advice on a male teacher at DDs school please

I don't want people losing their jobs because of their social media use, but he should ensure the pupils can't see it.

More important to me is that we live in a society in which girls are constantly being groomed -- by social media, influencers, pornography and the adults who pretend to be teenagers online. Girls are being accept whatever men want and to ignore their self-defence instincts.

In this society, men demand the right to use women's single-sex facilities, and juries believe killers who say their girlfriend wanted to be strangled. Girls and women need all the defence they can get.

So please let your daughter know you believe her and want her to continue telling you of her concerns. You may not be able to do anything about this teacher, but DD needs to know you're hearing and believing her.

@BullBailey

ABSOLUTELY YES! I would be all over that because amongst lots of young boys this would be seen as a triumph. It isn't.

If he was a female and was following lots of young males into fitness would you have complained? I doubt it.

His SM should be private but he is a young male so presumably follow young women? It doesn’t mean that he fancies year 9 girls. I have a year 10 boy and there are lots of rumours about pedo- teachers all the time. I feel sorry for male teachers. Such an exposed position

Urgh there's always one

Men can look after themselves and also be expected to behave appropriately. In fact the majority do. My dds have had male teachers and male swim teachers akd sports coaches and never ever have they come home complaining they made them uncomfortable.

Nor do they need pity because they ogle women on Instagram, forget to lock their accounts and then act surprised when their class are uncomfortable with that.

Why is our bar of acceptable behaviour so sodding low that something clearly inappropriate still renders him the victim and the girls whiners who just want to get out of pe

Ffs

Really? He’s following body builders and fitness models and you’re making out he’s a pervert?

Sorry but I think you’re being really unfair. He’s a PE teacher, following women into fitness is to be expected. Maybe he followed female runners and gymnasts and male sports people too but they didn’t pick up on that? Sorry but I think you’re being unfair.

Hmm. My view is coloured by the fact that every single male PE at my school was a perve. All of them 'dated' girls at school aged 14, 15, 16. There were tonnes of incidents but it was accepted as normal in those days. One of the PE teachers used to walk around with an erection. It was fucked up.

I think if the girls feel creeped out then that's upsetting for them but it's hard to know what to do about it. I would definitely expect the HT to pull him up on his gross SM at the very least.

I don't really see why they have to have a male PE teacher at that age and I wonder what happens with changing and any issues with periods etc. I feel that for safeguarding reasons there should be a female teacher present. Maybe if other parents feel the same way, you could bring those concerns to the HT?

His SM should be private but he is a young male so presumably follow young women? It doesn’t mean that he fancies year 9 girls. I have a year 10 boy and there are lots of rumours about pedo- teachers all the time. I feel sorry for male teachers. Such an exposed position.

I wouldn't be happy on 2 points.

The girls intuition/discomfort is valid

His objectification of the female body doesn't seem to fit with him teaching vulnerable teen girls.

Be honest @SimonJT you don't have the 'average parent' in mind when posting... you always have a specific, pain in the arse, never wholly logical about anything their Precious did or said, or didn't do! That one parent becomes your Spiritual Guide in all things SM

Kids naturally check out social media, I remember doing it in the days of myspace, it makes sense to either set it to private or post, like etc very little content.

I ‘teach’ very young children (rugby tots), but I have to follow the SM standards, mine was already private (and I don’t use it a great deal), I do have a specific rugby tots public page, but I always double check when I’m posting that I’m definitely using my rugby tots one and not my personal one.

Generally if your SM is public ask yourself how the average parent would react to the content on there.

Any male PE teacher if he's any good should be aware of how he is interacting with his girl pupils, it's all part of reflective practice. He should be eager for feedback. His Instagram account is a flag that he needs proper mentoring and supervision.

Um. I am not sure.

As far as the bodybuilders go, sure, he may get a thrill out of them. However, it's also pretty standard for them to ear bathing suits that are barely there, just as it is for male bodybuilders. I think you might have a hard time finding one that doesn't.

But if the girls just don't like the way he looks at them, I am not sure how meaningful that is. My experience at that age was that a lot of young women rather like to make a controversy and gossip about their teachers and especially the PE ones, and once a rumour like that starts everyone goes around looking for any little thing they can spin into something else.

I tend to think it's better for teens to have PE teachers of the same sex as themselves in part for that reason, as well as several other good ones, but that doesn't seem to be the way of thinking at the moment.

As an aside...maybe also have a word with the kids that they shouldn't go stalking teachers on social media, that it is inappropriate. Are you kidding? That's the first thing they do when you start teaching them! They think it's the best thing ever if they find you!

I've had an open facebook stream for decades. Most of my students (when I was still teaching) found it quite easily and assumed I was a total SM numpty. It made them stop looking, hassling me. They had no reason to know I was an IT bod before I was a teacher! My real accounts have always been locked down!

It's part of any teacher training course and has been for a couple of decades!

Looking at someone's social media feed isn't stalking.

If people don't want to be found, they use private accounts or a different name.

I don't think the children have don't anything wrong here.

I'm conflicted over this. Shouldn't the teacher be watching them? That's his job isn't it? If one of them were to have an accident or if there was a fight that broke out and he didn't react quickly enough, because he didn't see it because he wasn't watching, would he be in trouble?

As for Instagram...has he put any inappropriate comments? Or he just follows them?

Most of out PE teachers were male at school and I can't imagine complaining because they were watching us. In fact we knew we were being watched all the time so had to behave because we would get into trouble.

At the same time, if he is watching them in a creepy way and saying inappropriate things/acting inappropriately, then this should definitely be investigated.

As an aside...maybe also have a word with the kids that they shouldn't go stalking teachers on social media, that it is inappropriate.

What solution would you like to this situation?

What this PE teacher has done would strike up the red flag. And that has been the case for what 20 years? So he is being obtuse, at best. But, as I said, I've worked with some obstinate cusses who were determined they were exempt because... summink summink summink

This seems to be 'pointed out' on a LOT of threads in FWR recently. Along with loads of NAMALT.

There’s a lot more right wingers latching on lately. I blame the US political scene. As people used to say on GC reddit “the Donald is leaking”

CuriousaboutSamphire

"Teachers, GPs and many, many other professionals have additional standards they should meet at all times. For their own protection!"

Exactly this. When I took the level 3 Personal Trainer course a few years ago, there was a whole module on safeguarding, how to act around children (and adults) and keeping SM private. What this PE teacher has done would strike up the red flag.

Women can abuse too.

This seems to be 'pointed out' on a LOT of threads in FWR recently. Along with loads of NAMALT. Almost like posting on AIBU these days. This seems a newish development.

I think there are two issues here:-

1. the fact that some girls are finding him watching them doing PE creepy. As others say, they should be taken seriously.

1. the inappropriate, publicly available social media feed. Of course people can post/follow who and what they like on social media (within the law obvs) but it's not appropriate to have a public profile with sexualised photos of young women when you're employed to work in any capacity with children.

It's not a good look in any job role, but way out of order if you work in a school. It's not difficult to use a different name that your students can't find you by or set up a private account.

Women can abuse too.
True, but it's not unreasonable to be warier of men, because men commit the majority of abusive crimes. Most men are not creepy. Enough are that extra vigilance seems understandable. Especially when it comes to kids.

Personally, I don’t think anyone should be fired for what they put on their SM unless it’s illegal or threatening violence. I think we should stick to this given we want to protect feminist thinkers from being fired for “transphobia” (eg Maya). There are ways to have this conversation without resorting to outright censorship.

Nevertheless, if the girls are creeped out their feelings should 100% be taken seriously. They should be advised that the school takes safeguarding seriously and that there are measures in place that ensure that no teacher will be able to harm a student. It might be explained for example that teachers are never to be alone with a student, or touch a student beyond a handshake, and that depending on context this could be a firable offense. Or whatever other safeguards there are.

Honestly if he’s a decent guy he will probably be horribly embarrassed once he learns his students are seeing his insta and will go private/anonymous voluntarily.

I wouldn't want to go to a doctor who had creepy sexualised social media content. It's not the teacher's own business because his SM is public

At best this young man has a poor understanding of appropriateness. Certainly not a great starting point for someone who works with young girls. I would take your daughter seriously irrespective of that though.