Was my teacher's behaviour inappropriate, or just typical for the late 1990s?

[WhatTheHellsGoingOn]

Not sure if this is the right topic but felt weird putting in ‘relationships’.

When I was taking GCSES 25+ years ago I had a male teacher who acted strangely with me and I realised there may have been something beyond just oddness going on.

Neither of these scenarios would fly now due to current protocol and safeguarding but I wondered if it was him acting in a weird way, or in an inappropriate way.

Two situations sprang to mind last night - one where he asked me to stay behind /come see him at lunchtime and he proceeded to stare at me intently and say nothing when we were alone. It made me feel really uncomfortable and I’m not sure whether it was designed to illicit a confession or something, but I actually asked if there was something on my face bc of the way he was scrutinising me. He told me he’d noticed I’d missed several of his classes recently and wanted to know why. I explained that I’d been on several school trips with my other classes, and that quite a few other people in that same class had been there with me for some, if not all of them. I was puzzled and annoyed that I’d been singled out and I wasn’t sure he believed me, but there was no further discussion.

Another occasion was before taking mock exams - he’d told my mum he was concerned that I’d missed some work due to illness and offered to see me at the wknd/during half term at school to go over things with me. My mum thought it was kind of him to offer and took me - met him briefly to drop me off, then I went in and had a 1:1 ‘lesson’(?) which I don’t recall many of the details of I’m annoyed to say. I don’t remember him acting inappropriately but it was just the two of us, unsupervised largely, though I think there was a member of staff floating around, catching up with work.

He may well have done this for other students but I never heard it mentioned, and the older I get the more bizarre I think it was. For context, I was a shy, self-conscious 15-16 year old and he was a largely stern and serious early-to-mid 30’s year old.

I felt singled out on several other occasions but these were the main ones that stick in my memory.

Was it odd, or not for the time? (Late 90’s)

Nice he took an interest in your work

Do you think that’s what it was? It’s hard to explain why I felt uneasy looking back. I’ve told a couple of friends and they thought it sounded like something suss was going on

Nothing to see here, however you'll probably get different views.

I once made the huge mistake of posting about a lovely male teacher who used to help me at school and was told that it was the weirdest thing ever and my parents were irresponsible idiots for allowing it. Which is in fact a million miles from the truth.

He would single me out for talking when others spoke to me asking questions. He ignored the others chatting but would often tell me off. I wasn’t behaving differently to anyone else but at times it felt personal

A male teacher saw me at his house at the weekend in the 90s to go through my course work. I was probably going to fail and now know how grateful I should have been. I also knew he was adding in mistakes so it wouldn’t be obvious he’d done it but I wasn’t good enough at the subject to spot what they were 😆. Boundaries were a lot looser and I don’t think that we can compare them to behaviour now if there was no inappropriate behaviour.

I think if he (your teacher) was an (potential) abuser, he probably would have done something more as there were clearly no consequences at the time. This was during an era when my PE teacher was dating another sixth former (she was judged - not him, obviously) and another acquaintance was raped by a teacher and the school hushed it up.

Were you an above average student? I could see him singling you out if he thought some extra input might actually have a positive result for you.

It’s difficult to look back on things like this objectively as today there is such a massive emphasis on safeguarding in schools and clubs etc, as there should be. It was possibly completely innocent on his behalf, but I was a completely naiive and immature teenager and suspect may be on the spectrum so wasn’t great at reading body language etc

Teacher here. I think it sounds fine. He possibly thought you had a lot of potential going to waste.

Doesn't sound particularly dodgy to me. One of our PE teachers used to shag the 6th form girls. The head teacher called him "the luckiest man in the World".

Agree with this.

Even if he was a pedo. He didn't actually DO anything

the home tuition would not be allowed now

Ime even in the 00s it was normal for teachers to conduct study sessions at their home.

Obvs would never fly now but different times.

Nothing actually happened so it was fine.
I know of several occasions from the 80s where teachers were hugely inappropriate and would have been struck off teaching today, but they actually did something.

God, that’s shocking on so many levels! Horrendously weirdly behaviour for you to deal with, and your poor friend!

Yes there was something about PE teachers back then as there was a rumour that one of ours had had an affair with a student before moving to our school. Unimaginably (tho perhaps not?) a PE Teacher from my primary school was put away years after having an indecent relationship with a student. Teachers and parents turned a blind eye. You can’t imagine that going on now.

Have you ever watched that video where Ian Wright finds out his old teacher who he thought was dead was still alive? The old teacher who put himself out massively to support Ian?

I do sometimes think that these days instead of being celebrated and appreciated, the teacher would have been called in for a meeting and told to back off.

Good god!

That’s an interesting point - I’ve read about the but haven’t seen the footage. Teaching is very different now that’s for sure - for better or worse

Just a friend of a friend and not my school. Private school so they couldn’t afford the hit to their reputation. She reported it as an adult and got a conviction 💪.
My male teacher who helped me was an angel in my life.

Yeah, thank God, nothing did happen in my case, it’s more that I was wondering whether it may have been an attempt at early grooming as he took an interest in me - and he didn’t project a caring, nurturing attitude in the classroom. He was very cold and intimidating in fact. He showed us a film clip with a heroine and said she was attractive, despite being unconventional, and pointed out a feature which I also have. I thought it was a bit weird to be saying who he found attractive in class, but it was in the context of gender roles etc so maybe not

Thank god he was held accountable. Glad to hear you had a positive experience

I had a Maths teacher do the same, this was in the 2000s. It was because I wasn’t applying myself and I am super thankful in hindsight for all his help. Although whenever I went to his house sometimes on a weekend my parents would drop me and his wife would give me tea and biscuits. I can’t imagine this happening nowadays.

Adding: I never felt any inappropriate contact or long stares. It was almost like a father daughter relationship and lots of bird watching facts!

Mr Pigden, that was such a lovely piece of footage and a reminder of how influential teachers can be and the difference having an interested adult can be in the life of a young person.

@WhatTheHellsGoingOn is there something making you question his actions now? While I fully support strengthened safeguarding measures, I can help think that we’ve lost something along the way in terms of professionals being able to show real care and attention to young people who are crying out for that interested adult. Your teacher sounded committed and interested, which counts for a lot.

Some of my best teachers had a stern, detached manner but through their actions showed a deep care for bringing students on. In the case of the video did he say “the heroine has X feature, like y” or did you make the link yourself? He may have been trying to get pupils to understand some of the subtext rather than making an example of you.

'He told me he’d noticed I’d missed several of his classes recently and wanted to know why. I explained that I’d been on several school trips with my other classes, and that quite a few other people in that same class had been there with me for some, if not all of them.'

I think he was concerned your work was falling behind / you weren't attending classes

And my thoughts are backed up by :

' he’d told my mum he was concerned that I’d missed some work due to illness and offered to see me at the wknd/during half term at school to go over things with me.'

'and offered to see me at the wknd/during half term at school to go over things with me. My mum thought it was kind of him to offer and took me - met him briefly to drop me off, then I went in and had a 1:1 ‘lesson’(?) which I don’t recall many of the details of I’m annoyed to say. I don’t remember him acting inappropriately but it was just the two of us, unsupervised largely, though I think there was a member of staff floating around, catching up with work.'

So you had quite a bit of time off due to school trips and illness,

'he was a largely stern and serious early-to-mid 30’s year old.'

Why have you decided to think about all this now, nothing happened.
It was 25+ years ago.

Did you pass your GCSE's ?

My partners college tutor used to let him go to his house on evenings or weekends to help him with his course work - 20 years later and their good friends. I think times were very different, but there was still predators. Safeguarding is much better these days.

It sounds like he was helping to me - if you had potential and maybe he felt you weren't working up to it?
One of our male teachers used to have his hands in his pockets a lot and was quite dismissive of the girls. A lot of us used to get detentions on our own and have to do extra work and he was a bit intense with his staring and dominance approach. When I got a much better grade than he expected he cornered me and said how he "knew" I could do it and I should be thanking him for the detentions...I felt at the time he had bullied me slightly and over-reacted to only slightly poor marks rather than seeing my potential over the years. I think he thought that intense silence and punishing behaviour was somehow spurring me on, when most people do better with praise in my experience. That was my overwhelming feeling from male teachers in the 90's, anyway.