It’s an awkward topic. No parent wants to hear about their babies being touched. They are just children! Teachers should know better. It’s hands-off! That’s the rule! Everyone knows this!
But teacher-student relationships do happen. They shouldn’t but I’ve seen one up close and personal. It’s a real story.
Don’t tell anyone what I’m about to tell you. The teacher still teaches. The couple are still seeing each other. They lied to everyone to see each other and broke every rule to do it.
Yes, their private lives were supposed to remain apart. It’s morally wrong to have these orbits cross. There are trust issues and a whole bunch of professional ethics being broken. A career could end if they’re found out.
It’s happening anyway.
Is it so wrong for a teacher to pursue a student – a student to encourage a teacher?
Dammit! It’s never right.
These two individuals hold very different beliefs close to their chests.
Love comes from anywhere at any time. It’s in our DNA to find love, seek a mate, to let love grow where and whenever we find it. Age doesn’t matter. Ethnicity shouldn’t come into it.
We must let ourselves be.
Needless to say, our teacher and student knew what they were doing wouldn’t be accepted by others. Lies were told to cover up their affair.
She was 14 and a half when it started, shy and curious about the world around her. Her fertile spirit glowed from behind her desk and school books.
He is her math teacher. He saw her struggling to stand like a newborn foal. He taught her how to rise to her feet. Teaching is his great skill.
Forget romantic verse and philosophy, men are predators. There’s only one thing a man wants. Fourteen-year-old girls don’t know what they want.
A 14-year-old girl has no right to assume a sexual posture with any adult male. She can’t protect herself. She’s his student for God’s sake, someone’s child! She doesn’t know how to deal with her emotions should it all go wrong!
Emotions? Ahh, emotions. Does anyone really know how to feel when things head south?
Everyone starts somewhere. Why not here? One of them has some experience. That’s got to be better than none at all, right?
And if it were a boy and his 22-year-old female teacher instead?
Dammit! It’s just as wrong, right?
Is it?
What about love?
With all the darkness in this world, is it possible that this teacher-student relationship is simply a happy example of life functioning as it should and needs no judgment?
If it works, then let them light the world. We all need a bit of light. If it doesn’t last then let that be a part of life too.
-A
*Footnote: This relationship occurred in the late eighties. The teacher married his blonde student and the couple now have a thriving family. I popped a little of their story into my novel (see below). What do you think? Should it have happened?
‘Forman’s writing style is artful, with the protagonist Mitchell’s warped thought processes masterfully exposed. The author has a powerful and vivid command of language and his word pictures are stark and disturbingly real.’
Linda J Bettenay, author of ‘Secrets Mothers Keep’ and ‘Wishes For Starlight’
Discover more from Michael Forman – Author of Dark Fiction & Drama
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