Perverted Educators
Peeping Toms in the Classrooms
By Daniel Muniz

Math teacher Page White who taught at Travis High School in Austin Texas was arrested for having over a hundred “inappropriate” photographs of female students who didn’t know that he had taken pictures of them. He also had shot some video footage. In addition to stealthily taking pictures on the campus where he taught, he also had plenty of digital images of girls taken at the local mall. The school district immediately informed parents of White’s actions and explained that he is on administrative leave.

The teenage girls of all of his photography and videos were fully clothed.

However, for a schoolteacher to behave in such a predatory fashion especially with young girls in his own classroom is more than enough for concern and suspicion. It is also against Texas law. The Texas legislature enacted a rather vague statute that makes it a crime for anyone to take digital images without consent for the purpose of sexual gratification. Although the law is a bit fuzzy because it is way too broad particularly for public venues, it definitely served its purpose for prosecuting this teacher with a crime.

Naturally, an incident like this is very disturbing.
 

Story Continues Below ê

Today's Top Stories

● Are You Being Watched? - It is Difficult to Pass Unnoticed ● Teaching Kids at Home - In Defense of Home Schooling ● Preserving Marital Bliss - Good Credit Marrying Bad Credit ● No More Hosiery - Is Pantyhose Losing Its Legs?

Yesterday's Top Stories

● Embracing Liberalism - The Rush to National Suicide ● Billing School Districts - Charging for Remedial Education ● Liberal Ignorance - Receiving Liberal Hate Mail ● Voodoo Panties - Ex-Boyfriend Creates Voodoo Shrine ● Today We March - Tomorrow We Vote! ● Urban Sprawl Rules - Inner Cities Continue Decline

Technology has dramatically and radically altered the nature of voyeurism thus making it incredibly easy for anyone anywhere to photograph and shoot video of someone without their knowledge. The low cost and the miniaturization of cameras in cell phones, pinhole gadgets, and in other electronics, is raising alarm about the ease of anybody becoming a digital voyeur in just about any kind of environment.

Also, some of these voyeurs really don’t think that they are doing anything all that wrong because they feel that the people being recorded doesn’t know what is going on. Oftentimes, they rationalize that as long as nobody finds out, then it is nothing more than a victimless crime since nobody is getting hurt.

But for a schoolteacher to do this to his own students is particularly troubling because a level of trust has been breached. It is natural for the public to expect an educator to behave as a professional around our children instead of acting like an adolescent pervert. There simply is an expectation of more mature behavior for this kind of job.

Unfortunately, Page White is not alone.

Many more of these voyeuristic incidents done by teachers keep popping up in school districts around the country.

More faculty and staff are taking advantage of this technology that allows them to stealthily take digital images in the classroom or on campus. Consequently, the ease of digital voyeurism has spawned unseemly behavior by unscrupulous educators in our public school system.

In past generations, these professionals used their common sense to dictate their conduct because it was expected that teachers opted to work in a career field that demanded respectability and propriety. And they were also expected to be role models to their impressionable young students.

However, a lot of that is out the window these days for certain teachers.

It is no longer realistic for a school to expect people to use common sense. Such assumptions only invite certain individuals to think that they can clandestinely engage in this kind of behavior. Our culture and society is much different than what it was generations ago and we are seeing the effects of that. As a result, perhaps now is the time for school districts across the country to define a basic set of morals for their faculty and staff.

Just saying the word “morality” is enough to set off alarm bells and cause many people to become uncomfortable. Such a reaction is completely ridiculous although too many people have been seduced by the prevalent culture of political correctness. But if a school district wants to help stop this type of inappropriate behavior, they have to start imposing a basic set of morals on their employees.

Consequently, it is imperative for schools to spell it out in plain English about what is and what isn’t acceptable conduct in the classroom, on campus, and even in a few activities that are done during their off time. Our educational leadership needs to be explicit and unambiguous on what they define as bad behavior, especially about the conduct that will get them fired, land them in jail, or both.

And because the faculty and staff are surrounded by children, society is going to hold such employees to a higher standard than workers in other industries. That needs to be communicated to everyone employed by a school district especially when it involves violating criminal laws.

Of course such a policy will not discourage the predators but it will certainly influence the employees who still have an adolescent mindset in that they know that the leadership is very much aware of the problem. It is unfortunate about the death of common sense but perhaps society has to come to grips with the danger that some people have stopped thinking, especially when it involves people who are with our children.

We want your opinion! Tell us what you thought about this article. Click the Your Feedback menu item to send us your comments.