Perky T*ts
Teacher in Hot Water for Comment
By Daniel Muniz

Anyone who works with the youth already knows that the generation gap can often prevent effective and meaningful communication with them. However, the more that someone can relate to the younger generation on a deeper personal and more familiar basis, then the easier it becomes to get your message across with far greater impact. In fact, marketers have already mastered the delicate art of advertising to young children, teenagers, and the twenty-something crowd especially with their trendy lingo and juvenile thought processes.

So in other words, being hip and cool is absolutely essential to staying relevant with the youth.

However, a problem arises when a professional tries it since it becomes far too easy to think of one’s self as a kid and then ending up performing adolescent behavior that is outrageously unacceptable for a responsible adult.

Unfortunately, William Musto found out the hard way.
 

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Musto, 44 years old, is a history teacher at the Discovery Intermediate School of the Osceola County School District in Poinciana Florida. On one particular day, the irreverent educator was playfully bantering with one of his female students in his classroom. For her young age, she happened to be rather well endowed in her chest area. So in the course of their conversation, the teacher blurted out to the 13 year old girl in front of a roomful of her classmates that she had “nice, perky t*ts” in reference to her large breasts.

A firestorm quickly ensued.

The school board placed Musto in an administrative capacity of the district that did not involve any interaction with students so they could perform an investigation of the allegations. In addition, local law enforcement and the Department of Children and Families were notified of the incident for possible criminal charges.

Many of the students who were sympathetic to their hip educator and who had also witnessed the comments were very upset at the outcome. They felt that the district made a mountain out of a molehill by taking such measures as removing the teacher from the classroom and alerting the authorities. One student explained:

"He acts like a kid, he tries to be cool with the kids. Sometimes words just come out and it's too much."

Source: WFTV News

The big problem is that regardless of how hip and cool someone may be with kids, they are still a professional working in a very professional setting. And, for a teacher to tell a minor, or any female for that matter, that she has a nice pair of breasts is shamefully disgraceful and blatantly degrading.

However, that is a problem that the educational leadership of school districts across the country have to face with their faculty. There are so many people who have good intentions and they may not have meant anything offensive by their loose comments but the harsh reality is that we live in an environment that has already been rocked by the scandalously seedy affairs between teachers and their pupils.

But more to the point, we live in a “Girls Gone Wild” popular culture where people revel in drunkenness and debauchery. What may be cool for Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, or Lindsey Lohan, is probably not acceptable conduct for someone in a responsible authoritative capacity such as an educator. There is just not a way for a mature professional to fit in because this form of adolescent behavior is just too raunchy and unbecoming for the professionalism of that field. Kids might like it but except the rest of the community that expects more from our education system.

Musto could very well be a decent human being but his conduct discredited everything he has worked for because all of his past actions are now suspect. For example, in the previous year before this incident, he dressed up as Santa Claus during Christmas and a number of girls sat on his lap. All of a sudden, it becomes natural to wonder if he was just pulling a good natured stunt for the holidays or did he harbor a secret desire to talk about the North Pole. Nobody would have been second guessing him but now everything is under scrutiny.

The bottom line is that educators are expected to make good decisions and use sound judgment but that is hard to do if you have adopted the mentality of a juvenile. Your decision making process then becomes that of an adolescent instead of being a highly trained professional. Commenting on how appealing a girl’s cleavage is could very well be what lots of kids do among their peers but a teacher is not part of that social group.

Overall, it is imperative for school districts to emphasize to their faculty that they are not kids and they should not try to act like one so that they can fit in with them. It’s great if they can relate to them and have a better understanding of adolescent behavior but the cold hard truth is that teachers are still professionals and they need to always act like one when they are with their students. And that is a message that needs to be constantly reinforced.

If not, then the consequences will be dire and that too also needs to be emphasized.

The Osceola County School District did exactly what was expected for our education system to do; which is to yank the teacher out of the classroom and notify the authorities for possible criminal charges. Parents and the local community expect no less which is why the educational leadership needs to explicitly explain it to their faculty and staff.

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