Schools are love nests

Nov 24, 2017 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Perhaps, it is the company that I keep or the generation to which I belong. But I have known of more teachers marrying their former students than students who married former school mates.
It was not unusual in the past, for some male teachers to have had relations with girls in their school. While students often scandalized these relations as being sexual in nature, there was very little evidence that those relations were sexual in nature. They were love affairs which faded no sooner the student would have left school.
In the case of the marriages between teacher and student, of which there have been quite a few, these more often than not blossomed after the student would have left school and reconnected with the teacher. Those marriages between teachers and students, were not short-lived. Most of them have become long–lasting unions. I am sure that most of the older readers of this column would know of a few cases where teachers married their former students.
This is not a defence of teacher-student relationships. It just shows that sometimes the relationships which society so often condemn and deem inappropriate, end up being stable unions.
In the past, it was invariably the male teachers who courted school girls. You never found female teachers having relationships with their students. This was inconceivable in the old days.
Times have changed. In recent times in the United States and the United Kingdom, it is the female teachers who are making the news for having affairs with students. Some of them are now facing charges before the courts.
Love affairs and infatuation flourish in schools. Boys have secret crushes on girls; girls have crushes on boys. Boys fantasize about their female teachers and no doubt girls sometimes develop crushes for their male teachers.
A great many a boy found out, much to his chagrin, that some girl they liked, really liked a male teacher better. In fact, many schoolgirls are known to have secret crushes on their teachers.
This again is not justifying relationships between teachers and students. It is merely pointing out what exists even onto today. There is puppy-love in schools.
There were no circulars in those days prohibiting such relations but some head teachers were known to have spoken out against such relationships if they got wind of it.
Female teachers are now being accused of sexually assaulting students in the United States. This was unheard of forty to fifty years ago. It was unheard of twenty years ago.
What have not changed are relationships between male and female teachers. There are many schools in which teachers are having rollicking love affairs with each other. And of course, students often pick up on these things. The students know who is carrying on with whom. Gossip about love affairs is an industry in schools.
Schools are an extension of the Young and the Restless. Some female teachers have been known to stop speaking with each other because of their affection for a particular male teacher. Boys and girls are falling head over heels for one another. Teachers are cavorting with one another. Schools are love nests.
I cannot speak for what happens today but it would be interesting to know whether there are cases today in which teachers are still marrying their students. The sense I get is that such relationships are frowned upon by society and, unlike in the past, when they flourished, they are negatively stigmatized by the present generation.
It is time for some firm rules to be made about these types of relations. The Ministry of Education, if they have not done so already, should develop some circulars about teacher-student relationships because it is not just a romantic issue. It also is about power relations. Ground rules need to be established about such relationships.
So what is the official policy in terms of non-sexual romantic relations between teachers and students? The answer should be logical. Such relations should be discouraged. But should they be outlawed?
This is the question which must be addressed regardless of the outcome of the present investigation into the allegations of sexual misconduct against a teacher. If it is deemed wrong for a teacher to have romantic relations with students because of the position of power which the teacher holds over the students, then what about case where older boys in schools have romantic relations with younger girls. Should this be also made illegal?
By the way, how did you meet your better half? Was it at school?

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