I was watching Leno tonight, and he made a joke that went something like this:
A law in Georgia has been passed where it is ok for teachers to have sex with students if the student is age 16 or older and the sex is consentual. But whats even worse is most students in Georgia are homeschooled. ah ohhh thats gross hahaha clap clap clap.
Good joke, but I found it interesting since we have been talking a lot about this kind of stuff lately in Tatiana's class, for those of you who are in her class with me. I was intrigued and I found this article about the law being passed.
http://abcnews.go.com/WN/lawmaker-worry-teachers-sex-students/story?id=9157141&page=2
From what I see in cases we have discussed and other ones in the news, there are a lot of "loopholes" where sex with students goes unpunished, either if it is a female teacher with a male student, a female teacher having a relationship with a female student, and now if the student is 16, it is ok in Georgia. I read some of the comments on this news story, it was pretty split between people who thought that 16 year olds are adults and can make their own decisions and people who thought it should be illegal. Noone really brought up the difference in power between the two, except for one comment who compared it to a psychiatrist having a relationship with a patient. Its kind of crazy that so many people in the general public don't seem to have a huge problem with this.
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At 16, students aren't even 100% cognitively developed- they're still emotionally driven. They haven't developed cognitive reasoning. If a teacher gets romantically involved with a student, they are definitely taking advantage of this... Regardless if it's a student or not, it's simply wrong.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure by now most of us have also watched 'Teacher's Pet'. As we can see in the case from Dewberry with the 17 year old male and the petite 27 year old elementary (female) teacher, the power is often identified as a physical power. The 17 year old was big and strong, so he was the one with power in that relationship. But as Lisa clearly points out its about the student's cognitive development. To me nothing else really matters...their brains aren't developed and so any way you look at it it is the teacher (or any other adult) that is demonstrating power and taking advantage of the situation.
ReplyDeleteconner, i think that many people have a problem with this. remember a society, or even a classroom is only as good as its leadership.It is apparent that there is a misconception or myth with people who think this is ok. we are educated in this area of adolescence , others may be ignorant to such knowledge.
ReplyDeleteI think the bottom line is that a student-teacher relationship is going to affect the education of the student and possibly other students. The teacher may favour the student, the student may be distracted in the classroom, and the teacher may be distracted in the classroom. What if the student and the teacher break up during the year and have to face each other every day in the classroom? What if other students find out about the relationship?
ReplyDeleteI think regardless of the students cognitive reasoning abilities, any kind of student-teacher relationship is going to impact the education and therefore it should not be acceptable.
I think that in any case, because the teacher is in a role of responsibility, that its taking advantage of the student.
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