Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I've only seen older (as in senior citizens) teachers do that in my experience. And even that was rare.
I never saw teachers with any personal photos on display at all.
OP, teachers aren't supposed to be the students' friend. You seem to have boundary issues in how you view your relationship to your students. You might consider getting some counseling about that, or perhaps some professional ethics training, before a problem develops. Your lack of clarity on this matter is worrisome.
Students do ask about personal things all the time.
However, what I'm clarifying is that I'm not going to discuss my sex life, but I will correct any student claiming homosexuality to be morally wrong or disgusting, and I don't give a rats ass whether parents are okay with that or not. Should we allow them to go around preaching segregation because their religion commands it? Religion is not a pass for students and parents to say what they want without being called out. I'm simply just going to tell them there is nothing wrong with gay people and their relationships are no less valid. That's it. Don't like it? Not my problem. You know as well as I do that school administration expects things to get twisted and without specific graphic details there was no violation committed just by defending equal rights.
Students do ask about personal things all the time.
However, what I'm clarifying is that I'm not going to discuss my sex life, but I will correct any student claiming homosexuality to be morally wrong or disgusting, and I don't give a rats ass whether parents are okay with that or not. Should we allow them to go around preaching segregation because their religion commands it? Religion is not a pass for students and parents to say what they want without being called out. I'm simply just going to tell them there is nothing wrong with gay people and their relationships are no less valid. That's it. Don't like it? Not my problem. You know as well as I do that school administration expects things to get twisted and without specific graphic details there was no violation committed just by defending equal rights.
Well, it might be your problem if you can't see your place. Look, there is a way to deal with them without countering your own opinion as fact against their beliefs, either. You can be the adult and choose to end a discussion appropriately. You can be professional here. You are their math teacher, not their morality teacher.
"Teacher Enrico, I heard you are gay. My parents think that's gross".
"Student ABC, it isn't appropriate to have this discussion in the classroom. In THIS classroom, we do not speak badly of certain minorities. Please go back to your polynomials"
I'm an ESL instructor. I have had students from warring ethnicities in the same class, who wanted each other dead. You NEED to conduct yourself professionally without pushing your opinion and violating parent's rights.
Do you teach in a conservative area?
you might be better suited to teach in a liberal leaning school district.
Even there parents won't put up with his "calling them out". And don't think that so called "liberal" areas will put up with much nonsense from teachers.
My wife is a kindergarten teacher in a K-5 school. I just asked her - she has a photo of myself and our three kids up in her classroom. And she says that she's not the only one.
Also, I've met her class several years running. I am always one of the Mystery Readers during the annual I-Love-To-Read Month (I always read The Lorax). So it's hardly surprising that my wife's students know of my existence. So what? Am I supposed to not be a Mystery Reader out of some misguided sense of hiding the fact (or gender) of my wife's spouse? Or is it just all right because I'm an opposite-sex spouse?
I knew about the spouses of numerous teachers. Often, teachers are married to other teachers - it's not exactly a newsflash to find out that Mr. Johansson is married to Mrs. Johansson. Another teacher had a husband who had Parkinson's disease, and was in the local (and, once, national) news as an activist raising awareness and money for research into the illness. So we knew that she had a husband, and some details about him. Another teacher lived down the block - and he didn't hide the fact that he had a wife. My sixth-grade teacher's husband like fishing. Why I remember that, I don't know, but it was out there. So I knew she had a husband. And I've probably forgotten in the intervening decades a lot of spousal details that I omce knew.
When you spend time day after day with a person, you usually learn things about them. My 10th-grade chemistry teacher was an avid runner. My high school German teacher fought on the Eastern Front with the Wehrmacht during World War II before coming to America. So is it surprising that something so important in a person's life as their life partner often comes up? Not at all.
And that's fine. It's also fine if they come to know things about their teacher. Their teachers are not some identity-less automotons. They're people. Children relate better to their teachers when those teachers are real people like them, not some information-less mystery because some segment of the populations gets their undies in a bunch over the way others live. Teaching children - a opposed to teaching adults in college, for example - is often about connecting. And establishing more than a strictly clinical relationship almost always enhances the ability to connect and thus teach.
If someone has a problem that a teacher is married to someone of the same gender, then the person with the problemis the person with the problem.
Where is the issue with telling students that gay people are no less worthy of equal rights than straight people? What is the problem with that even if there are conservatives?
Why would students ask you about your personal life?
I've never worked with a group of middle schoolers and NOT been asked, somewhere down the line, about my personal life, to be honest. It's to be expected of that age group, developmentally.
Of course, being asked, and entering into boundary-violating, unprofessional, or inethical conversations are two totally different things.
My wife is a kindergarten teacher in a K-5 school. I just asked her - she has a photo of myself and our three kids up in her classroom. And she says that she's not the only one.
Also, I've met her class several years running. I am always one of the Mystery Readers during the annual I-Love-To-Read Month (I always read The Lorax). So it's hardly surprising that my wife's students know of my existence. So what? Am I supposed to not be a Mystery Reader out of some misguided sense of hiding the fact (or gender) of my wife's spouse? Or is it just all right because I'm an opposite-sex spouse?
My husband typically volunteers to come in and talk about his career, along with other speakers, when we do those activities.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
