I would have to see teacher before passing judgement.
Only an Fugly woman with horribly low self esteem would handle thisin the manner being exacted.
I
I cannot agree. I know you've since re-read the article and changed your view, but I want to add something beyond what you said.
There is a difference between a woman being attractive and a woman being seductive or otherwise suggesting she is "available." There are many attractive women who do not appreciate and would not accept a student in their class writing a paper treating them as a sex object. That goes double if the woman is the teacher, i.e., a person in authority, rather than a fellow student. Boundaries need to be respected and the teacher-student relationship is one of those boundaries. Very bad things happen from compromising or even appearing to compromise that relationship.
I realize both parties involved are adults. If the student and teacher were both single, asking for a date after the class is over might be acceptable, but as long as one person is responsible for giving a grade to the other person, this kind of relationship is out of line even if both parties fully agree with it. Would you want to be the student in the class wondering if the guy dating the teacher is getting a better grade based on his extracurricular activities?
19 posted on 7/23/2013 9:32:21 PM by A_perfect_lady: “Okay, she did tell him to write honestly about his feelings and that no topic was off-limits. Sounds to me like she has no sense of humor at all. I'd have graded it, handed it back with a smirk, and that would have been the end of it. People just get off on over-reacting.”
I'll give you an important point here — as a woman, I think you understand these matters better than many men.
I realize the woman gave an open-ended assignment, but in a civilized society, some things just don't typically come to mind as things to rule out in advance. Obviously, an attractive female teacher is aware that some of her male students are going to be attracted to her, but most students have enough decency not to submit a paper detailing that in explicit detail.
As a woman, if you choose to handle it via a smirk and handing the paper back, that's your choice. But I think that would open you to questions about whether the smirk meant you might be open to a personal relationship outside of class.
I can think of a number of attractive female teachers who, if the student were a young adult, would have a male teacher or her husband explain matters to the student. I realize some 18- or 19-year-old kids in college are away from home for the first time, are testing their boundaries, and need to be told there are reasons why rules exist not only in the home and high school but also in the adult world.
For an adult married man in his late 50s to act this way is far worse. He knows better and I think the female teacher was quite correct in dealing with his behavior directly and bluntly on her own rather than using an intermediary. It's not too many years ago that the female teacher might have slapped him or had her husband do so.