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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To ask if you think teachers might've crossed boundaries?

48 replies

putmeinamovie · 05/05/2022 15:00

I think it's great that there is such a strong code of conduct for teachers nowadays and such strict measures in place should they break them. But it makes me think about my secondary school years.
I've NC'd for this because it might be a bit outing.
I had a situation with a teacher of mine in secondary school which, although not sexual and not necessarily physical, I would class as very emotionally intimate.
It started when I was 15 and lasted until I left school. I've been thinking about it a lot lately and I don't think it was right. I actually think it messed me up quite a lot, and I still think about it to this day.
But I don't know if I have a right to feel this way, because nothing sexual happened, so it wasn't like it was grooming. I don't even know how to talk about it or where to begin. I just want to know if this was normal or a boundary crossed. Why am I still so affected by it years on?

OP posts:
putmeinamovie · 05/05/2022 16:32

@theviscountess you didn't derail it at all, and I'm glad you found this thread. I can see why you feel uncomfortable with that happening - from an outsiders perspective, that was really not okay from him. Even though nothing happened back then, I doubt that he had no ill intentions when you were actually in school. Idk, maybe I'm just jaded - but I can definitely see what you mean and it does make me uncomfortable on your behalf. Also, the drunk voicemail - wtf?!

Your first paragraph was almost identical to my situation as well, even down to the book (although mine was about a teacher making a pass at a pupil, lol). If you want to talk about it more to someone who's kind of been through similar, please know I'm here for you.

OP posts:
Springblossom2022 · 05/05/2022 16:39

Sorry to hear that one of your teachers crossed boundaries with you. It sounds like it was more than a typical supportive student/teacher relationship and that certainly sounds problematic to me. I've worked in schools (in a pastoral role, not a teaching one) and felt constantly aware that I needed to be a professional at all times. It wouldn't cross my mind to become 'friends' with a student. Don't get me wrong, there were students whom I had great relationships with in the sense that they would seek me out for a chat or advice, but that was all part of my role in helping them develop into fab young people. As staff we were there to guide and support them, not for our own gain. From what you've said it sounds like the teacher you describe was doing more than just supporting you through school. Just because nothing sexual happened it doesn't mean they weren't crossing a line.

Sadly, I think some school staff (particularly senior staff in my experience) still cross boundaries. Not necessarily in terms of their relationships with students, but in terms of their behaviour towards students. I've witnessed grown men in their 40s screaming and shouting (quite literally) in the face of a 12 year old child. I also knew one who made me uncomfortable as a member of staff due to his inability to control his anger, both towards staff and students. I have plenty of examples but one that particularly rattled me was when he shouted at a student in front of me, and in his anger at the students behaviour (which was nothing awful, the kid literally just refused to move seats), picked up a chair and slammed it onto the ground in front of him. There was a second where I honestly believed he was about to throw the chair at the child. I was physically shaking after seeing this and the child was also in a state. Due to his position as a senior member of staff he's relatively untouchable, which makes me sick to my stomach. He crosses a line every day and it's completely unacceptable. I like to think that instances of school staff crossing a relationship boundary with a child are rare these days, but there's plenty of other boundaries that many leap across and it makes me so sad and cross. However, I have to say that the vast majority of staff are there because they want to see children thrive. The main culprits of crossing boundaries in my experience were white men in positions of power.

putmeinamovie · 05/05/2022 16:46

Most of those points are through a modern lens. I don’t think we can blame a teacher in (say) the 80s for not arranging counselling for you. A school girl crush and a few problems at home - it just wouldn’t be recognised.

Oh, sorry I should've said - this was in the late 2000s! But of course there are still limitations in how much teachers would've realistically done, so you're right.

I'm not sure why it bothers me so much now. He reached out to me via SM a couple of times over the past year (being strictly professional) and also there's the situation with my old lecturer. But I think maybe part of it is just getting older and realising how adults are meant to act, and how many in my life didn't do that.

You really have been so helpful, thank you so much. That story is appalling, btw. That teacher's idea of a 'joke' is some Humbert Humbert type shit. What a creep.

Grooming works because it doesn’t leap over boundaries, it just gently and with ambiguity wanders back and forth across them.

I've bolded that quote of yours because it's put better than any other explanation I've ever seen, and I hope anyone else who needs to read it does too. I think the Hollywood drama-esque portrayal of grooming makes it seem like something so blatantly obvious and intense when in real life it's so much more subtle. The bit about it being back and forth is also really helpful because no one ever talks about that. Like it's not always crossing the boundary, sometimes it's normal. And that makes you doubt the crossed boundary bit.

OP posts:
Crumbler · 05/05/2022 16:50

He wasn't necessarily grooming anyone for sexual contact. The feeling of being needed and loved is powerful and an end unto itself.

Testina · 05/05/2022 16:53

“although mine was about a teacher making a pass at a pupil, lol”

Oh love, there’s nothing lol about that.

You might not want to emotionally delve into grooming study literature just yet, but this is the piece I read recently (possible extended family member being groomed).

Exposure to sexual content is a well documented part of the grooming process, in some cases.

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01639625.2016.1197656

Testina · 05/05/2022 16:55

Crumbler · 05/05/2022 16:50

He wasn't necessarily grooming anyone for sexual contact. The feeling of being needed and loved is powerful and an end unto itself.

I don’t disagree with that, but I think it’s important to clear that it’s still not acceptable.

Testina · 05/05/2022 17:02

“I'm not sure why it bothers me so much now. He reached out to me via SM a couple of times over the past year (being strictly professional) and also there's the situation with my old lecturer. But I think maybe part of it is just getting older and realising how adults are meant to act, and how many in my life didn't do that.“

Can I put my most cynical hat on?

If he’s prepared to risk reaching out to you now, that “proves” he wasn’t dodgy, right?
I think that’s part of grooming behaviour too. How can you think he was doing anything wrong, if he’s not at all concerned about contacting you? Surely he’d only reach out if he cared, genuinely liked you back then - therefore, you must be wrong that he was inappropriate back then?

That’s him messing up the boundaries again.

You say that his fresh contact has been strictly professional.

I say - the fuck has it!

Imagine a teacher going to their head, or union rep, and saying, “so I always wondered how this 15yo who had a crush on me 12 years ago and had to be reprimanded for shutting herself in with me, and created concerns about false allegations has got on in life - should I contact her?”

What would be the PROFESSIONAL advice of the head and Union?

Him contacting you now is not professional at all. Even if it’s innocent - it’s not professional.

DavesSpareDeckChair · 05/05/2022 17:11

There is so much on this thread that sounds familiar to me and clarifies things I have been trying to articulate and "place" for years.
There was a teacher at school who we always suspected was grooming kids, but nobody listened to us kids (I think because nobody had solid evidence of him progressing to sexual contact), and anyway he was charming and always banging on about how religious he was etc etc. Even if nothing sexual happened (and tbh it did happen to some extent - not him directly having intercourse with kids, but other sexual things) he was still unprofessional and those boundaries should have been there for a reason!

ldontWanna · 05/05/2022 17:16

Let's look at this another way.

I work with kids. Due to some their backgrounds forming bonds,good relationships and establishing trust is essential in order to help them the best way we can. I'm really good at this. However I'm very mindful to avoid "exclusivity" and over reliance. That is not safeguarding and it is not healthy. I promote good relationships with all staff and encourage the kids to see other adults as safe and kind and willing to listen. I discourage some of the staff letting me be the go to person because "you're so good with them". The more of us that are willing to listen, the more likely someone will hear something that needs to be heard. The more confident and safe a child feels at school the more likely they are to speak out, or just simply learn and thrive. Hogging all the attention and "adoration " is never for the benefit of the child, not to mention the potential of upset or trauma when that one person is gone from their lives for whatever reason.

ldontWanna · 05/05/2022 17:30

Behaving that way is definitely crossing boundaries and against safeguarding and school policies. Even with out any sexual or malicious intent because it is detrimental to the child, and puts them at risk.

BowerOfBramble · 05/05/2022 17:31

It must be so hard coming to terms with the fact that older, more powerful men have repeatedly tried to exploit your vulnerability by pushing your boundaries instead of protecting you.

Recognising this is part of protecting yourself for the future, you're still young, and helping protect those around you and you come to spot the signs of - essentially - bad men who are doing bad things! I know that sounds ridiculously simplistic but it's pretty heartbreaking when you realise that people we know and like, even trust, are sometimes basically just bastards who cannot be excused and want to do others harm, or at best don't mind harming others. I'm so sorry this happened to you.

Onwards22 · 05/05/2022 17:58

As a teacher myself I sometimes worry I’m crossing a boundary with some of them, especially the ones who go home and suffer DV, abuse, SA or in crappy foster homes.
I sometimes wish I could give them my number to ring me if they ever need help but I can’t and I often find that difficult.

However, I do believe we have a gut instinct for a reason and your guts telling you it was unacceptable and so I 100% believe you that it was.

People will groom their victims for years and the fact that nothing more inappropriate happened is probably more circumstantial than anything else.
Whether that’s because either you were never properly alone or because he thought you would tell if something happened.

I read the timeline of a teacher grooming their student recently and I was quite shocked about how it wasn’t sexual for a long time.

She would just help her with her work in school, then they’d message about school work and then go to events with the school and then events out if school - the entire time it was just ‘platonic’ but it was grooming over a long period of time.

I guess that’s why grooming is so difficult to spot as it’s very subtle over a long time.

It’s only now that you are an adult do you know what grooming is and what’s not right and you can see it for what it is.

seasaltandsunscreen · 05/05/2022 18:00

We had a very, very beautiful, young and charismatic teacher at school, who started when I was about 15. He was incredibly handsome. Model like.

He was hyper aware of this and as such did behave slightly differently around us girls - in a sterner, less charming way than he did with the younger kids.

He understood that in a hormonally charged arena, if he was his natural self all of the time, we would fawn over him even more than we did. (He was seriously good looking).

As such, although we all worshipped him from afar, there were absolutely no inappropriate moments because he understood and ensured that boundaries were never crossed in any way, despite dozens of teenage girls staring and drooling after him day after day.

NB: he married the very beautiful receptionist and left the school!!!

DavesSpareDeckChair · 05/05/2022 18:07

My teacher (let's call him Mr X) set himself up as the go-to guy for pastoral support for both sexes, even though officially he was not, but he managed to convince people including my mum that he was (he really charmed her). Officially we had 2 teachers in charge of pastoral stuff, a male (not Mr X but a different teacher) for the boys and a female one for the girls, and Mr X seemed really pissed off that he didnt have both roles and acted like it was his role anyway. He got really involved in all the high school dramas (especially involving girls, younger kids, and anything involving love, sex, romance etc.) and told us to tell him all our problems, worries, issues, gossip, secrets etc.

He was like Jeremy Kyle: he would take these issues, blow them up out of all proportion, deliberately upset us and turn us against each other. Girls would go to him to say things like, "I fancy a boy in my class, what do I do?" and Mr X would go off on one about how she was a whore who was on the wrong path and would die young and alone and unloved unless she did what Mr X said.
It was all v manipulative. He would do things like grabbing girls in the lunch queue to drag them off somewhere to tell them off for ordinary things like fancying boys, acting like these girls had done something terrible, he would deny them their lunch as punishment, call them pathetic for being upset by this, then he would change the following lesson to be about something like "the meaning of life is love" so he could humiliate the girl in front of the class.

It was like he love-bombed us at first, then withdrew this love, then offered us only crumbs back. We were supposed to see him as a "friend" who could "help" us but we soon all lost trust in him. We used to tell each other, "I wish he'd get a girlfriend so he could leave us alone!" He seemed over-involved or over-invested in us.

Mr X also used to tell kids during lessons about his latest dating disasters; bitch about other adults, especially our parents and other teachers, and teach us conspiracy theories as fact; tell us stories about teenage girls falsely accusing male teachers of abuse; used threats to keep us quiet about kids being abused by other men (not him) during a voluntary work thing he organised; and contacted kids using a personal email address that we were told to keep strictly secret from the school. The emails were supposedly just "banter," but if they were so harmless, why the secrecy?

There were times when he made nasty sexual comments during lessons to shut people up, e.g. if he was getting something wrong (usually going outside of his subject and onto other subjects that he was clearly ignorant about) or telling us one of his conspiracies and a kid said "My mum says that's wrong" he would lose his temper and say "Eurgh, you love your mum, that means you have sex with your mum, I dont want to know what you and your mum are getting up to at the weekend, I bet you do it with your brother too, hahaha!"
Using humiliation and false accusations of parents sexually abusing their kids, and laughing about it, just to cover the fact he didnt know what he was teaching :(
As well as the sexual comments he also made generally insulting comments when he was challenged like this, e.g. "You're stupid and your mum is stupid, don't listen to her, I'm the only teacher around here!"

There was a girl in my class who exhibitef sexualised behaviour (I didnt know at the time but apparently it can be a sign of abuse and I later found out she had been abused). One time I and another girl saw her doing this behaviour, she was masturbating with the corner of a school desk and he was watching her, then he laughed and turned to me and the other girl and said words along the lines of, "this is just our banter, dont go complaining about this to anybody, if you do it means you are virgins and prudes and noone will like you and you'll die alone (etc etc, all his usual stuff - basically words to the effect of: this is our little secret, dont you dare tell anyone)."
I was really shocked by this. Me and the other witness walked away, I was like, "That was weird, what was that all.about?" I distinctly remember the other girl said, "Do you reckon theres something going on between those two?" I said, "What, Mr X and X Girl? No way! But that's illegal!" and the other girl said, "No, I reckon theres something going o there." At the time I was shocked but as an adult I have often thought she had a good.point.

I remember trying to raise my concerns with my parents and struggling to articulate why I felt so uncomfortable about this teacher's behaviour but they refused to listen and accused me and other kids of making things up. There was also the fact they didnt understand all the words I was using and hadn't heard of certain things such as masturbation and "your mum" jokes (it is a fucking miracle I even exist, my parents dont seem to know anything about sex!)
The fact I had seen him make sexual comments and watch a girl doing something sexual just didnt seem to be enough of a "smoking gun" for them, I hadn't seen him actually having sex with kids, didnt have photos of it etc, so I was just written off as a troublemaker.
They were also rather taken in by the reputation of the school and the high academic results he produced in his subject (he taught us a lot about exam technique - I feel like he taught us to bullshit our way through the exam!).

The whole situation has affected me even though he never had sex with me - I suppose because it was still a form of grooming.

DavesSpareDeckChair · 05/05/2022 18:16

Sorry, that was a long post, and lots of typos! I guess I've been meaning to get it off my chest for a while Sad

Testina · 05/05/2022 18:35

That is shocking @DavesSpareDeckChair I’m sorry you went through that. It really goes to show what people can get away with, when they’re in plain sight and in authority over others who are vulnerable even just due to their age.

Maireas · 05/05/2022 20:16

Testina · 05/05/2022 15:24

The thing is, abusers don’t only groom their victims, they groom the adults around them too. One child in his office a lot? Alarm bells. A steady stream? All the other teachers think he’s great, having time for them all, helping them. He’s hardly sexually abusing half of Y10!

And if one girl says, “he gave me a hug when I was crying” (tentatively getting ready to say “and it just felt too close….) she gets cut off with, “oh that’s nice of him!”

Not nowadays!

NigellaAwesome · 06/05/2022 08:21

@DavesSpareDeckChair that sounds horrible and abusive. Is he still teaching? You could report him to the Teaching Council (I think that is the governing body).

This thread is really interesting. @Testina your posts are very insightful. In the mid 80s at our school the (much older) art teacher commenced a romantic 'but not sexual until she had left school' Hmmrelationship with a pupil. She was 16. They married when she was 18. Everyone talked about them as if there was nothing wrong and they were star crossed lovers. Grooming is exactly what was happening. I think they divorced, and I have sometimes wondered how she feels about it now, almost 40 years on.

Scabbyknackers · 06/05/2022 09:07

When I was at secondary, I was a bit of a rebel but really into a particular subject. The male teacher used to ask me questions about what music I liked etc.

Anyway. Nothing 'bad' happened but as I've got older I have started to question his later behaviour.

I used to walk home, partly alone. He said he lived on the other side of town but he started driving past me, stopping to offer a lift, always with a tape (showing my age!) of a different artist I had mentioned blaring out. I accepted once or twice. He would be quite derogatory about the other students and say how much brighter and more interesting I was in comparison.

I don't know his intentions but it felt a bit odd so I stopped accepting.

I do feel a boundary was crossed as it wasn't an emergency and I'm not sure why a teacher would want to risk compromising themselves like that by having a pupil in the car without good reason.

Slightly later it became common knowledge that he was having a sexual affair with another girl in the school.

MiseryWIthAStent · 06/05/2022 11:08

I had a sexual relationship with a teacher at15 until everyone found kind a . It took so long to see I was groomed. I was also reprimanded, my teachers were awful to me after that and my parents kept telling me I had ruined a man's career and I should be ashamed of myself. Honestly the police were the only ones who were nice to me. I'm sorry for what happened OP, I think it's normal for it to affect you some years later still Flowers

MiseryWIthAStent · 06/05/2022 11:20

MiseryWIthAStent · 06/05/2022 11:08

I had a sexual relationship with a teacher at15 until everyone found kind a . It took so long to see I was groomed. I was also reprimanded, my teachers were awful to me after that and my parents kept telling me I had ruined a man's career and I should be ashamed of myself. Honestly the police were the only ones who were nice to me. I'm sorry for what happened OP, I think it's normal for it to affect you some years later still Flowers

That was meant to say until everyone found out.

Testina · 06/05/2022 11:39

I’m sorry, @MiseryWIthAStent ❤️

Crumbler · 06/05/2022 14:42

Testina · 05/05/2022 16:55

I don’t disagree with that, but I think it’s important to clear that it’s still not acceptable.

Of course. My point was that it can be considered grooming and totally unacceptable behaviour even if it never progresses to a sexual relationship. (Though I can understand why in such a case it might be harder for the teacher to check their own behaviour, since they might not get how they've crossed lines.)

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