October 28 - November 3, 2007 Issue |
Posted 10/23/07 at 11:25 AM
The Associated Press tells a sad but all too common tale in
an Oct. 19 story: “The young teacher hung his head, avoiding eye contact.” He
had touched a fifth-grader inappropriately during recess.
“I guess it was just lust of the flesh,” he told his boss.
His boss fired him. “But it didn’t end his career,” said the
report. “He taught for decades in Illinois and Iowa, fending off at least a
half-dozen more abuse accusations.”
He didn’t lose his teaching license for 40 years — and then,
only because one victim wouldn’t give up.
There are a lot of parallels between the Church abuse crisis
and the teacher abuse crisis.
One is the unique vocation of the perpetrators. These are
“the very teachers who are supposed to be nurturing the nation’s children,” the
story said.
Another is the difficulty victims might have in coming
forward.
But there are also some big differences.
For one, the size of the problem. In the schools, the
problem is illuminated by Carol Shakeshaft, a Hofstra University researcher who
prepared a federal report on public school sexual abuse. She submitted written
testimony to the Colorado Legislature that stated: “The physical sexual abuse
of students in public schools is likely more than 100 times the abuse by priests.”
Said the Associated Press: “Students in America’s schools
are groped. They’re raped. They’re pursued, seduced and think they’re in love.”
For another, there’s the response to the problem. The Church
responded by instituting a zero-tolerance policy. The schools? Their tolerance
is far from zero.
According to the Associated Press, there are multiple abuse
incidents daily.
“Most of the abuse never gets reported,” said the report.
“Those cases reported often end with no action. … No one — not the schools, not
the courts, not the state or federal governments — has found a surefire way to
keep molesting teachers out of classrooms.”
Which brings us to a third difference between the clergy
abuse problem and the teacher abuse problem: When clergy abuse was at issue,
many people pretended to care deeply for children, denouncing the Church and
seeking to change its very structure to get at the problem.
These same people haven’t said anything at all about the
much larger problem of teacher abuse, raising the obvious conclusion. They
didn’t really want to protect children. They only wanted to hurt the Church.
The Associated Press investigation was an unprecedented,
national look at the scope of sex offenses by teachers — “the very definition
of breach of trust,” said the report.
The conclusions are startling.
Said the report, “Beyond the horror of individual crimes,
the larger shame is that the institutions that govern education have only
sporadically addressed a problem that’s been apparent for years.”
It cites a report mandated by Congress that found that about
one of every 10 students is “subject to sexual misconduct by an employee of a
school sometime between kindergarten and 12th grade.”
Said the report, “The perpetrators that the AP found are
everyday educators — teachers, school psychologists, principals and
superintendents among them. They’re often popular and recognized for excellence
and, in nearly nine out of 10 cases, they’re male.”
Though it found some efforts were being made in some places
to stop the epidemic of teacher molestation, there was, “overall, a deeply
entrenched resistance toward recognizing and fighting abuse. It starts in
school hallways, where fellow teachers look away or feel powerless to help.
School administrators make behind-the-scenes deals to avoid
lawsuits and other trouble. And in state capitals and Congress, lawmakers shy
from tough state punishments or any cohesive national policy for fear of
disparaging a vital profession.”
The report even discovered a slang among teachers about
“mobile molesters” and among schools for “passing the trash.”
“In case after case the AP examined, accusations of
inappropriate behavior were dismissed,” says the report.
“Unless there’s a videotape of a teacher involved with a
child, everyone wants to believe the authority figure,” said one detective.
We have some advice for schools: Follow the lead of the
Catholic Church. Yes, our problem was much smaller than yours. But we owned up
to mistakes, accepted the humiliation and put the policies in place to protect
kids as much as we humanly can.
Why aren’t you doing the same?
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