Teacher Fired for Previously Appearing in Porn

[BVS]

They really won't be affected by it all that much. For one, had they not been looking at porn on their own in the first place they never would have found her, and for another, just how traumatized do you honestly think they are? Porn is real sex, like it or not. It is two people engaging in intercourse on video camera. Is a lot of porn unrealistic? Sure. However I don't remember ever watching it and going "oh so this is what sex is? now I'm confused!" I distinctly remember my girlfriends and I giggling over porn back in 7th grade, watching some rather graphic stuff (very off-course, definitely not vanilla) and laughing at how weird that was and how if that was sex, we sure never wanted to do that.

You're really missing the point, and a part of me thinks you're doing so on purpose. I'm not talking about the boy who was already searching for porn, I'm talking about the boy or girl who was shown, or even told about, by other students. On one hand you pretend to know how middle schoolers are, and then on the other hand you pretend to have completely forgotten how middle schoolers act. It only takes one person finding out and the whole school knows.

I feel sorry for anyone who thinks porn is real sex. You have a girl in 6th or 7th grade who is just at the dawn of finding out what it's like to kiss a guy, the pressures and awkwardness of sex, and you want to tell her that gang bangs and facials are normal real sex?

My father HAD that conversation with me. Was it awkward? Sure, but he was completely well poised about it. I have a 1st cousin whom, yes, I inform about things. I also have had the privilege of teaching a lesson in both a 5th grade sexual education classroom as well as a 9th grade special ed sex ed classroom answering a plethora of awkward questions. Bottom line I've had similar conversations with a lot of kids, and not just the sex talk, but talking about rumors in school, leaked naked photos, porn in general, etc.

So your father told you about someone you're suppose to look up to had once gotten paid to have sex and put it on video and that it's no big deal now?

There is nothing wrong with having sex for money. Everything "wrong" with it has been created by society and the fact that we're treating it like it's some sort of horrific thing is ridiculous.

Well now this is making sense. But I don't think you really believe this. Earlier you spoke about how teachers weren't role models and that this was her past. You spoke about it as if there was shame involved but that she should be given a second chance.

I think that's what it boils down to though you could technically include other factors. A kid seeing another human being in the act, teacher or not, is not that traumatizing an experience. Even if they are surprised to find out that porn stars are real people, why would that make a difference? Good kids who stumbled across it on accident may feel embarrassed and try to forget about it, bad kids might go and watch it repeatedly but that's a parenting issue, and has nothing to do with the teacher.

The majority of psychologists who understand the mind of a developing child would completely disagree. Just like you said earlier, society helps shape our views about sex, this teacher would be a part of their intimate society. Psychologists would also disagree that the middle school mind is capable of just "feeling embarrassed and trying to forget" about something like this.

Take some responsibility and watch what your kids are doing on the internet, for heaven's sake. Obviously you can't monitor them all the time but I find it hard to believe that there was nothing parents could do to stop eleven and twelve year old kids from watching pornography.

Once again you're completely forgetting about how kids are that age. It only takes one to find it, and then the whole school knows. This is not an issue about kids seeing or knowing about porn, once you understand that you'll understand what some of us are talking about.

 

[Pearl]

So your father told you about someone you're suppose to look up to had once gotten paid to have sex and put it on video and that it's no big deal now?

I think ladyfreckles meant something else here. I suspect she meant her father having "the talk" with her rather than looking up porn online.

 

[BVS]

Ruining a person's career--a person who has a passion for teaching and educating children--over a mistake they made 6-8 years ago is just ridiculous.

So is it a mistake or not, you keep contradicting yourself.

Edit for clarification: obviously, in this scenario, it's different from a business wanting to portray a certain image. In this case the "business" is the government and the government has no business deciding what sort of sexual morality they want to portray to our kids. Cold hard facts (i.e. protection and diseases, setting boundaries) and nothing else.

This is a ridiculous statement. First of all, we are the government, we're suppose to have a say in what is going on in our schools, that's how the system is suppose to work. Secondly, you can't say that parents teach the kids morals, and school teaches math. You can't completely separate the two. From day care to high school children's minds are developing and school is a part of that social development. How to get along with others, respect for adults, responsibility, etc. these things are all taught and reinforced throughout your entire development(at least it's supposed to) in school and in the household.

 

[BVS]

I think ladyfreckles meant something else here. I suspect she meant her father having "the talk" with her rather than looking up porn online.

I know. I was trying to point out to her that they are not the same thing, and that her painting it as "easy" is missing the point entirely.

 

[Pearl]

This is a ridiculous statement. First of all, we are the government, we're suppose to have a say in what is going on in our schools, that's how the system is suppose to work. Secondly, you can't say that parents teach the kids morals, and school teaches math. You can't completely separate the two. From day care to high school children's minds are developing and school is a part of that social development. How to get along with others, respect for adults, responsibility, etc. these things are all taught and reinforced throughout your entire development(at least it's supposed to) in school and in the household.

It takes a village to raise a child

 

[ladyfreckles]

To me, teachers should be role models based on how they handle the classroom environment and how they educate/relate to their students. Possibly excluding criminal behaviour, I do not see how actions in the past limit someone's ability to be a role model to students today - and, if anything, they can be a positive role model for demonstrating a person's ability to move on from decisions subsequently regretted. There is a positive way to spin this as well as a negative one, and I think it's a sad commentary on those people who sought to fire this woman that they took the negative one, as if to ram home the message to kids that one decision (even if it's legal, even if it's made out of desperation) can have negative ramifications on your career.

If we're going to dredge up past behaviour - especially regretted decisions - to write off role models, then we might as well sack most teachers. I guess I'll never make an appropriate teacher because I floored a guy at high school. Especially since that actually was abhorrent behaviour unlike pornography, which is legal and depicts a perfectly normal (if simulated) aspect of almost every human life ever. People need to stop getting so up-in-arms about pornography. Seriously. Violence, bigotry, discrimination - those are repugnant and worth moral outrage; nudity and sex are not repugnant and do not justify outrage.

BLESS THIS POST.

This is exactly what I'm talking about, though worded much more poignantly.

 

[ladyfreckles]

You're really missing the point, and a part of me thinks you're doing so on purpose. I'm not talking about the boy who was already searching for porn, I'm talking about the boy or girl who was shown, or even told about, by other students. On one hand you pretend to know how middle schoolers are, and then on the other hand you pretend to have completely forgotten how middle schoolers act. It only takes one person finding out and the whole school knows.

I actually mentioned that in my post so I guess you misread it!

I feel sorry for anyone who thinks porn is real sex. You have a girl in 6th or 7th grade who is just at the dawn of finding out what it's like to kiss a guy, the pressures and awkwardness of sex, and you want to tell her that gang bangs and facials are normal real sex?

Why not?

As long as you teach someone that they never have to do anything they don't want to do, I don't see a problem with it. That's the mentality I was raised with and I turned out to be fairly normal.

...fairly.

So your father told you about someone you're suppose to look up to had once gotten paid to have sex and put it on video and that it's no big deal now?
Well now this is making sense. But I don't think you really believe this. Earlier you spoke about how teachers weren't role models and that this was her past. You spoke about it as if there was shame involved but that she should be given a second chance.

A math teacher of mine was involved in an eerily similar scandal. But I never looked up to teachers. I hated the school system and resented the idea that I was supposed to look up to a person that gave me an estimated value based on how much homework I did or what grades I got. I had no respect for teachers to begin with--and that wasn't because of my parents, it was rather in spite of my parents who tried very hard. Eventually they decided to start making me look at teachers as real people instead of ignorant jerks trying to rule my life. I had a few teachers I liked but I never tried to emulate them in that fashion. My 9th grade Chemistry teacher, 8th grade Algebra teacher, and 10th grade history teachers were among my favorites.

Moral development done by schools for children is done in elementary school, not middle school. But you guys keep assuming I'm making some blanket statement about teachers K-12 and not seeing the distinction I am making between telling a kid that hitting other kids is wrong and telling a classroom that a teacher is a bad person because she had sex on video for money.

The majority of psychologists who understand the mind of a developing child would completely disagree. Just like you said earlier, society helps shape our views about sex, this teacher would be a part of their intimate society. Psychologists would also disagree that the middle school mind is capable of just "feeling embarrassed and trying to forget" about something like this.

Once again you're completely forgetting about how kids are that age. It only takes one to find it, and then the whole school knows. This is not an issue about kids seeing or knowing about porn, once you understand that you'll understand what some of us are talking about.

I took several of those courses in college. Not that it makes me an expert, but you're no more of an expert than I am! Yes, it takes one to find it and the whole school knows as I mentioned (yet you repeatedly ignore this), but some kids won't look it up. Others will look it up and push it out of their minds. Kids do have the ability to feel embarrassed by something and move on from it. I don't know many kids who were traumatized by walking in on their parents. And despite your claims there is absolutely no evidence behind the idea that orgies, gang-bangs or other deviant sexual activity are somehow more traumatizing than regular sex. The only thing I'm reading from you is that "but it's different sex, kids will react poorly to it" and no they won't.

I think ladyfreckles meant something else here. I suspect she meant her father having "the talk" with her rather than looking up porn online.

No, it was about looking at porn online. Specifically.

So is it a mistake or not, you keep contradicting yourself.

I've said "perceived mistake" several times. I guess since I didn't add the perceived in the last few times I'm contradicting myself? It's that other people refer to her choice as a mistake. Maybe I didn't put "mistake" in quotations like I should have, but that's not contradictory.

This is a ridiculous statement. First of all, we are the government, we're suppose to have a say in what is going on in our schools, that's how the system is suppose to work. Secondly, you can't say that parents teach the kids morals, and school teaches math. You can't completely separate the two. From day care to high school children's minds are developing and school is a part of that social development. How to get along with others, respect for adults, responsibility, etc. these things are all taught and reinforced throughout your entire development(at least it's supposed to) in school and in the household.

Yes you can. Schools should not be teaching sexual morality. Schools and government should not be mandating what is appropriate sexual behavior in children, that is the parents' job.

 

[Pearl]

Yes you can. Schools should not be teaching sexual morality. Schools and government should not be mandating what is appropriate sexual behavior in children, that is the parents' job.

I agree it is the parents' job to teach sexual morality to their kids. But unfortunately, because there are still parents out there who are reluctant to talk about sex with their kids, the schools have to step in. It shouldn't be like that, but that's life.

 

[iron yuppie]

To me, teachers should be role models based on how they handle the classroom environment and how they educate/relate to their students. Possibly excluding criminal behaviour, I do not see how actions in the past limit someone's ability to be a role model to students today...

Strongly agreed. What a teacher does outside school, notwithstanding criminal activity, is his or her business and no one else's.

So the major concern in this thread, as far as I understand it, is that the students will no longer take this teacher seriously. Here's the solution.

You confront the issue openly rather than trying to pretend that sexuality somehow doesn't exist or is some kind of illicit activity. The teacher and possibly administration acknowledge that, yes, people are sexual and sexual behavior exists among pretty much everyone from adolescence on. Administration then cracks down on any student who is taunting or harassing the teacher. This whole thing sounds to me like the school administration was more concerned about the complaints of the parents than the right of this teacher to have a life outside school. Simply acknowledging that people are naturally sexual is not akin to telling middle schoolers to go out and start having a bunch of indiscriminate, unprotected sex.

 

[Pearl]

You confront the issue openly rather than trying to pretend that sexuality somehow doesn't exist or is some kind of illicit activity. The teacher and possibly administration acknowledge that, yes, people are sexual and sexual behavior exists among pretty much everyone from adolescence on. Administration then cracks down on any student who is taunting or harassing the teacher. This whole thing sounds to me like the school administration was more concerned about the complaints of the parents than the right of this teacher to have a life outside school.

This can be possible, but the American society in particular is very prudish to the point of being laughable. So having this type of an attitude toward sexuality will not happen overnight and it cannot be forced, or else there will be a huge backlash. These things take time. 10 years from now, a teacher in a similar situation won't have this problem.

I agree that any student harassing the teacher should be disciplined or even expelled, but the teacher will be blamed for bringing the problem on herself.

 

[anitram]

Two things for me.

First, she showed poor judgment by being active in the porn industry while she was a student teacher. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together and an ounce of common sense would have realized that this is a potential long-term problem.

Second, this was several years ago, she seemingly hasn't acted in a porn film in something like 6 or 7 years, so when does the statue of limitations expire? In high school I had a teacher who was an alcoholic and went to rehab in the middle of a school year and was eventually reinstated, I think in the following semester. My feeling is that there are all kinds of things in people's pasts that could be seen as poor decisions or life choices but that no longer have bearing on what the teacher is doing at the moment.

I frankly never cared what my teachers did in their spare time. So long as they are not criminals, I don't see them as role models on a personal level at all. If they are professional in the classroom, put a lot of thought into their teaching plans, make sure that all the students are benefiting from their teaching style, that's all I ask for and I don't think that we should be entitled to more.

 

[bono_212]

I guess I learned no morals from my 8th grade math teacher who was a homosexual and didn't hide it behind a facade and openly shared her excitement about the child she and her partner were adopting.

I also learned nothing from my high school history teacher who used events from our cities history to open, up US history as a whole to us and as a result, impart the importance of my cities culture instead of thinking of it as a hickass town to escape from as soon as possible

 

[Moonlit_Angel]

I'm with Axver, anitram, and iron yuppie on this one.

I think teachers can and should be role models, since they're in a notable position and have a particular sway over helping children's minds to grow and expand. That said, however, even role models mess up, and while, as anitram said, this wasn't exactly the brightest move she could make simply because OF the outcry many would have over it were it revealed, and while I know I would've found it bizarre to find out any teachers I had had did things like that (for all sorts of reasons), at the same time...is she a good teacher? Does she help kids with their work? Does she take the time to talk to them if they're having difficulty with a project or a test or something? Does she know her material? And so on?

If so, then I'd say that it'd be stupid to let her go because of some choices she made in her personal life that really aren't any of the parents' (or kids') business to begin with. Parents are worrying about the effect on their kids and don't want to have to explain this stuff to them, but by making a big issue out of it and helping to get her fired with their complaints, ironically, they're likely going to have to wind up doing way more explaning to their kids than they originally would've.

 

[Cactus Annie]

Me and Roger had a discussion on what's the difference between erotica and erotic drama, and porn. We came to the conclusion that porn is more explicit than erotica and it's made to titillate. Erotic drama's do actually have a narrative

 

[Dreadsox]

There are very few people out there who can walk on water! Most have a Skelton or two in their closet. Digital age has changed the permanent nature of our past transgressions!

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

The interwebs and social media will force the prude amongst us all to get over it... because pretty soon we won't be able to elect anyone or have any teachers who don't have some sort of skeleton in their closet.