Sex, Teachers, and Anonymity

As a teacher, I have virtually no private life. Even in private employment like my friend Dooce (who was canned for writing about her job), it is tough to be controversial and stay employed. This is a trend I fear will only get worse.

I work close to the town I live like most teachers do. I occasionally run into people I know in the stores, one of many reasons I wish more groceries were open 24/7 around here. I can literally do nothing outlandish. And, if you've been reading this blog (grief, do you have a strong stomach), you can tell I have very passionate, out-spoken opinions. When I was in college, I had a few pins on my backpack...some that were patently and purposefully offensive.

Teachers, the guardians of your children take on a tremendous burden. We are asked to do more every passing year. We have been called lazy because we "get summers off" (those in the know, realize we usually take a class or do something constructive to better our teaching practices). As parents become more incompetent, more likely to give their already hyper spawn a sugary snack, we are increasingly becoming babysitters. We are being targeted through testing students and determining our future pay (or teaching future at all) on how well Jimmy does on a given standardized test on a given day.

I can take all that, but privacy and the right to be myself is where I take issue. I have written about this before in other posts, but this story sums it up:

A teacher, 33 years of age, has had to resign because she apparently was operating an escort service on the side. As we know, I am for the legalization of escorts and the like, but let's throw that out of this equation and look deeper into what this story likely tells us.

Most teachers even that young teach for one reason, it's clearly not the greenbacks, they love working with children and teaching in general. Some old veterans do tend to stick around when they've had enough so they can collect their pension, this does not appear to be the case in this situation.

I am guessing this woman didn't make enough as a teacher, an experienced teacher no doubt, to live comfortably on. Teachers continue to be under-valued and underpaid by society as a whole.

I'm not saying teachers should really be doing this. But, there has to be a line drawn where teachers have a right to do as they will.

Change the situation slightly and say she was married. And that her and her husband were swingers, and this was found out despite them being very careful. I have no doubt that as soon as this would be outed, she also would have been canned.

There has to be some freedoms allowed teachers to do as they will. As a teacher, I should not be your child's role model or moral compass, however you deem necessary to term it. That's your job. YOU are the parent.

This is why I am anonymous. I write many outlandish, controversial things. I don't write them just to be controversial, I write them because they are what I believe. Heck, even in this area of high culture, an atheist is still an atheist. I'm quite certain most of my student's parents would be stunned, shocked, then possibly outraged at the thought. I will not lie on this blog, but I will also never tell the whole truth about who I am and where I am. Perhaps, when I retire, if this blog survives that long.

P.S. To my reader who I believe is a teacher, I do apologize for the apostrophes. I write well, but grammar was never a huge concern to me.