On Fri, 14 Aug 2009 19:56:22 +0200, andrel wrote:

> On 14-8-2009 2:33, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Fri, 14 Aug 2009 00:16:41 +0200, andrel wrote:
>>> Is it promoting sexuality if you don't lie about your private life?
>> 
>> There really is no reason to bring your private life into the
>> classroom, and if you're a public school teacher, paid for by taxpayer
>> dollars, than it's part of the job to ensure that that doesn't happen
>> in the US.
> 
> Eeek. This feels like an roundabout way of saying yes.

Perhaps, but my teachers' private life (regardless of if it's sexual 
orientation or where they went to dinner the previous night) are not part 
of the lesson plan or the reason why the students are there.

For the same reason, it's not appropriate to ask coworkers in a workplace 
about deeply personal medical matters (for example) or to disclose 
details of medical procedures you've undergone to coworkers - most 
workplaces that I've worked at in the US have rules about this sort of 
thing.

I have a coworker whom I've gotten to know quite well over the past few 
years (after the death of her grandson in a car accident a few years 
ago), and we leave those conversations for when we go out to have lunch 
together, about twice a month.  That way we don't risk causing problems 
for others we work with who perhaps don't want to know (or might be 
distracted by) the details of our personal lives.  Details like that can 
cause people to not work well together, just as in a classroom where a 
teacher disclosing their sexual orientation may distract students from 
the activity of learning.  Then the students go home and say "my teacher 
is gay!", causing the parents to further disrupt the activity of teaching.

>> It's like deciding to take a job at a place that serves pork ribs and
>> then refusing to work because the kitchen doesn't meet Halal standards.
>> You can't take a job where you are likely to run into a conflict like
>> that and then claim that the job discriminates because you're "forced"
>> to cook pork.
> 
> I don't think this is a relevant comparison. Unless there is a don't ask
> don't tell rule in public schools. Which I would find shocking.

There isn't generally a "don't ask/don't tell" rule that I'm aware of, 
but it is a generally accepted code of conduct that personal stuff 
doesn't really belong in a business setting (unless it's relevant to the 
business, and in school, it'd be hard to make a case for what a teacher 
gets up to outside the classroom being related to class, unless it's a 
personal experience that ties directly into the lesson).  Taking that as 
a generally accepted practice, the comparison is valid, I think, because 
going against a generally accepted practice that's for the benefit of 
keeping students focused on the material in the class is an important 
part of the learning process.

I guess to put it more simply:  Learning is about the *student*, not 
about the *teacher*.  So if the teacher is focusing attention on 
themselves rather than on the students' education, then the teacher isn't 
doing their job, which is to *teach* about the subject or subjects they 
were hired to teach.

Jim

Post a reply to this message