July 19, 2009 3:57pm by David Farrar

The blame for teacher-pupil relationships

PRINCIPALS ARE dealing with an “exponential growth” in the number of teachers having inappropriate relationships with students and they blame text-messaging, the drop in the drinking age and dating websites.

Really. I blame the fact that some teachers like having sex with their students.

Cases heard this year have not yet been published, but the rise in problem text-messaging is obvious in 2006, none of the 16 cases involved texting, but by 2008, five of the 18 cases did. All the teachers involved were suspended or stripped of their registration. Last month Walsh sent a warning to principals, saying many of these teachers “had little understanding of professional boundaries”.

There is a difference between correlation and causative. I imagine that the increased references to text messages in relationships, is because they are normal for those age groups.

Adding to the minefield facing teachers was the drinking age, which dropped to 18 in 1999, meaning senior students were now bumping into teachers on boozy nights out. This was creating so many problems, Walsh said, that some teachers were being warned to stay out of pubs popular with students.

I think this is a bit of an excuse also. Most students will only turn 18 a few months before they leave school. As far as I recall, few of these teacher-pupil relationships started entirely after the pupil turned 18.