inappropriate Field Trips

Sometimes I think it'd be kind of nice if those who were morons had to wear a sign letting others know that they're morons. It saves others the trouble of having to find it out through some sort of unfortunate event orchestrated by said moron. Even if that were the case, I don't think that there would be enough of the signs to go around to everyone in this story who deserves them. And there are several. Where to begin, where to begin?

I guess we could start in Dayton, Ohio where, according to WCPO-9 reports that a first year high school marketing teacher has resigned after taking four female students on a rather inappropriate field trip. To a gay male strip bar called Club Masque. Oh, yeah, and they managed to get served alcohol while they were there. (Happy Hour is from 5-7.) Um, what was that?

Holy crap! When I was in high school, I kind of remember that we went to a museum once. I definitely remember we did not go to a gay male strip club. That did not happen during my high school years. (Now that I think about things, it might be one of the very few things that didn't happen during high school. What can I say? I spent a lot of time venturing outside the confines of the institutional learning environment. Future, shmuture, it was totally worth it.)

Who does this? Well, let's start with the students. Can you blame them for getting to go to a bar? WITH their teacher? I don't think you can. There were four of them and 3 were 18 and the other one was 17. Nope. Can't blame them at all for wanting to go to a bar. Wanting to go to a gay men's strip club? That might be one worth looking into. But I suppose if they just wanted to check out some slippery young guys who weren't going to be hitting on them, a gay men's strip club is just the place for that.

Now, the teacher is a 47-year old (and definitely old enough to know better) one Lori Epperson. (I have looked all through the tubes that make up the Internets and I could not find a picture of this chick. Thanks, mainstream media. Thanks for that.) She resigned on Thursday after being placed on paid leave. (Paid leave. One of the strangest punishments of all time. "We're not making you come to work, rather, we're making you not come to work AND we're still going to pay you! I hope you've learned a lesson!" I'd say! I've learned to do things that get me paid leave more often! How cool is that?!) She fully admits that she took the students to the club and she also fully admits that, in hindsight, it was not the most brilliant move of her brand new academic career.

In a letter that she wrote to her supervisors, she explained that it was the students who had wanted to go to the bar. She wrote "...that she didn't agree with the girls wanting to go to the gay establishment, but if they were to go, she thought she should go with them." I see. That seems like an odd choice to make, being as how Epperson was supposed to be the adult in this scenario.

Oh, but I shouldn't get all judgmental on her and just assume that she's irresponsible or mentally challenged or anything like that. She took precautions before chaperoning this escapade. She wrote in her letter, "I talked with their parents to get permission which they did give. I assured them there would not be any drinking. I also made it very clear to the girls there would not be any drinking. They agreed." Oh, for cryin' out loud? Really?

Really. Good thing that you made it clear with the girls that they weren't to drink. Sure. That's going to happen. Yeah, it didn't. But there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for how the girls, one of whom was Epperson's daughter ( ::::sigh:::: ), managed to consume shots and cosmopolitans. (Were they playing 'Sex in the City'? Cosmos?) She wrote that "...the girls asked to go to a different part of the bar and when she went to look for them they had run into someone they knew...that person gave the girls shots and cosmopolitans. When she learned what happened she immediately took the teenagers home."

So, you take four students to a gay male strip club that serves alcohol because you feel if they're going to go there anyway, that you should go with them to...what? Keep them in line? Look out for them? Whichever or whatever it was, letting them roam freely about the bar was not going to accomplish your goal or whatever you call it. Because as we all know, any teenager who says that they're not going to drink alcohol when they've just been taken to a bar isn't going to drink alcohol.

As long as you're looking.

But enough about the Teacher of the Year for a moment. Can we just go back to the part about how she talked to their parents and got permission? I'm having a hard time believing that really occurred unless she was speaking strictly about herself. After all, one of the girls was her daughter! She could have had a full blown conversation with herself and gave herself permission to take her own daughter to a gay male strip club. Yeah, that's it. That counts (in her world) as "talking with their parents". Sure it does.

But at least she gets it right in her letter where she says, "I accept the consequences and believe I should not be in the environment where I make a negative impression on kids." And you are correct. You should definitely not be in that environment. And I'd like to commend her for figuring this out before she had even completed her first full year of teaching. No sense in wasting everyone's time. Get it over with and get out at the beginning. Perfect.

I've never really understood it when teacher (or just adults) want to be "friends" with their students, or with kids in general. Friendly, I get. Friends? Not so much. (Those of you who know me personally can just pipe down. I can hear you laughing from here, so knock it off!) Students, kids, they both have plenty of friends. They don't need any more friends. What they need are people who can set a decent example for them and who can be someone that they can trust if they need someone to talk to or if they need someone to not take them to a gay male strip club.

But you know, with all of the other stories that you tend to hear in the news these days, I guess I should just be thankful that she didn't have sex with any of them.

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Unnecessary, But Needed Policies

Today's story of stating the obvious via new rules and regulations comes to us from Utah and the Canyons School District where, according to the fine folks over there at the Salt Lake Tribune, the superintendent of said school district is "...considering drafting strict rules that should keep teachers from ever having inappropriate relationships with students." I don't know whether I should be beating my head against a wall because something like this should be unnecessary or if I should be beating my head against a wall because something like this IS necessary. Either way, I'm going to have a headache by the end of this post.

According to the superintendent, a one David Doty, "In order to really prevent [sexual relations between teachers and students] from happening, you've got to draw the line way back from physical contact, but draw the lines in a way that they're not so rigid that people feel like they can't have any kind of meaningful interaction with students." Now my question is "Don't we already have a line?" And if we don't, "What happened to that line?" But probably my most pressing question to that statement is, "Where are people getting confused?"

While I agree with the man that you've got to draw the line way back from physical contact, I think I don't believe his assertion that drawing those lines will "really prevent sexual relations between teachers and students from happening." I have yet to hear any of the teachers that are caught having "inappropriate relationships" with their students (Translation: Having sex with 14 & 15 year old boys.) say that they went ahead with all of the sex because there was no line. There is a line. There is a HUGE line. There always HAS been a line. But for some reason, it seems as if there is a more frequent occurrence of people not giving a fat rat's ass about the line and therefore jumping right on over the line and into bed with an adolescent male. (The adolescent male, by the way, is the one who cares the absolute least about the line. To him, having sex with his teacher is not crossing the line. In that example, the line is very far away. The line is so far away, the line is a dot to the 15 year old guy who is banging his teacher.)

Superintendent Doty continued with "Such cases [of sexual misconduct] are rare, but I feel very strongly that if there's one thing schools should have zero tolerance for, it is inappropriate physical and emotional relationships between students and teachers." Well, YES! In fact, if there's one thing EVERYONE should have zero tolerance for, it is inappropriate physical and emotional relationships between children and adults...PERIOD! And if they were as "rare" as he tries to make them sound, I don't know that he would be spending a whole lot of time on crafting new policy to address such an issue because they are...wait for it....rare, that is correct!

It's not like policies that define what a teacher's role should be and what activities a teacher should refrain from engaging in are new. "Many districts....have policies in place that prohibit teachers from giving rides to students, dining off-campus with students, or hosting activities in their home or off-campus without prior permission from the school principal." Um, hey. Wait a minute. "Hosting activities in their home"?? You know, I've taught classes before. Let me tell you, the last thing I would ever consider doing, not to mention want to do is to have my students in my freaking house! NO way! Never. Since when did that become an issue?? And what is with "Without prior permission from the school principal"?? I don't think there should be circumstances where a teacher is hosting some sort of a function for his or her students at their home ever, even with permission! You shouldn't be asking for permission because you shouldn't want to have your students at your home. They have their own homes! They can go there. (I can see that whatever policy he comes up with will be strong! Sure. It will solve everything! What could possibly go wrong?)

"Policies regarding gifts, e-mail, text messages and other electronic communication such as social profiles on the Internet, however, are new to most districts....At the same time, crafting policy should reflect technological innovation in communications. "You've got to look at personal e-mail, texts and MySpace communications with students." Again, why would a teacher want to do or participate in the majority of those? A teacher has a school email address and the students can email the teacher at that email address. (The cool thing about the Internet is that all of those tubes and pipes and things that connect it all together make it so you can check your email anywhere at anytime. How convenient!) I do not recall being in high school and having some pressing need to get in contact with one of my teachers immediately. (Well, not while I was in high school. After I was out? That's a story for a different day!) Why would a student and a teacher need to be texting? And if you're a teacher and you're leaving comments on your student's MySpace pages, you need to stop doing that. Now. And if you're not willing to stop doing that, you need to quit. Now.

But here is where things really start to get weird. A one Carol Lear, who is the director of law and legislation (in schools) for the State Office of Education, has said "...that while every Utah school district should review teacher-student conduct policies, many are problematic for schools where the teacher may live among students. Teacher proximity to students can be hard to control, let alone monitor." What the hell does that mean? "...the teacher may live among students"? Is this some sort of weird communal school? OK, granted, it is Utah. But I lived in Utah for 20 years and I don't recall any educational communes where the teachers and students mingled freely and lived amongst each other. Does she mean "in the same community"? Because if that is what she is referring to, I see no problem with that. Yes, teachers may live in the same city as their students! And you know what else? They may do so and NOT have sex with their students! Shocking, I know! And that woman is in charge of....stuff? That might not be the best idea. I see a hypervigilant policy being unveiled in the near future.

She also says that "Many ideas sound like really great absolutes, but they have to be looked at in the context of communities and the circumstances of where the teacher lives and works." Again, what? The context of where a teacher lives in proximity to where his or her students lives has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not the teacher is able to maintain an appropriate relationship with his or her students. NOTHING. The key part of a teacher not having sex with a student is self control! Not proximity! Not community! Self control.

And this is the part of the article where I realized that my world and Carol Lear's world are two very different lands. She said, "Because their social circle is often limited to the students they teach, many teachers become close friends with some students, then become so comfortable around them they forget ethical boundaries." Um, since when? Since when is a teacher's social circle "often limited to the students they teach"? I saw none of my students at the bar I went to after work to drink my sorrows away. No students there. That circle was student-free! As was my home, my car, my friend's homes, and everywhere else that wasn't work. No students! (Thank God!)

"Unless they're always vigilant, it can happen. It's not always the case that these teachers are pedophiles or psychos. Many times it's the nature of schools, and the fact that you relate to the people you're with all the time." The people I am with all the time are adults! And even when you're teaching kids, if you would rather be with those kids than with adults that are your age, there is a problem and you should not be teaching. It is not the fault of the schools that inappropriate student-teacher relationships develop. It is the fault of the teacher. That's it. It doesn't go any further than that. (Can you really fault a teenage boy for having consensual sex with his hot, hot, Algebra teacher? No way. Can you fault a hot, hot Algebra teacher for having sex with a student currently in her class? (Just had to clarify that part there.) Yes, you can fault her for that. Again, she's the what? No, not the whore! She's the adult. The ADULT. What is wrong with people?

That last quote from the misguided state worker there makes it sound like it is sooooo difficult for a teacher to not have sex with a student. Me, personally, that was probably the easiest part of my job that was always, ALWAYS left unsaid. Do not have sex with the students. OK! No problem! And it wasn't!

She's right that they all may not be pedophiles or psychos. (I would hope that the number of teachers caught engaging in this sort of behavior would NOT be "psychos", as I would want to know exactly how it came to be that the "psycho" was hired to teach at that school in the first place. I prefer schools have a "psycho-free teacher" policy firmly in place at the beginning of each school year.) But she also seems to think that having regulations and rules and policies that are strongly worded and placed into State Office of Education policies will solve the problem. It's as if she envisions specific terms defining what an "inappropriate relationship" between a teacher and a student consists of (Here's a hint: If sex is involved, it's inappropriate.) and that will solve everything! (Does she really think that a teacher might think, "Wow. That student in my second period class is really, really cute! If only it weren't for those pesky rules and regulations over there in that big thick binder! I guess I'd better not do that because the rules say not to. Darn." I don't think that's going to happen. Ever!)

I think more than anything, I'm just sad that there needs to be a policy that specifically addresses appropriate boundaries between students and teachers because either the lines have become so blurred that teachers don't know where one role stops and where another one fails to start, or too many teachers just don't care about the lines at all. And if that's what needs to be done (mainly for legal reasons, as I don't see many practical ones for it), then I'm certainly not against it. But if anyone has ridiculous expectations that a "policy" is going to change the behavior of those who would otherwise have such behavior, well, those people are in for quite a shock when that doesn't happen. If a "policy" was an actual deterrent, wouldn't cities have less crime (as a city's "policies" of what to do and what not to do are otherwise known as "laws")? Of course. But things like "policies" only work to curb undesirable behaviors in those individuals who wouldn't have had the behavior in the first place. And if that's the case, I don't know that I can actually say that it "works" at all.

For God's sake, just don't sleep with you students!! Just don't!! I don't think that I need to go into much more detail as to WHY NOT! Just don't!! And stop it!! Now!! (And put that thing away, will you? Geez! God sees everything, you know?)

I was right. My head does hurt.

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