But seriously, why are we seeing so much of this now? I’ll spare you the moralizing and leave it out there as an opinion question.
While I don’t condone this activity, I think it is an abuse of the law to treat an adult woman who seduces a 16 or 17 year old as a child molester. Also, calling a consensual act between an adult and a 17-year old an "assault on a child" is an abuse of the term, obscuring the fact that there are indeed nasty child predators out there.
Kick her out of her teaching job and ban her from the profession? Sure. Take her kids away? No. We have not only lost all sense of morality in this country, we've also lost all sense of proportionality, especially in legal matters.
In Arvada (part of Denver), an 11 year old student was arrested and taken into custody for drawing stick figures and scrawling the words "teacher must die."
This was a gross overreaction. The kid needs therapy, which he is in, and he was encouraged to make such drawings as a substitute for acting out. Can't a school simply suspend the kid if they think he's a threat, or talk with the kid's parents and therapist to see if there is an appropriate remedy?
Our Schools have turned into Government-Run Nuthouses
We need to privatize primary and secondary education. Government has completely botched it and can no longer be trusted. Our schools must cease being dysfunctional government institutions and instead become places of business, where professionals get paid based upon performance and wasteful bureaucratic overhead is slashed.
The customers also must learn to dress and behave appropriately, at the risk of being tossed out of the building. What place of business in America would tolerate making out in the hallways, bullies threatening others, coming to work high, or bored dingbats disrupting others for their own entertainment?
If a female teacher seduced my teen, I'd demand she be fired, not arrested. If it were a male teacher, I'd beat him up and then demand he be fired. Someone with so little self-control has no business shaping young lives. All of this can be taken care of with no government involvement whatsoever.
Same goes for disruptive students. Little Johnny Wankster doesn't want to follow the rules? Bounce him and refund the balance of his tuition to the parents! Cutting off welfare, food stamps and public housing will quickly make flunking out of school and being stupid a poor life choice.
Mother Should I Trust The Government?
We've lost control of ourselves and the circumstances around us, so government steps in, making a bad situation even worse. Government pampering creates a cadre of incontinent, self-indulgent whiners. It also creates a capricious environment where lazy authorities end up collaring only the simplest offenders, while the truly dangerous and street-savvy get away with murder.
Is is such a radical notion to want to chase government back to its constitutional corner and to once again learn to do for ourselves?
The customers also must learn to dress and behave appropriately, at the risk of being tossed out of the building. What place of business in America would tolerate making out in the hallways, bullies threatening others, coming to work high, or bored dingbats disrupting others for their own entertainment?
If a female teacher seduced my teen, I'd demand she be fired, not arrested. If it were a male teacher, I'd beat him up and then demand he be fired. Someone with so little self-control has no business shaping young lives. All of this can be taken care of with no government involvement whatsoever.
Same goes for disruptive students. Little Johnny Wankster doesn't want to follow the rules? Bounce him and refund the balance of his tuition to the parents! Cutting off welfare, food stamps and public housing will quickly make flunking out of school and being stupid a poor life choice.
Mother Should I Trust The Government?
We've lost control of ourselves and the circumstances around us, so government steps in, making a bad situation even worse. Government pampering creates a cadre of incontinent, self-indulgent whiners. It also creates a capricious environment where lazy authorities end up collaring only the simplest offenders, while the truly dangerous and street-savvy get away with murder.
Is is such a radical notion to want to chase government back to its constitutional corner and to once again learn to do for ourselves?
I feel the same way you do, but I'm not sure it can be done. Even among conservatives most have been brainwashed to believe that government controlled public education is necessary for society to function.
ReplyDeleteI've decided to focus instead on pushing for states and local communities to have more power over their schools.
I couldn't agree more! I have never understood why a 14 year old girl can "sleep around" with 20 or 30 guys but a crime is committed when one of those guys is 20 years old?
ReplyDeleteWe are living in a "Lord of the Flies" society, in that children have been left to run wild while their single and working mommies are obliged to take more and more "me" time. Too many Ralphs, though and not nearly enough Piggys.
I digress, as usual. The bulk of the problem still lies with the parents, though I would rather stab myself in the eye with a #2 pencil than put my child in public school!
I have to differ here and for good reason. Statutory rape is just that and has nothing to do with education.
ReplyDeleteThat we find these individuals in schools is no accident as that is where young people go which is after all the rapists targets.
If we are to be a nation of laws then we must abide by them come hell or high water.
Actually this goes straight to the current debate on public teacher unions, tenure and yes the screening/hiring practices or lack thereof.
Christopher: We are indeed a nation of laws, and putting this teacher in the same category as a child molester makes a mockery of that law.
ReplyDeleteI know this is kind of a mosh of issues, but they are all ultimately related.
Silver, I did put them together just not in the context of "education" perse.
ReplyDeleteYou may believe this is a mockery of the law but I myself to not.
The corruption of any youth is indeed a crime against an individual no matter the gender and a union fighting for her (I am sure they are) makes that a crime against society as a whole.
As to the crime actually on the books, prosecute her and all of her ilk to the maximum penalty available to and including incarseration. Keep this scum from doing more damage to our youth elsewhere.
What I'd like to know is just how do you ppicture a fully privatized education system working? There's never been a completely private system of education in the Western World. In the early Middle Ages, formal education was only available through the Church, which was basically a public system but could only teach so many, and private instruction that was really only available to nobililty. Schools grew up in Europe as essentially guilds of scholars and teachers, not for-profit businesses. Before the rise of these new "schools," there were universities, but they so horribly profiteered from the students, that the new guild "schools" overtook that system quickly.
ReplyDeleteSo, you can see that purely private education for an entire state has really never been, and when it has been attempted, it failed.
How exactly do you imagine this privatized system??? I never understood that.
JMJ
Companies open up schools and advertise. Parents pick a school and lay their money down.
ReplyDeleteYour example of guilds overtaking universities is exactly what would happen in an educational free market
ReplyDeleteHmm... I don't know, Silverfiddle. What if the teacher were a 35 year old MAN seducing a 16-year-old GIRL? Would you still say he wasn't a predator? Seems like a double standard in this regard.
ReplyDeleteIn addition to the age difference, it's the idea that the offender is a TEACHER-- someone who is in a position of authority and a supposed role model. And this position is being abused in a horrible way. There's that element as well.
As a teacher myself, I deliberately try not to look TOO attractive at school-- and I'm careful never to be in a room alone with a male student without leaving the door open. Sad, but you have to CYA.
No double standard Karen. I'm for the same treatment regardless of how it goes. I am also not condoning this behavior.
ReplyDeleteWhat got me was that a female teacher had her children taken from her over such an incident. I think this was wrong. She did not prey on small children, she went after a 17 year old and engaged in a sexual affair. That is not the same as molesting a child.
Again, I'm not saying this is ok. It is not. My larger point is how we have failed to draw distinctions.
Silver,
ReplyDeleteYou don't really flesh that out very well. People are already spending more than they have now. How are they going to afford sending their kids to good private schools? You're not really seeing the big picture here, are you?
In the United States, where we live in the real world, education is mostly locally funded (belying the notion that the states and federal gov'ts are so intrusive in the system). It is funded by the property tax system, which varies wildly from state to state, locality to locality. You do understand this, right?
Property taxes are raised from real estate, and the revenues raised are by no coincidence reflective of the wealth of the local contributors.
In other words - THE SYSTEM WE HAVE NOW IS ALREADY A PROVABLY FAILED VERSION OF THE SYSTEM YOU ADVOCATE.
Get it????????????????????????
JMJ
No Jersey, you don't get it. You just tiredly described what we already know, and it has failed us. Again, your example in an earlier post describes what would happen. Failed schools go out of business, successful ones expand. How will people pay for it? Government can collapse it's failed education bureaucracy and return the money to the taxpayers.
ReplyDeleteSilver ~ You just said what I wanted to say to Jersey...the largest portion of my property taxes every year goes to the local school district. I could pay a goodly sum to a private school if I didn't have that bill due every year.
ReplyDeleteCompetition and the free market are the answer.
Silver, I understand-- I don't like the way a 19-year-old kid who is dating a 17-year-old girl can be labeled a sex offender... a distinction DOES have to be drawn there.
ReplyDeleteBTW, when I mentioned the double standard, I was speaking in general, of society, not you personally. :-)
I do think that teachers who do this ought to be fired and criminally charged though.
Linda: It's not really that hard to grasp, is it? I can't understand those who cling to failed policies.
ReplyDeleteKaren: No worries, I never take anything personally.
We have some serious law abuse going on in this country. A boy shot another boy with an airsoft gun (a toy designed to do just that. People have weekend contests where they play war and shoot each other with these things), and he is up on criminal charges. It's a long story, but the news is just full of stuff like this.
Had the woman preyed on small children, or engaged in dysfunctional or criminal behavior in her home where her children were exposed to it, then I could see taking them away.
Our legal system has lost all sense of proportionality and now has nothing whatsoever to do with the rule of law.
Maybe one of the problems is that today 30 and 40 year olds look more like 25, and 16 and 17 year olds look more like 25.
ReplyDeleteExcellent observation, Lisa!
ReplyDelete