Sex offenders to work as teachers... or not?

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The risk might have been really low but you don't just go to bed with AIDS and get up healthy after a week. It kills people. Schools involve P.E. and P.E. sometimes involves blood. Then there's also the problem of kids having sex and all. If someone had actually managed to contract the disease, the school would have been blamed for accepting even that little risk. This is not to say you can't go to a public school if you have AIDS, but the situation isn't so easy as you might be seeing it.

Reading private correspondence isn't a great idea, or reading private diaries, but sometimes it has to be done. Did the mother read it because she was curious or did she already know there was a problem with her daughter? It's better to break the proverbial seal than to expose your child to danger.

Well, that and you're missing one thing: the guy wasn't chased by a hypothetical victim unable to prove anything. He had been given a police caution. There are facts here. I know what you mean by a mass of locals acting on thoughtless fear, yeah, but the fear isn't so unsubstantiated in case of an aspiring paedophile. Those guys don't just grow out of kid porn on their own, I think. They're much more likely to want to try it out in real life, aren't they? Besides, P.E. teachers get to watch a lot of kids in minimalistic outfits and would you not mind if the teacher were getting off on your own child?

Parents can't be so ignorant unless we establish that knowledge and experience goes poof upon reaching adulthood or having a child or something. Young students asked about a teacher will always provide such answers as are the most profitable from their point of view, meaning that they will get rid of a strict teacher or one who's unfair. Not necessarily one who poses a physical threat or is a paedophile. That's the danger of all anonymous questionnaires. If they aren't anonymous, imagine the consequences of saying your teacher is a paedo if other students don't back you and the school doesn't move you to a different class. Even if it does, he has friends. Plus, paedophiles tend to work on good relationships with children. They are often liked before the wrong thing happens.

His current students have nothing to forgive him for when it comes to looking at kid porn. He didn't do anything against them specifically.

Your last argument sounds like "If she (13) is willing to have a consensual sexual relationship with her teacher (40), she should be free to and everyone should let her take the risk."

 

Sorry for not being too clear - but this was a primary school kid who contracted it after a blood transfusion - not some horny teenager. The situation being easy is not really the point I was addressing - so maybe the kid could have been kept out of high risk situations at school or whatever (though I suspect that wouldn't really have been necessary - there aren't very many (any?) situations at school where mingling of blood is possible, that's all beside the point though), but the kid certainly shouldn't have had a lynch mob of parents stirring up **** against him. I watched a video about this in a class about AIDS, and they did interviews with the parents - they had no idea about AIDS or how it was contracted - it was just mindless 'Oh God something strange and scary - MUST KILL!' kind of instinct.

Now - this *is* actually relevant in how parents might react to this PE teacher - they don't know this guy. They know *nothing* about him except this one negative detail, and they're going to have the same 'ZOMG! MUST KILL!' instinct that those other parents had. They're not in a position to judge this guy - they have an irrational bias.

I don't know why she read it, all I know about what happened came from rumour - the teachers, I think, didn't want us to know about what was going on.
Regardless, I totally disagree with you Not sure if that's something for this thread though. At any rate - the results of her reading the diary led to something ridiculous, which is the real point. It was the student fantasising, the teacher was innocent - and yet the parent managed to blow everything out of proportion.

The fear isn't unsubstantiated - but it also isn't balanced with knowledge of other things about the teacher. I'm thinking that the students (and possibly other teachers who work with him) have the most balanced view here, because they know him personally as well as being the accused paedophile - they can weigh the two factors up and come to a rational decision - and even if it's the wrong one, a rational decision is better than an irrational one acted upon by a lynch mob.

Yes, there are risks with kiddie porn teacher watching kids in minimal clothing - I'm just saying that the parents aren't best equipped to deal with this risk. I might mind if it was my (thankfully theoretical) child which the teacher was with - but I would also be able to accept that the child knows more about him than I do. I wouldn't be in a position to judge him, unlike the child.

Knowledge and experience aren't necessarily possessed by all parents - or that may be the knowledges and experiences that really aren't important in this case. As I've probably repeated 30 times in this post so far: none of these parents have knowledge or experience of the guy in question and - I'm betting, have no experience with situations like this. Therefore, this 'knowledge and experience' counts for naught in this case,

You have an incredibly cynical view of the young students Well, true, they might sieze the opportunity to take out a disliked teacher or keep one that isn't. However, I'm willing to bet that if they were uncomfortable with an accused paedophile they'd turn against him damn fast - whether they thought he might be nice or not. I can't imagine students who are uncomfortable with the idea of being taught by a paedophile or fear that they might be abused letting him stay - it just doesn't make any sense...

In this case, anonymous would be best, but the students would probably discuss their views among themselves anyway - I don't see an issue with that.

If the paedo has good relations with the students and doesn't make any paedophilic actions towards them - what's the problem? If he does - he'll get arrested. If the students feel that he will - they can make a pre-emptive strike.

Heh - well... *dodges*

My only issue there is that the tacher-student relationship would screw with the fairness of markings - other than that it's absolutely none of my business.

Sorry for making such a horridly repetitive post

 

They should be banned from ever leaving prison as far as I'm concerned.

 

@Aik: It all looks great in theory but young students have been through less than their parents and they lack the general knowledge, experience, the instinct that their parents have. The people smarts, as well, and all. The teacher might well tell them he got his IP recorded when the police was tracking a kid porn site that opened as a pop-up on a warez site or something like that. Or that he was otherwise innocent.

Ignorance leads to strange things but so may do neglecting danger that seems to be known. Mingling of blood... what about handshakes with scratched hands? Don't know if that's enough for contracting aids. Or fights?

People under the age of consent (and in reality much older ) aren't normally able to judge sexual matters fully. They aren't capable of consenting to anything. Not even being stared at by a kid porn maniac.

Children's deciding would depend on the information they receive. What would they be told? That they shouldn't listen to their parents because parents are blowing things out of proportion? That the guy shouldn't be judged by a single mistake?

You can always argue that the police may be called or a pre-emptive strike made but that's quite a lot of risk and it's not like singular children can defend themselves from a P.E. teacher. Perhaps a group. But even a literature teacher should be overpowering at this stage in one-to-one situations.

I've been one.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4619786.stm

More details emerge, though of one of the other cases here. By my reckoning the man was about 23 at the time, and the girl 15. According to this they also waited until she was 16 to have full sex. When the case went to court, the girl supported him and they later married and were together for 19 years.

Personally, I wouldn't have a problem with this guy working in a school and believe the DfES made the right descision. Rather than the knee-jerk reaction being seen in the media based on extremely few facts, the DfES appear to have judged each case on it's own merits.

There is a good reason why the descisions are taken without consultation from parents. People don't think clearly when children are involved. Here's a good example from a few years back... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/901723.stm
In September of the same year, a father and three children were nearly killed when there was an arson attack on his flat - the previous address of someone in prison for paedophilia.


Chev,

In at least two of the three cases (I have no info on the third), it was judged that they person concerned did not offer even a remote chance of doing this. If there was, then I'm reasonably confident they wouldn't have been approved as a teacher.

 

Well, I definitely have a problem with this now if the info in the article posted by Carcaroth is acurate. If in fact, he did not have sex with this girl until she was 16, and he later married her - and stay married to her - for 19 years, then what's the problem? AFAIK, unless the laws were different back then (like needing to be more than 16 to consent to sex) then this man did nothing illegal.

 

@Carcaroth, Aldeth: Agreed.

@Carcaroth (Re my quote): I'm still not so sure about letting a kid porn fan work with children. Aren't sex offenders more inclined to work as P.E. teachers than other subjects, anyway? But yes, I would really like to see room for improvement and forgiveness here.