When Teachers Cross A Line
I knew I wanted to be a teacher ever since my senior year in high school. I was fortunate to have many amazing teachers throughout my high school experience, but there was one teacher whose passion for his students inspired me to go that extra step and officially apply to colleges with the intent of joining a teacher education program.
Of course, we all probably have a teacher like this in our lives – otherwise we probably wouldn’t have ever decided to be teachers. My story is different, though, because this teacher not only inspired me, but showed me what can happen when you take your role as teacher too far into a student’s personal life.
We all called him Doc, one of the two Anatomy and Physiology teachers at our high school. Even students like me, sure we were going to major in the humanities in college, took A & P as our third science, and not just because of the weighted grade. We wanted a chance to be in Doc’s class. He was almost legendary. We all had heard stories about his compassion and willingness to help his students, even outside of the classroom. We had also heard about how he made even memorizing the bones in the human body fun – no small feat, let me tell you. So my junior year, I signed up for his class and was not disappointed.
Doc taught us all about the human body in ways I’d never imagined. He taught us how to kill people in various ways, for example, because he thought that if we learned how to make the body stop working, we would understand how it did work. He rarely used the textbook – something my other science teachers never quite figured out how to do. And he made it a point to talk to each one of us almost every day – asking us about our lives, our goals and dreams, and encouraging us or answering questions or giving advice as needed.
One time, late in the year, we found out that Doc was going to be suspended because of accusations of theft of something or other that was in a dumpster ready to be thrown away. At least, that’s what he said. I suppose we all should have been a little more suspicious, but we trusted him implicitly.
He was back my senior year, though, and I signed up to be his lab aid – someone who ran errands or graded papers for him while he was teaching a class. I had the hour free, and volunteering to help a teacher always looks good on college applications. As his lab aid, for some reason, he felt it appropriate to tell me things that he may not have told his other students. He told me about how upset he was that the administration was targeting him – yet again, my senior year – because they wanted to fire him. He was very expensive for the district, after all. He thought that the claims the administration was making against him were completely unfounded. They said he was getting too personal with his students, but how could this be, he wondered aloud to me, when he so obviously loved his students so much and wanted to be a guiding force in their lives?
In February of my senior year, he was suspended again and told me that he thought about killing himself because he was so upset. He wouldn’t do it, he said, but he had thought about it. He told me I was an adult and could therefore handle this information. I missed school for three days following that because I was so upset. I wanted to say something to someone because that’s what you’re supposed to do when someone expresses suicidal thoughts, but I was so worried I’d get him in more trouble by telling that I made myself sick. Finally, I told my mom who contacted the school. Eventually (and not because of my confession to my mom) he was suspended again indefinitely and eventually fired, and the last months of school were filled with visits to my dean and with school lawyers and counselors. They were trying to build a case against him because he was suing the school to get his job back.
It came out in these meetings that he was suspended and fired because he had a habit of prying into the personal lives of some of the girls in his classes. He would ask them about their boyfriends and other topics that are not a far stretch from that. He would massage their shoulders at random times – as he did with me often, which always made me uncomfortable. In short, he crossed all sorts of lines, and it was very difficult for the administration to do anything about it because of his tenured status. When it became apparent that he was suing the district, I was asked to testify against him because it was so clear to everyone else that his confession of his suicidal thoughts to me was completely inappropriate. It wasn’t so clear to me. I still thought very highly of him as a teacher and wanted to testify for him, but his lawyers never contacted me. The school lawyers promised me that I’d be able to share my side of the issue when his lawyers asked me questions at the hearing. They couldn’t have been more wrong.
Instead of asking me to praise Doc as a teacher, his lawyer brought out a card I had written to him thanking him for being such a good teacher. I had signed that card “<3 Ashley.” He asked me to read the card aloud and I read it as saying “Love Ashley,” which he twisted to imply that I was, in fact, coming on to him which meant, obviously, that anything he may have said to me that might be seen as inappropriate was invited by me. They also brought up the fact that I had a few boyfriends in high school, making it seem as if I were the sort of person who may invite these sorts of innuendos all the time. It was more or less awful, and when I looked at Doc in front of me that day and he motioned for me to cheer up, I hated him. And I never forgave him.
The feminist in me is still unsure about the whole situation. I replay the events of those years over in my head, trying to find answers. Why did this particular group of girls feel the need to come forward when so many of us were grateful for his advice? Why was I so torn about it when I know that what he did was wrong – even if he didn’t cross physical lines, he did cross emotional ones and, as an adult and a teacher, should have known better. Why did his lawyer feel the need to blame me when he could have so easily asked for praise for Doc and I would have readily given it?
The educator in me is also still unsure about the whole situation, although less so. As a teacher, I appreciate tenure and strive for it, even though I understand that sometimes teachers like Doc get tenured and it costs a lot of money and time to terminate their contracts, and all the while they are really doing more damage. I also want to be the type of teacher that students feel comfortable talking to, but I always fall WAY on the side of impersonal and always back out of or cut off conversations that seem to be too personal. In this way, I am a conservative teacher when I know I have much to offer in discussions about feminism or LGBTQ issues or sexuality or anything like that. I am also extremely conscious of things like if a student is in my room for an individual conference during a prep hour or outside of school hours, I always prop the door open and sit near it so there’s no questions ever.
I admire his passion for teaching and for helping young people realize their dreams, and I try to emulate this passion in my own teaching. But when I look at these issues as a feminist, I am appalled that we live in a culture where these sorts of events are often overlooked or dealt with in a manner such as what I described.
Like so many events in life, I doubt I will ever fully understand what happened those last two years of high school, and I don’t think I want to. But every so often, I think about Doc and his awesome class and his terrible situation and it reminds me why I care so much about education and feminism. A formative event, indeed.
This article is cross-posted at Equality 101.
Thank you for sharing this, Ashley. You are right there is lots to unpack in a situation like this, but I think that when it comes to the lawyers actions, there is no question that they were out of line, using that kind of questioning.
In my own experience I have had the emotional boundary line crossed by teachers in high school and college, and by both women and men. I became aware of how it can be problematic post graduation when the student/teacher relationship is less firm and what was once something a little questionable became a relationship in which adults who I admired and looked up to began not just to share personal details with me (like suicidal thoughts) but to share them in a way that positioned me in the counselor role.
It can be very confusing (especially to a 17 year old) because they aren’t necessarily doing anything wrong, but you must learn how to negotiate adult relationships very very quickly.
It is also sad that these situations make it difficult for great and dedicated teachers like yourself to be close with students without worrying that it will be viewed the wrong way.
How interesting that you have reopened that memory. It is, indeed, a memory I would rather not have as your mom. I often see the person responsible for the whole ordeal; your trauma, anguish, and confusion, as well as Doc’s ultimate dismissal. I look at this person and think I am so glad Ashley could get passed that wound and became the wonderful teacher she is today despite that experience. His crusade to ruin a good man and doing it in a way that caused such suffering on so many levels was and is appalling.
However, the ultimate question is “What are the lines a teacher does not cross?” Being a teacher is much like being a parent. There are lines you don’t cross. As a parent, you are not your child’s friend. That is, at least, until they are mature enough to understand the difference between parenthood and friendship. You are a parent to offer guidance, to give advice, to teach leadership and management, of course to have fun with your child and love them unconditionally, and yes…to discipline. Did I just describe a teacher? I think I did.
Maybe you are such a great teacher BECAUSE of the experience you had when you were 17 and not DESPITE it.
Linda (A Proud Mom)
Ashley,
I cannot tell you how close this article struck me. For 3 years my history teacher and I developed a relationship that crossed so many emotional boundaries. He told me about his marriage woes, problems with his kids, his son that died, how he missed me and thought of me during summer break when he watched the sun set. Eventually flirtation became the norm with lingering looks and private jokes and smiles.
Mid-December my junior year he was reprimanded by the administartation. He was no longer my teacher and therefore told to stop all communication with me. He screamed at me that this entire situation was my fault. That he could be out of work and unable to provide for his family because of me. Of course it never came to pass, but at 17, I will never forget the rage I felt at him for making me feel so guilty. Who could I share that with?
My senior year every thing was back to normal with an even higher level of sexual overtones. He would ask about my boyfriend and make indirect inquiries about our physical relationship in a creepy, inappropriate “pseudofatherly” way. So many emotional boundaries were crossed.
Like you, I find myself haunted from time to time by the ghost of that relationship. It has now been more than 20 years since I have graduated but there are times I wish I could go back and do it differently. But then again, I try to let myself off the hook – I was only a teenager then! Thanks again for sharing.
Caroline
Thanks for sharing your story, Carrie. I really appreciate it.
All three of my kids are as different as can be even though two of them were straight A students and one had learning disabilities caused by a brain tumor. Yet all three maintain that being bullied by peers is/was far preferable to being bullied by adults who wield so much power they even incite some of the “popular” kids or known miscreants to bully others. My older ones have told me we did them a severe disservice to ever question their teachers’ behavior or policies because the teachers and administrators invariably took it out on them, no matter how diplomatic I tried to be … for daring to even question them. All three of my kids have been warned by various teachers in various cities and states that what goes on in the classroom is none of their parents’ business. (There were witnesses and in one case, the teacher defiantly admitted saying this.) It’s like a Mafia and all the other parents (at least in the Midwest) act like kiss-asses willing to do anything to get on the good side of teachers and administrators. There are too many idiots who have chosen that line of work to resolve their unrequited issues of popularity or to just plain let their malignant narcissism go wild by being bullies themselves.