This is Scylla. Charybdis is in the teachers lounge.
Responding to one of the recent posts here about the deteriorating relationships between students, teachers and administrator, teacher Brook Styler alerted us to his own crisis, a situation right out of “The Children’s Hour” in which vengeful female students, aided and abetted by parents, circulated rumors that lost him his job.
Styler has launched a website, Teacher Hunt, to collect the experiences of teachers, who, like him, have been victimized by false accusations from students. I plan on visiting it often. But the site appears at a time in which teachers using their students for sexual gratification is either on the rise, or is being uncovered with remarkable efficiency. Every day, one or more cases of teachers preying on students is in the news. Yesterday, it was Rachel L. Farrell, 25, a Bangor, Maine high school teacher charged with having sex with a 17-year-old student on “numerous occasions” while she was supposed to be tutoring him in English. Authorities believe she had sexual relations with as many as three other students. Today, it was the still unfolding horror of Mark Berndt, 61, a teacher at Miramonte Elementary School in the Los Angeles community of Florence-Firestone, who was charged with 23 counts of committing lewd acts on children after over 400 photos were discovered by a CVS clerk, showing pornographic conduct involving his students (age 7-10) over a five year period. Berndt, now being held on $23 million bail, regularly told his students that they were going to play a “tasting game,” in which children were blindfolded and, in some cases, gagged with tape, authorities say. They were then fed the teacher’s semen, administered to them on a blue plastic spoon and, according to one alleged victim’s father, on cookies.
I can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings, can you?
In an environment like this, how are schools to function? What should parents and authorities do? The schools are riddled with untrustworthy teachers who are poised to harm and abuse children, and filled with children who know that they can exploit fears of these teachers by accusing innocent ones who try to do their jobs. Who should be trusted? Who should be believed?
In Greek mythology, the straits of Messina were plagued with two deadly monsters that every ship had to navigate between. One, the eight-headed Scylla, would devour a sailor per head. The other, Charybdis, sucked the sea in and spewed it out, creating a ship-wrecking whirlpool. No ship could avoid both. This is the plight of the schools, and every family that depends on them. If teachers are viewed with excessive suspicion, they will be victims of rumors and vendettas. If they are trusted as the professionals they are supposed to be, children will be abused. Meanwhile, the real objective, education, continues to languish.
I don’t have a solution. I do have a diagnosis: the American school culture is in the midst of a full ethics breakdown. The widespread cheating scandals were one symptom; this is another. There are too many untrustworthy teachers who slip into the system and lie in wait for student prey, and the knowledge that these exist makes the good teachers too vulnerable to injustice. In its current state, I don’t think American public schools are safe for students or teachers. The profession of teaching has lost both its integrity and credibility.
I’m tired of chronicling this tragic deterioration, almost as much as I am tired of the facile calls by politicians for more school funding, as if higher-paid sexual predators will solve the problem. I yearn to see evidence that serious people, including parents, are taking proactive steps to overhaul the culture of education so that the schools can be trusted again. If it is happening, it sure isn’t paying off yet.
Ethics Alarms 
That bail for Mark Berndt is $23 million, per a recent USA Today report – one million dollars per suspected victim.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-02-01/teacher-classroom-molester-photos/52918298/1
“alleged” victim, I meant – illustrating that forms of “suspicion” are probably best not applied to persons who may be victims of crime. Use “suspected” as an adjective only for possible or probable criminals.
Thanks…fixed!
I hope USA Today has it correct. I heard $23 million on the radio too.
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“I am tired of the facile calls by politicians for more school funding, as if higher-paid sexual predators will solve the problem. ”
I couldn’t agree more. I chose to express it in baseball terms: you can’t take a mediocre, single A utility infielder and make him a Hall of Fame shortstop by giving him a $5million a year contract; he still has to be able to play the game. Paying a mediocre teacher (let alone a criminal one) more money will not make them a better teacher, just a poor one with a better car.
As I have heard this discussed many times today, the unanswered question that keeps coming up is “what other teachers and/or administrators knew or suspected this stuff and did nothing?” There seem to be too many kids over too long a period of time — if what we hear today is correct — for it to be kept quiet. Wasn’t it G. Gordon Liddy who popularized the idea that the only way for three people to keep a secret was for two of them to be dead? So where were the administrators???
bad analogy. The benefits of raised pay aren’t changes to the performance of the existing teachers. It’s in the change in quality of teachers that can be attracted in the future.
Jack,
I know I’m not the first to comment on this but, seriously, ANOTHER attractive female teacher caught with a student? Did Letourneau start some weird sort of trend, or only one already there? I say this not to make insensitive and, now-cliched, “where were these teachers when I was in school?” joke, but rather as genuine curiosity. Whenever it’s a man, he almost invariably looks like a reject from the Munsters yet, the majority of the women tend to be young and fairly attractive. Is there a deeper sociological issue at work?
-Neil
I think what is at work is that the professional taboo against such conduct has been diluted to the point of disappearance. And most of the teachers who do this are NOT attractive, based on the mug shots I’ve seen.
Most of the female teachers implicated are younger, while a lot of the male teachers are older. Look at pictures of anyone when they are twenty and then again at 45. Mystery solved.
I think the only thing that can possibly change the situation is for parents to become far more involved, on a daily basis, in their children’s public schools. If we, as parents, are more involved, it follows that the schools will be held accountable more often for better standards in hiring, education, curriculum, and that less (dare I say no?) abuse will take place. I know it’s not an easy task. In most two-parent families, both parents work out of necessity or because they both have big careers. In most single-parent households, the parent must work to provide basics. But there MUST also be time spent at school/after school/on the phone/via email or whatever else it takes to hold the teachers/administrators accountable. We cannot trust that we can blithely send our kids off to be well educated and well cared for – because it’s just NOT HAPPENING. And the issue doesn’t just exist in poorer communities.
I’ve sung the praises of the special ed program in my community for 10 years. And I’ve been active in my child’s education/schools all those years. Then came Middle School. In one of the wealthiest communities in the country that prides itself on its public school system and send its students to the best colleges in the country – it’s failing the special needs kids who need the most help. Endless correspondence, meetings, phone calls, incidents I won’t get into that would raise the hair on your skin … all the way up to the Superintendent of Schools. What finally STARTED to bring about change after 5 months of an unacceptable situation? I calmly asked if I really needed to file a law suit AND bring the issues to the media in order to bring about change. BINGO!
Had I NOT been involved as closely as I am in my child’s schooling, she could have spent the next 3 years in an untenable situation, with lack of appropriate, supervision and education – and I would never have known!
Like I said – the only thing that will change the situation is more parental involvement. We have to fight for what our children need and deserve.