Thanks Jeff for pointing out this story about a teacher who somehow thought it was a good idea to send naked photos of herself to a 15-year-old student!
I find this incident very hard to wrap my head around. Outside of the obvious inappropriateness of the act, did the teacher honestly think that a teenage boy would keep naked pictures of a teacher a secret? Imagine being in high school and getting a hold of some compromising pics of a teacher. Imagine your classmates getting their hands on them. What percentage of them would just keep those photos to themselves as opposed to having some sort of "fun" with them?
That's what I thought.
I was in Teacher Education for a while, and I don't recall ever covering the inappropriateness of sexual relationships with students. I am sure it was covered elsewhere, but not in the classes I taught. Perhaps during those ethics classes (or wherever they talk about such issues) we need to address the fact that sexting counts as acting inappropriately? Show news stories such as this to scare the heck out of those even tempted to do so? Again, I find it odd that it would even be necessary, but given the viral nature of texts and other digital communication, perhaps it wouldn't hurt to offer these gentle reminders to instructors.
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A postscript to this story: Melinda Dennehy, the teacher involved in the incident, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of indecent exposure and was given a suspended sentence, with conditions.
Thanks for the update! And to perhaps inspire me to jump start this blog again. I have been moving away from this topic a little bit -- still doing sex ed stuff, but it's been hard to do it all!
Wonderful site, would really like to see a bit more of your idea...
beautifully written and so inspiring, i thought this was a really great post to read. i'll check back for new posts by you!
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