advice on a male teacher at DDs school please

There are clearly two different things going on here. Firstly, @happydappy2 was absolutely right to raise the Instagram matter with the school - from what I understand from ds2, who is a teacher, they are all told to keep all their social media private. The PE teacher should have had his privacy settings right, so the pupils could not have found him or viewed his Instagram feed. I don't actually think there is anything terribly sinister in a sporty man, with an interest in body building, having pictures of body builders on his Insta feed - but it was very foolish of him to leave his account open so pupils could find him.

The second part - the feelings of unease his female pupils are feeling - would worry me, and bears further investigation, I think. If I were you, I'd be asking your dd to explain what it is that is making her and the other girls feel uncomfortable. If it is as simple as him watching them - it is hard to see how anyone can coach a sport or teach PE without looking at the pupils - but if there are other things he's doing or saying, then maybe this needs raising with the school.

Kcar you seem overly invested with protecting the rights of men to look at undressed young women! Most of your posts seem to be about that. I have no idea what your point is about your DD putting sexy pics on the net tbh

I agree with kcar.

Lots of teen girls put bikini pics on their insta. My dds included. Almost certainly zero of the male people who follow my dds are weirdo perves. Of course its relevant.

It is not unusual for young women to wear bikinis.

It is not unusual for young women to Post pics of themselves wearing bikinis.

There is absolutely no evidence that this young man has done anything wrong.

And quite frankly, given all my posts on this thread your accusation is unfounded and ridiculous and designed to drive me off the thread. I suppose I’m one of these men that can be seen down the internet as well and one of these new posters not welcome in FWR.

Absolutely ridiculous.

But @WootMoggie all this guy has done is not set his Instagram to private!!

You can't compare it to what your PE teacher was doing.

I'm starting to feel sorry for this teacher...

I remember when Friends Reunited was a thing, one ex-student from my year at school said she always felt uncomfortable being made to swim lengths privately in t-shirt and kickers as punishment by one particular male PE teacher whenever she forgot her swimming costume.

Others replied with "OMG - that happened with me too!" and various others chipped in, some pointing out that the teacher's wife (also a teacher) would sometimes join him to watch these private swimming detentions, and that the memory of it was all very weird.

As a boy at the school, I remember this - because I was once sent to give that PE teacher a message, and walked in on one of these "detentions" and remember thinking it somehow didn't seem at all "right" to me.

Friends Reunited seemed to throw up a lot of odd-sounding memories from (now adult) ex-students across the UK, and shortly afterwards, moderators started posting a lot of warnings and doing deletions if I remember correctly.

Anyway - that's just a long-winded way of saying that, as a parent with girls, I would definitely follow-up on this, and I would do so in-person rather than by email or phone, as it's a sensitive discussion.

You said in your op that a girl raised it with you.

You then said it wasn’t a pupil who raised it.

Now you say it was a male pupil who raised it.

Which is it?

I think the only thing this teacher has done wrong is not set his Instagram to private.

He's a young man - as long as he's professional and appropriate at work, what he looks at and who he follows on social media is his business.

Well done OP.

OP - which posters are men?

You know men can fancy women in bikinis and then and go a teach young girls P.E with out being a sexual predator tight??

Quite. If his insta had loads of underage looking girls in school PE kit - that woould be inappropriate, creepy and weird

It’s that that has bothered you the most.

What’s on his SM account is no business of yours.

You know men can fancy women in bikinis and then and go a teach young girls P.E with out being a sexual predator tight??

My DD posts pics of herself on sm in bikinis.

As far as I’m aware, there is nothing wrong with a teacher following her, or indeed my DD following other young women who post in gym kit or bikinis, or young men in budge smugglers.

Loads of young women pose in ways that show off their bodies and put the photos up on social media. If I had their bodies I might do it too.

There is nothing wrong with the fact that he follows young women who do this. It is not any indicator of his behaviour towards his pupils.

You have changed your story and I’ve asked you why. I haven’t attacked you. I’ve pointed out discrepancies and asked you why

The teacher definitely should have his SM as locked down as possible. And it is good that the head has raised that with him.

The rest of what you’ve posted is a lot of froth about nothing. You have no evidence he’s done anything and you haven’t even gone about it the right way at all.

That’s what comes across,to me the most - instead of going to the school and saying he is making the girls feel uncomfortable, and taking your daughter and getting her to describe what is making her feel uncomfortable, you,went in to the school about his insta having body builders on it.

There has to be a sensible approach where nobody decides this guy is an unprofessional wrong'un based on vague accusations in teenage gossip (and the fact they don't like his social media), and dismissing what students say on the grounds that year 9 girls are bitchy drama queens.

There is. Though I do think its kind of unprofessional for a teacher to have their account searchable in that way, but thats mostly because all those I know in the profession are very strict on that, to the point where noone can search them at all on FB, and they have to send friend requests, noone can find them to request!

I genuinely have not seen anyone write him off as a wrong un because of the SM thing and the 'feeling'. I have however, seen much dismissing of the girls and what they have said, and many generalisations about teen girls also!

Have waffled a lot on here but my main thoughts are really..OP was correct to bring up the social media thing with the head. Even if there were not pics of half naked bodybuilders (and yes, can well believe it, the men seem to wear even less than the women on accounts DH follows!) its simply good practise for a teachers social media to not be so..open online. This protects the teacher more than anyone else really.

The teacher 'looking at' girls and making the uncomfortable, might be something, might be nothing. But whichever way, there is nothing that can be done about it at the min, nor does it seem the OP wanted anything done about that part anyway. At the same time, I refuse to discount the 'gut feeling' that girls (and probably boys too, only hear about it from women/girls though really) sometimes get. I also refuse to write off their feelings because they are teen girls who will no doubt sometimes like drama like all teens do. I find the leaping to insulting teen girls bizarre for FWR. But I do see a lot of new faces which could explain this. If people did join to post here, welcome and please stay on MN! More the merrier.

As a side note too though, I have been increasingly uncomfortable with how threads about women/girls go on this board these days. Too much NAMALT and such going on..for the area of the site this board is in, but thats my issue!

The constant insistence on 'she didn't ask anything more about feeling uncomfortable' constantly is annoying too. Given many many women cannot quite articulate what 'that feeling' is, teens are unlikely to be able to. I still have no idea how to explain it myself, but the only time I ever ignored my gut, it was the wrong thing to do. Thats not to say, again, that theres anything dodgy here. Just that I know 'the feeling' well, and in my own experiece, the only time I ignored it, I shouldn't have.

Finally, I still want to see where OP has said she wants the guy sacked, or anything similar to that. She did say her 'preference' would be a female teacher. I would agree, when DD is a teenager, I would prefer her having a female PE teacher and assume the school will facilitate this wherever possible. I have also not seen the witchunt thats claimed.

So yeah. In short, he has done nothing wrong besides have his SM account open really. There might be more to this, there might not be. He should not be written off as a perv because of a feeling and posting pics of bikini clad women. Equally they should not immediately be assumed liars, drama seekers, etc just because they are teenage girls. Nor should the mother be accused of all kinds of vendettas because she wishes to talk about the whle thing on the feminist chat board (without identifying anyone, so no harm done as its just a chat). And the thread, if nothing else has been a great read and one of the most interesting ones I have seen on here in a good while! So cheers to all really.

Possibly another huge waffly post, but am on a roll with essays today it seems

I kind of feel like I am reading a different thread sometimes, and am unsure if its sleep depreivation and meds combo, or if I just..don't get it or something.

Seems clear, again, that that reply was about the instant 'girls are bitchy', 'make things up', 'they just fancy him', 'they don't like him' and so on replies. Its the leap immediately to that kind ot thing being said about teen girls, that is the problem Spartacus was referring to, and the reason why many dodgy guys DO get away with so much. Not sure how acknowledging this means you must think the teacher is one of these dodgy guys though?

Also, me saying this does not mean I am saying no girls are bitchy, lie, etc. Incase its read that way.

(Am probably behind again now, and Spartacus can speak for herself, and probably has. Threads moving a bit quickly for me to keep up properly, especially in my current state!)

Sadly, quite a lot of the time the feelings were wrong. I used to think my 15 year old friend who had a 28 year old boyfriend was super cool and grown up (he wasn’t a teacher). It’s only in hindsight that I can see how damaging and wrong that was

Been there, I spent my last couple of years at school so jealous of one of my mates. From being 13 she had an older boyfriend who was so cool and drove and gave her money and sometimes drugs and bought her alcohol, and sometimes would buy it for us too, if they weren't off somewhere shagging. She was soo lucky. We all thought.

Looking back it makes me feel ill. He was 30 when they got together. A clear predator. But no, he was great.

I would agree that its easier for the charming ones, the ones who are your friend and get along with everyone and such. But thats not to say its always the charming friendly guy. Falling into that trap is as bad as falling for the 'they always seem creepy' one. No way to know. I fucking wish there was.

He should have his social media locked down so students can't see it (no matter who he follows) and if girls are uncomfortable around him then they should be listened to. Does not mean he should be sacked, but the girls should be allowed to articulate why they are uncomfortable
I agree. Unfortunately there's several posters who seem to think that its unreasonable to ask the girls to articulate what he's doing and almost refuse to consider that groups of students can, and do, create gossip about staff, male or female, if they don't like them.

I remember a teacher who was deemed creepy because some students realised he had an unusual interest. It was historical reenactments, LARPing, gaming type hobbies. Following that bit of information quite a few girls in the year above decided he was creepy and he apparently looked at them funny, was a perv etc. This filtered into other year groups and I sat in lessons where students were complaining it's hot, the windows were open and they were wearing their school jumper. He told the class that if we were warm then we should take our jumpers off but otherwise to get on with our work. By lunch some people were claiming he was telling girls to take their tops off. I really felt for him. After a couple of months it all died down, but some students were quite unpleasant.

There has to be a sensible approach where nobody decides this guy is an unprofessional wrong'un based on vague accusations in teenage gossip (and the fact they don't like his social media), and dismissing what students say on the grounds that year 9 girls are bitchy drama queens.

Does not mean he should be sacked, but the girls should be allowed to articulate why they are uncomfortable

I don’t get the impression that nobody is listening to the girls- it’s just that they can’t articulate, beyond that he watches them, anything that would warrant any intervention. The OP certainly is listening to them and has already gone to the head about it. All the comments about men getting away with sexual abuse are weird because surely we don’t want a situation where we label someone just because a child expresses a dislike for them. My 3 yo nephew told my sister he didn’t like me the other day and screamed whenever I came near him. Absolutely no idea why (nothing had happened) and the next time I saw him he was fine. Just because kids sometimes express a dislike for certain adults doesn’t mean that we automatically need to assume something is wrong. As I’ve said numerous times, at this age, you need to be much more worried about the teachers they DO like.

reality

I think as far as teens go I probably gave my parents a few heart attacks. My small group of friends would have ticked every weirdo/outcast box at the time. Kids weren't that nice to us so I was probably overly nice and overly trusting of others as a result so they didn't have any more reason to dislike me...well besides going with the class weirdo thing, figured I may as well have some fun with it

Coupled with what I still view as an overly negative and overly judgmental view of other people from my parents ir made me make even more of an effort to be nice to and trust people.

We went drinking in the pubs we were warned against ,

I dated an raf guy at 16/17 to prove they weren't all full on and sex crazed ( he was a bit too full on)

When my teacher told me not to talk to a man outside our classroom every day ( I used to talk to him and stroke his dogs) I had no idea why she was so worried about me talking to the nice man.with the dogs.

I also had zero self confidence so if that kinda stuff did happen they didn't fancy me anyway so I was safe )

An instructor hit on me on a school trip when I was 14/15, I thought I was the problem because all the other girls were practically flirting with theirs and I didn't like him hitting on me i wondered wHt was weing with me. , I'd been talking to him with my friend to pretty much prove how ridiculous it was the other girls were so " boy crazed " and its perfectly normal to just talk to men without fancying them etc

So many things over the years right up until my twenties happened by " accident" because I was so sure they wouldn't be like that.

I'm.still not sure if where like is between being fair and nice and listening to the gut feelings, but I do make sure I listen now ajd worry less abkut appearing "on guard"

The op hasn’t asked the girls why they’re uncomfortable.

Her story has changed multiple times as well.