Poll: why can't students love their teachers?

[spartan231490]

It's the authority. It's a powerful coercive force, one that borderlines on rape, regardless of age.

 

[krazykidd]

Well with younger kids its statutory rape, which is illegal. With older kids its inappropriate because it creates a very personal relationship in a situation that should be a far more professional relationship. In addition, there is a worry that the teacher is using his position of power and authority to seduce the student.

I like how every other post say that teacher are the ones doing the seducing , but not one mentions the possibility that the student is capable of seducing the teacher . As if teachers are immune to seduction or student are incapable of seducing a teacher . It's Always the teachers fault isn't it .

OT: i think as long as it isn't YOUR student it should be okay. If it's just a student at the school , or the student is no longer in your class it's fine . But then again that's just me , and i only use common sense .

Teachers are expected as part of their job to resist such seduction attempts. Just as a psychologist would be expected not to be seduced by their patient while the patient is in their care. Having such a relationship with a minor, even when the minor initiates it, is considered statutory rape and is illegal.

Also, it's kind of arrogant (and a little rude) to say that your opinion, formed by experience and preference, is just common sense. The fact that this thread exists and that most people disagree with you makes it kind of obvious that it is not common sense.

Well, power balance have already been mentioned as the reason.

There's no reason it couldn't be adapted to become a closer fit to that reasoning though, by ensuring that prosecution could only take place with the consent of the victim's legal guardians. That way, power would remain with the student/parents, while the government would not be forcing itself into the bedrooms of student/teacher relationships which all parties concerned were perfectly fine with.

The problem is that rape is a capital crime, and it's not actually the victim or the parents prosecuting the rapist, it's the state. Changing that precedent could lead to people not getting prosecuted after committing really heinous crimes for a variety of reasons.

I never said under aged , i just said students . College and university students also apply , it is just as high school students , please don't put words in my mouth . Also , and i understand this may not have been obvious from what i wrote so it's my fault , but by common sense , i didn't mean that i was right or that everyone things like me , but that as thinking as an average(common) person , without putting all the different factors together , i came up with that response . Basically while thinking as an average joe ,rather than someone of importance.

My point about professionals being expected to not have relations with students still stands. I wouldn't want to attend a school were that is allowed, and if I ran a school, I wouldn't tolerate it. It leads to favoritism and can often (but not always) lead to one party taking advantage of another.

Okay, i agree , but that's in a perfect world . It shouldn't happen . But sometimes it does . And i don't have a problem with it , as long as, the student isn't in the class of the professor . Just because a person is a teacher of an institution and another is a student of an institution , doesn't mean , in my opinion , they shouldn't date , as long they aren't in the same class . Just as a a psychologist should never treat a person they know , a teacher shouldn't date someone they are personally teaching.

 

[Shadowstar38]

Personally, I don't really care if a teacher is banging their students.

Likely, the student wouldn't do it if they weren't into it. And the statutory rape age line has always just felt aburtary to me and shouldn't exist.

 

[Twilight_guy]

Well with younger kids its statutory rape, which is illegal. With older kids its inappropriate because it creates a very personal relationship in a situation that should be a far more professional relationship. In addition, there is a worry that the teacher is using his position of power and authority to seduce the student.

I like how every other post say that teacher are the ones doing the seducing , but not one mentions the possibility that the student is capable of seducing the teacher . As if teachers are immune to seduction or student are incapable of seducing a teacher . It's Always the teachers fault isn't it .

OT: i think as long as it isn't YOUR student it should be okay. If it's just a student at the school , or the student is no longer in your class it's fine . But then again that's just me , and i only use common sense .

Generally speaking the notable situations are where a student is a teenager and the teacher is an adult in there 30s. Teachers are educated people and I think the general consensus is if a teacher gets seduced by a teenager, despite the knowledge that it will flush their career down the toilet and its illegal, then the teacher is an idiot. It runs a similar vein to how pedophiles are responsible because they are older and wiser and nobody suspects the child.

Also, "It's Always the teachers fault" is a statement that immediately makes me go into a blind rage. My mother is a teacher and I hear a lot of crap about the job. That phrase is not associated with good things.

I think the problem with teachers being an authority figure still applies even if its only a child at the school and your not your student. Teachers are still authorities at their school even if they aren't teaching a students class.

Also, this thread probably needs to also note that it isn't just teachers who get in trouble. Any school faculty who has a relationship with a student gets in trouble. It'd be a scandal even if it was just the lunch-lady or a proctor.

 

[Hagi]

As far as I'm concerned a teacher-student relationship is mutually exclusive with a romantic relationship.

All the reasons have pretty much already been said so not really much more to add.

In the case the student is a minor I consider it criminal, it's statutory rape.
In the case the student is not it's still amoral and in my opinion good grounds to fire someone, no jail-time should be served for it though.

 

[knight steel]

I feel that this song is relevant to this topic and thread:

 

[Gigano]

...

Well, power balance have already been mentioned as the reason.

There's no reason it couldn't be adapted to become a closer fit to that reasoning though, by ensuring that prosecution could only take place with the consent of the victim's legal guardians. That way, power would remain with the student/parents, while the government would not be forcing itself into the bedrooms of student/teacher relationships which all parties concerned were perfectly fine with.

The problem is that rape is a capital crime, and it's not actually the victim or the parents prosecuting the rapist, it's the state. Changing that precedent could lead to people not getting prosecuted after committing really heinous crimes for a variety of reasons.

Then define a consensual student/teacher relationship as something else - in a different penal code article - and make prosecution under that article subject to student approval.

 

[Trippy Turtle]

Its a crime because if it were allowed people could be pressured into stuff at threat of being failed, or being promised good grades and stuff. Also with underage kids its a crime anyway. If they aren't at least 18 then the teacher is a pedophile too.

 

[azukar]

As a teacher, I wouldn't get into a relationship with a student for several reasons, besides the fact that it's in the Code of Conduct.

1) Issues of favouritism (how could you really prove otherwise?)
2) Potential for abuse of authority.
3) Break-ups can be nasty enough without having to then come in and teach.
4) Students become almost like your own children.

Oh yeah, and I teach primary school, so that rules that *right* out!

But yes. Mostly, as others have said, it's the fact that you're in a position of power and authority over your students, and they can be quite susceptible to you. Once they are of legal age, and not in your duty of care, then you can see whether any attraction might be real.

 

[loc978]

Same reason a sergeant can get demoted and forcibly moved across the world for fucking a junior member of his or her squad... already covered in the thread.

Age restrictions are of course dependent on local culture and law (I've been places where even particularly ugly sixteen year olds have had more sex than your average american married couple of ten years), but not banging your subordinates is a much more fundamental rule, designed to curtail some of the darker parts of human nature.

 

[Vault101]

I like how every other post say that teacher are the ones doing the seducing , but not one mentions the possibility that the student is capable of seducing the teacher . As if teachers are immune to seduction or student are incapable of seducing a teacher . It's Always the teachers fault isn't it .
.

Teachers are ADULTS...they really should know better, the 16 year old teenager wants to have sex with you? as from that being a BAD Idea your not going to convince anyone you simply couldnt controll yourself theres this quote from the movie Hard Candy

[quote/]Who? The pedophiles! 'Oh, she was so sexy. She was asking for it.' 'She was only technically a girl, she acted like a woman.' It's just so easy to blame a kid, isn't it! Just because a girl knows how to imitate a woman, does NOT mean she's ready to do what a woman does. I mean, you're the grown up here. If a kid is experimenting and says something flirtatious, you ignore it, you don't encourage it! If a kid says 'Hey, let's make screwdrivers!' You take the alcohol away, and you don't race them to the next drink!
Share this quote[/quote]
not quite exact in terms of context but yeah

 

[DrunkenMonkey]

Well the age gap for one is a big difference, the poll includes high school so the age gap there is trememendous. Same goes for college, but at least the students there are true young adults who have enough sense to know what they truly want, sort of.... Can't say that for high school.

Other problem is pretty damn obvious, grades man grades. Hell students who are the least bit receptive of a teacher are designated teacher's pets, kiss asses, etc. I don't even want to fathom what it's like for fucking a teacher rumor or not. The teacher is the one who gets stuck in shit in the end, if he or she attempts to balance the grades with the romance the student might call him/her out on it, if the said teacher is lucky for a true romance where the student understands that screwing doesn't justify better grades out of the box, then teacher still has to worry about getting fired, reputation invariable getting pushed down the gutter.

So the way I see it most people pity the student, I pity the teacher because they have everything to lose, a student doesn't.

 

[FoolKiller]

There is also the fact that the brain hasn't developed fully till the late teens and you aren't fully capable of understanding the consequences of such actions. As the adult, the teacher is expected to understand this and not abuse this knowledge, nor the power imbalance which everyone has mentioned.

 

[spartan231490]

It's the authority. It's a powerful coercive force, one that borderlines on rape, regardless of age.

Let's not take things to extremes.

True story: In one year of university I totally had the hots for my TA. I never approached her for a relationship (because I didn't want to create a situation where she could get into trouble), but if I had, and she had accepted, and we had a relationship, it wouldn't have been anything remotely like rape.

It would have been unprofessional and inappropriate, sure. But not rape.

Yeah, because the authority a college TA has over you is identical to the authority a high school teacher has over you. And the maturity you have in dealing with that authority when you're in college is identical to the maturity you have in dealing with it in college.

Snide me being an asshole aside(sorry, I just can't resist the chance to be sarcastic), I actually agree with you. It's nothing like rape as we usually think of it, but it's still coercion and it's still wrong for that reason.

 

[Shadowsetzer]

You just don't sleep with someone you in any way hold a position of power over.

This, right here. If a teacher is sleeping with his/her student, there's always the constant threat of 'I can destroy your grade' hanging over the student's head, regardless of whether it's been explicitly stated or not.

Captcha: The cat lady. I don't really think that's any better.