Is this acceptable in a school?

And Eeeeww that a teacher has a sexuality.
Isn't that like realising your parents having a sexuality.
Surely it's something all kids would rather not know.

Sorry, I meant that teachers have a perogative to set a good example, but in doing so they shouldn't be worried about stifling the boys' sexuality. TBH, there's no way a teacher will be able to stifle teenagers' sexuality, anyway, if that's what you're worried about.
But that's no reason that they should just join in themselves with the teenagers.

I mean, the good adult behaviour you can model is 'confining your ogling to appropriate times and places', 'exercising self-control over your desire to ogle'.

you don't have to pretend you're not interested in men but equally you don't have to share the activity of looking at them with your class. There's quite a difference.

noblegiraffe, "Teachers have two roles in school, one educational, one pastoral. I don't see the two as conflicting."

The pastortal role is a subset of the educational role. If teachers aren't educating then they aren't teachers. As a mother with no school teaching experience, the "pastoral" role comes across to me not so much "trying to encourage the formation of more-rounded children as they enter young adulthood" (laudable), more "trying to be a pal" (but which teacher can ever give kids "enough" friendship or what they are really after i.e. slack? - kids will always demand more). When it comes to teacher-condoned sexual content on the computer, I see the two roles conflicting.

A teacher might lend a child their computer during lunch break, even for sex education, but I don't think ogling celebrities etc. counts as sex education, it's indulgence in sexual fantasy. If it's just a bit of fun, then teachers need to think harder about alternative ways for children to have fun in school. It is the responibility of adults i.e teachers to set appropriate boundaries for the children when in the school, even at lunch break. I think gratuitous sex surfing on the Internet crosses the line. I suspect that many of the children probably have Internet access on their mobile phones anyway. If they access such material on their own devices, then that is their action and their responsibility. I just don't think teachers should use their pastoral role to give children that sort of thing, on a plate.

I suppose teachers could think they are doing society a service along the lines "at least the children aren't bored" or "at least the children are looking at titilating material, avoiding damaging "shame/guilt/denial" complexes about their sexuality". That would sound like a figleaf rationalisation to me.

I am curious to learn more details of how teachers see their pastoral role. Please share.

Where's your line in the sand? What wouldn't you allow the children to do during lunch break?

maybe the consent issue is helpful here - 'Those girls are there to watch the football, they didn't ask to be stared at'?

They aren't going to take much notice of what their teachers think anyway. It's not as if they're going to go home or to a party at the weekend and think "Sir wouldn't like us to do this, better not..."

You can't make them feel bad about their sexuality by refusing to go along with it. It shouldn't be condoned in school.
A male teacher is in a perfect position to be a role model to teenagers and might later in their lives have a modicum of influence over them by showing them how an adult man doesn't have to see girls or women in the same light as teenage boys.

Yes, I'd like to know too. Is he worth googling?

Yes, out of interest, who is Zac Ephron? [Out of touch emoticon]

It's the old sauce for the goose argument again, which only works if you believe that we live in a society where men and women are equally objectified, equally raped, equally intimidated by a culture of objectifiation and equally affected / disadvantaged by sexism.

Nobody sensible believes all that though, do they?

I think what you let them do in your classroom when you're not in charge is very different from what you do in a lesson or what you join in with.
eg.
teacher comes back into classroom at end of break to find girls ogling Zac Ephron (whoever he is). Sitting down with them and joining in wouldn't be right. Nor would letting them do it in a lesson. But I wouldn't blame a teacher who merely gave them an indulgent smile and told them it was time to log off now rather than a full-on lecture on objectification and ban from future computer use.

nobelgiraffe, Sorry, I misunderstood. I thought you were a teacher in a school. Thanks for the clarification.

"No one was hurt, no one was intimidated or belittled. What was intrinsically wrong with what I did? If you can't make a case for that, you have no case. I think some of you need to get a grip. It was harmless fun, and no one has yet shown otherwise..... If people in the room had been offended, then I'd have not done it. That doesn't make what I did wrong, it just means I'm sensitive to feelings that could be hurt. Even if I think the hurt is unreasonable"

I am still aghast that neither NG or his friend 'get it'.

I am not stupid. I know that my colleagues at work appreciate attractive women, I know that I appreciate attractive men. And i am sure the guys down the pub have lewd conversations and the girls likewise when out having fun.

It is the inappropriateness of the circumstance that determines the morality of the situation.

When the Board where I work started a little banter about their wives at home whilst waiting for everyone to get their coffess and get started on the agenda, I was truly shocked and am very glad that those involved were named, shamed, very swiftly put in their place and chastised. Those bosses of mine have a moral obligation to stamp on sexism wherever they see it in the workplace, just as a teacher has a moral obligation to do likewise.

You only change a culture of behaviour when the majority learn to believe that the old behaviour is wrong, and that learning comes through example, experience and teaching. Which I thought was the kind of thing that teachers specialised in.

When I was taking legal action against a previous employer for sex discrimination I can assure you that the 'there were no women present' argument did not wash at all, and the documentation I had proving activities in the workplace not disimilar to Imperator's behaviour had occurred led directly to my receiving a very large sum in settlement. If the courts in this country can see the disgrace of this kind of activity I am horrified that teachers do not.

I have always thought that male teachers provided an invaluable service in helping challenge sexism purely by dint of their existence in an increasingly gender-divided profession. I hope to God this is an isolated fool and not indicative of a current of attitude across the profession.

There is a difference between the girls ogling the boys, and the boys ogling the girls, which is related to the fact that men are in charge in our society and females are sexually harrassed on a daily basis and that is seen as an acceptable part of our culture. Women have to live with an understanding (again from our culture) that men can often = threat. Men do not generally have those concerns.

So there is a difference.

There is also somehow a difference between a group of lads shouting about some girls and getting "sir" to rewind the tape so they can all have a good leer, and a couple of girls looking quietly at zac efron.

If it was a horde of girls screaming for a tape to be rewound to reshow some men taking their tops off, then that would be very inappropriate too.

noblegiraffe, I do not think it is appropriate for any teacher to lend their computer to girls to look at pictures of a man (or any other cominbination of ogler/ogle-ee).

I think that teachers should be teaching Maths, English, Science etc. What is it with teachers trying to be pals with the children in their classes? How widespread is this trend? Are all teachers trained/encouraged/forced to do this?

Teachers need to get the message across to children that teachers are at school to teach them the national curriculum, not to indulge the children's sexual fantasies. Just because teenagers exercise the age-old desire to be adults before they actually are adults, that doesn't mean that teachers should cave in to their demands. Adults are supposed to be adults, not the coolest kid on the block. Or am I unaware of national policy here?

Children are free to indulge their fantasies outside school. I don't consider myself a prude or a killjoy and I've not advocated specific restrictions on what the children do with their own resouces, e.g. bedrooms with posters etc, but that is their bedroom not a school.

The more I read of this thread the less I think the underlying problem here is sexism, it seems more of a teacher/child boundary problem.

Well...I think male teachers do have to be aware of the effects of objectifying women in our culture, and how that can lead to all sorts of problems such as eating disorders, breast surgery or other types of surgery, depression etc. WOmen and girls are objectified more than men, and therefore have more shit to deal with. Teaching boys that girls are 3D just like them is a good perogative for a male teacher to have.
But this teacher basically okayed the presumption in our culture that 1) men play football and do things 2) girls are just for looking at.

I personally don't think that girls looking at Zac Efron is going to be terribly oppressive to men, no. I think that's ok.

But then you're going to have loads of people shouting But what about the mens.

So perhaps better to think twice before letting the girls look up whatever they like, but more on the basis that it'll rot their brain as opposed to anything else

I don't think it's okay for a teacher to try to be one of the boys. I think it sounds a bit desperate, TBH. It makes me want to ask, 'where are the adults".
I think if it was just a load of lads, fine.
A load of men, also fine (providing the girls weren't really young)
But a teacher is supposed to be setting an example and perhaps could do something to counteract the lechery in our culture(or at least he is someone who has the has the power to try; why squander that power by reinforcing lechery?)

Moondog, I think you're desensitized.

The boys laughed because they knew themselves it was risque.

But maybe I'm biased, because I never had any respect for teachers who didn't draw boundaries between themselves and the kids they were teaching.