a grey, ice-filled day greeted my feet this morning as i walked out the door on about 3 hours of drunken sleep. my hair's in a greasy side ponytail, and i dressed in the dark: dickies, pink chucks, a tattoo-printed tee and slim blue cardigan. makeup free and glasses-adorned, i am looking almost as great as i feel, lol. pathetic.
so i'm hunched over my computer, blearily staring at the screen, unable to focus on anything work-related. i start randomly surfing the net, something i haven't done much of lately, and i come across this article from texas. as if i couldn't feel any worse.
gods, this 21 year-old guy was a substitute teacher for THREE WEEKS, and was already busted for having sex with a 14 year-old girl in a parking lot! he went and pulled her out of class and lured her into his car to assault her! when the girl broke down in class the next week, they arrested him. he actually had the nerve to claim that the sex was consensual! the school system said he passed their background check. it really makes me wonder what kind of checks they do. i've never been a substitute teacher, so i haven't a clue. has anyone ever seen the criteria required? i'm guessing no felonies? anyone?
what really got to me, and maybe it's just exhaustion, but not really, is that this story is ridiculously common. so common, in fact, it probably hasn't surprised a single one of the people that read or heard of it. and that's disgusting. people put in charge of our children should not be utilizing their positions of authority in such an immoral way. and the poor girl, in typical guilt-ridden victim style, had to be convinced that it wasn't her fault!
the power differential is inherent in any student-teacher relationship. students listen to their teachers, look up to them, fear and respect them. yet these people justify sexual relations with them? it sickens me. i'm all for free love between two consenting adults. have fun, do it however and whenever you want. any fetish that can be imagined has likely been tried more than twice. but dammit, CHILDREN ARE OFF LIMITS!!!!!!!! that shouldn't be something that even needs to be mentioned, and yet, time and again, they're victimized, and then shamed into believing it's their fault. and teachers, the people that society trusts to mold and shape young minds, should be particularly cognizant of that.
okay, so now i need to go calm down. i can't wait to get out of work and jump into some comfy pajamas and decompress. maybe i'll finish knitting a scarf, and try to pretend for an evening that the world isn't all kinds of fucked.
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2 comments:
In the words of my mother, "If you want to marry a doctor, work in a hospital." Pedophiles work in school because that's where they find kids.
i realize that pedophiles are gonna seek out places where they're more likely to be in contact with victims. this is why schools should be more stringent with background checks and more selective with the appointment of teachers. i also realize that people are going to slip through the cracks. it's a terrible and unfortunate fact of life. however, when children are being abused over and over again, to the point where society is becoming calloused to the injustice, then something has to change. thanks for commenting :)
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