lund
Familiar Member
Joined: Jul 22, 2015 7:12:22 GMT -5
Posts: 787
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Post by lund on Jul 30, 2016 6:13:14 GMT -5
To me there are many things to consider here.
The first is if somebody is under the legal age of consent. That is illegal, and hence a relationship should not happen.
The second is that somebody is in a position of authority and trust, and as long as that position is upheld, no relationship should happen.
The third is the age differences. A new teacher may be as young as 23-24, and the student 18-19. The age difference is not a problem in itself here, even though I think that an 18-year-old is young for a 24-year-old. It might be OK, some 18/19-year-olds are quite mature. (The kinds of relationships where one is double the age of the other I find improper.)
The fourth is correct behavior in the work place. It is not OK for a boss to flirt or have relationships with the people working under him/her, and it is not OK for these persons to flirt with him/her either. And because of that I think that teachers should never flirt, and flirting teens should get punished if they go too far, giving them a bit of leeway for young, immature and stupid.
But if a teacher starts dating a former student, preferably after graduation, and they are adults, it is their business.
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milee
Senior Associate
Joined: Jan 17, 2012 13:20:00 GMT -5
Posts: 12,344
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Post by milee on Jul 30, 2016 9:26:13 GMT -5
There's two different situations here IMO. One is that there is really a mutual love for each other. At first thought I find that situation weird, but is it really that weird that a 17 or 18 year old and a 23-24 year old would fall in love? No, it's not that weird that a random 17/18 year old and 23/24 year old would fall in love. And if that happens in a general social setting, that's a completely different issue that what's described in the OP. What OP describes is a student/teacher relationship which is not even remotely a general social setting. A teacher is not only in a position of authority over students - can determine grades or if a student graduates, can make trouble for a student or help a student out, can be a factor determining whether that student goes to college - and wields enormous power, both obvious and subtle, over a student that there is no way it's appropriate for a "relationship" to develop since there's no way to determine if consent was freely given or coerced. Adding to the complexity, teens aren't always skilled at noticing or navigating those social nuances, so a teen might not even be consciously aware of a teacher's power and might instead interpret that power subconsciously as an attractive plus. Example - at 15 you think the gym teacher is "hot", at 22 if you met him/her in a random social setting you'd view him/her as a loser and realize that part of what made him seem "hot" was you interpreted his authority as being an alpha male/cool when instead he just had that authority because he was your teacher and that gave him power over you at that time and place. It will never be appropriate for people in authority positions to have a sexual relationship with a person they're in authority over. Add in the fact that in the case of the OP, one of the parties is a minor and this is not remotely a case of 17/18 year old falling into mutual love with a 23/24 year old. Is it reasonable that a teacher and student might develop feelings for each other? Of course! But any teacher out there that understands how teens mature and develop and understand the social dynamics of this type of power dynamic - and since teachers receive training in this, every teacher should understand this - should know that if a teacher chooses to act on those feelings, s/he is preying on the student, not entering into a mutual relationship where both parties are free to choose. If the teacher really cared about the student, s/he wouldn't want to prey on the student like that.
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alabamagal
Junior Associate
Joined: Dec 23, 2010 11:30:29 GMT -5
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Post by alabamagal on Jul 30, 2016 9:45:00 GMT -5
My cousin started dating his wife when she was 16 he was 24. They dated while she finished high school and college, got married, she went to Ned school, had 3 kids and were married 20 years. They did get divorced. The age difference was a little weird at first but after she got out of high school it was not a big deal.
In the young teacher case, you could be dealing with someone as young as 21 being a teacher. While that person has completed 4 years of college, it is not like you have an ADULT switch that you just turn on. You would hope their training should sink in that it is wrong to have a relationship with a student. The obvious solution is to wait until they are ex students, but waiting is not something young people are good at either.
I think a lot of the cases are more teachers preying on vulnerable students than young teachers having a relationship with students who they are close in age to.
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