Well, here we are… the last day of the school year here at Columbus High School. I’ve pretty much been done for two days since most of my classes are senior classes and those boys already graduated over a week ago. I had only one class of underclassmen, and their final exam was Tuesday. I graded those papers already and turned in my grades, so my work for all practical purposes is done. I just need to do some tidying up and some tying up of loose ends, and I need to fulfill a few more tasks that I could refer to with other lame cliches and I’ll be done. I’ll have a little more than a week and a half off and then I’ll begin summer school. Then after three weeks of that I’ll have 6 weeks of much needed rest. Then, it’ll be back to work again. But, I know of at least two teachers who can not say the same.
 Yesterday, I was watching the news and I saw the story of a local teacher who was having an affair with one of her 15 year old students. She worked in a Christian school somewhere in north Dade County, and it appears like she has been having this relationship with him for over two months. She is 32 years of age. She could technically be the kid’s mother. The most disturbing part of the story is that the kid’s mom knew about their relationship and actually gave the happy couple permission to take a trip to Orlando together for Memorial Day Weekend. Well, I’ll tell you one thing. It’ll be a weekend the kid will never forget!! It is pretty sad to see these grown women preying on these kids. It isn’t like this a common thing (as far as we know) but it has happened enough recently for us to wonder what is going on through these women’s heads. It’s not like this lady was ugly. I’m sure she could find someone her own age without problem. It just seems that these women haven’t gotten out of that “high school” phase part of their lives. It seems that they are either unwilling to grow up, or they are living out some fantasy or are trying to live out a part of their lives they missed out on. In this case, though, this woman went a step further. She got consent from the kid’s mother.
Now, this is even more disturbing to me. A mother, okaying a relationship between her son and a teacher?!?! Was the kid doing that poorly in school? Did ashe think this would get a scholarship somewhere? Does she just understand love better than the rest of us and realized that what this odd couple felt was REALLY REAL! (BOY: Mom, I really, really love her! MOM: Who am I to stand in true love’s way?!?) I would love to say that i have something intelligent to say about this particular situation, but the truth is that this should be left to the experts… Montell Williams and Jerry Springer. I’m sure those guys have the answers we all need. Gentlemen?………….. Sorry, you need more time to think this through, don’t you? Go ahead and take your time. I’ll be here writing about this other situation I heard about and we’ll come back to you two.
 So, this morning I’m listening to the radio and I hear about this other situation. Apparently some guy in Wisconsin who worked in a Catholic school got a little tipsy the other day and instead of putting his and other people’s lives in danger, he chose to sleep at his girlfriend’s place overnight. Well, as it turns out, this guy was fired for BREACH OF CONTRACT!  To which my response was “???!?!?!?!!!!??!??!?!?!?!???!?!?!?” (Really, I started yelling in my car, “question mark, question mark, question mark, exclamation point, question, exclamation, question, etc… it’s been an odd morning) So, let me get this straight. This guy tried to do the responsible thing by putting nobody in harm’s way, but in doing so he got fired for sleeping at his girlfriend’s place. YEP.
Now, I’ve heard of a lot of stupid scenarios but this is absolutely ludicrous. If he would have stayed at some other friend’s house would he still have a job? Even if this friend was a girl? Or what if we would have safely driven home, but somehow somebody would have found out his blood/alcohol level was too high? Would he still be employed today?
It appears that in this particular Catholic school it has been written into the contract that employees are to follow a particular code of conduct and failure to follow it would result in a pink slip. Within that code of conduct: thou shalt not cohabitate if thoust not married (doing my best Moses tablet speak). WOW! Talk about missing out on the spirit of the law.  I understand the stance the school is taking but this is ridiculous! If they want to promote a particular way to conduct oneself, I’m all for it. But, under the circumstances (based on the information we know, which we can’t guarantee to be %100 accurate) shouldn’t the school just use this situation as an opportunity for discussion on two important issues that need to be addresed (drinking and driving, and premarital sexual relationships) with their students, and make this a lesson to be learned?Â
Now, realize here that i am not judging the conduct. I am not sure if anything wrong actually happened, nor I am I to judge if something allegedly happened. But, the assumptions being made here are extreme, and tell the students that they have no room for error in their lives. Forgiveness is far-fetched and punishment is what gets the point across.  I dare say that school may have unnecessarily lost a number of students today.
Don’t get me wrong, I think the Catholic school systems are constantly walking a tight rope here, and unfairly so. Administrations in many places want to make sure that they are fair in hiring and will hire professionals with different faith backgrounds so long as they live under the code of conduct of the school while working there. But to what degree are they bound to assess who has or hasn’t actually abided by that code. In essence none of us have. At some point we have sinned and in doing so, not lived up to the “Christian” code of conduct we are being held to. My wife worked in a school where some of the teachers were living with their partners, and the school knew this. But is it the school’s responsibility to step in? The conflict is real. How can you have a teacher one period teaching religion and telling students that marriage is sacred and that in God’s eyes it is sinful to have sexual relations outside of marriage, and the next period have another teacher living with someone else outside of marriage themselves. It’s a touchy subject.
It can be argued that the ideals are being taught and that each person then must be accountable before God based on his or her actions. But then there needs to be consistency. In the school where my wife worked, though there were teachers cohabitating, the school took a stern stance on a girl who got pregnant while in school. They decided to force her to finish school from home. She was not allowed to participate in school activities, including her prom, among other things. How can they turn a blind eye for one thing, and be so harsh with another. This is confusing to the kids. In my estimation, they too missed out on an opportunity to teach. Allow her to finish. She already felt ashamed for the choice she had made, and the consequence of making it. It didn’t need to be compounded. But what does that say about the school, letting a pregnant girl walk around its hallways? That forgiveness is real, just as the baby in her womb is. It states that life is precious, and then the school should address the issue with both the parents and the student body in a factual, and spiritual, yet delicate way, so as not to offend, point fingers, or mislead anyone as to what our true beliefs are. Jesus would have kept her in school, and for that matter, probably would have befriended her. And chances are she wouldn’t make a similar mistake again, unlike many others who then create a pattern having two or three kids while remaining single.
Now, these two cases are VERY different, but the message is the same. we must take our responsibility as teachers very seriously, because we teach 24/7, both in and out of the classroom, and must act responsibly always. Screwing up is only an option because it’s a reality, but we must be willing to accept the consequences. And only through discussion will our students learn from the mistakes and the choices that teachers themselves make. No doubt the 32 year old teacher who had the affair knew of the precedent of the nationally known teacher who went to jail for having an affair herself. Yet, she made a poor choice herself. Many times we need to learn from our mistakes, but it would be so much easier to learn from OTHER PEOPLE’s instead.Â
I pray that this Wisconsin man gets his job back. Let he not be judged based on an apparently responsible decision. The spirit of the law is much more imporatnt than the letter of the law (Jesus addressed this continuously to the Pharisees who seem to be alive and well in that Wisconson school). I also pray that within all our Cathoilc schools that we remain consistent in what we teach our kids, but be understanding of the fact that their mistakes are (for the most part, and only when nobody is being put in danger) opportunities to learn. Let’s treat them as such.
So, Montell and Jerry, anything yet? No? Me neither…
And one last thing. I wanted to share a comment from my last entry…
“Hey this is good stuff. So glad you posted this. I enjoy reading blogs like this. Drake” This came courtesy of my good friens at Digital Body Fat Tester . I love your comments, keep them coming!!! (No comments from the toilet plunger people, though I did get one from handexerciser.info. Don’t even want to know what that’s about!)