Serious Teacher loses appeal to return to teaching because of history in pornography

[alamaster]

I understand the comparison wasn't perfect, but I fail to see how that really affects the case - whether by choice or not, it is still something that technically wouldn't affect the teacher's ability to teach, but will likely bring out negative behaviour from the students.

While you could argue about the decision itself being wrong, I don't think why it should even be brought up - it was something perfectly legal for her to do and I don't think in any way it suggests her inability to teach.

Well one brings out negative behavior from the students AND the parents/teachers, the other COULD bring out negative behavior of the students, depending on whether the teacher is respected or not. That's the difference, and that's why the comparison doesn't work.

 

[Coronis]

You (and others) are missing the point by getting caught up in trivial differences between the MMouse exp and this case. My point is that it possible for aspects of the classroom environment (and this includes aspects about the teacher) to be detrimental to learning such that the poor classroom environment cannot be accounted to the students' fault; especially when it's something the school can easily fix (in this case by removing the teacher).

If I wanted, I could compare this to trying to study with no AC in 100 degree weather. Hell, I know for me, 12-year-old-me, raging hormones/newly arrived sex drive were harder to control (and harder with excessive stimula) than a little heat. Hey, there's the stem of one reason for another classroom environment decision: dress codes.

You don't need me to make up some example that you may or may try to disregard due to superficial differences (and fuck, it's an illustration, of course it's different), but the point stands. I'm sure you can think of your own example that fits and still makes my point.

I simply can't believe the blatant disregard in this thread for the rights/needs of students who have are having their studies hindered through no fault of their own (especially those who have not acted out, and students of the future). For those in the thread who wish to be educators, and those who really care about education-- remember that a school exists for the children, and their learning.

If the kids really wanted to learn, it wouldn't matter what their teacher had done in the past. Its not like they are innocent victims in this at all. There will always be, in any group of kids that age, people who don't want to learn, and the fact that their teacher did porn once upon a time is just an excuse for them to act out. I'm sure that those same kids would've found another way to try and disrupt the class.

 

[Chou Toshio]

If the kids really wanted to learn, it wouldn't matter what their teacher had done in the past. Its not like they are innocent victims in this at all. There will always be, in any group of kids that age, people who don't want to learn, and the fact that their teacher did porn once upon a time is just an excuse for them to act out. I'm sure that those same kids would've found another way to try and disrupt the class.

This argument is really fucked up.

The school is saying that she cannot be an effective role model-- part of being an effective role model is assuaging/inspiring kids to learn; even if they don't want to. Of course you can't always succeed. As a public school educator though, it is completely unacceptable to throw up your hands, throw in the towel, and say "Well, these are just bad kids. They would have been bad anyway."

That's terrible. A public school educator. A role model. Part of the job description is to lead the kids to the right path, or the best path you can-- in spite of the kids themselves!

They are there to be taught. They are there to be lead. You need someone who can do that.

I think it's pretty clear to see that this role has problems of compatibility, and is compromised, with the public knowledge of her former porn star career. Unfortunate, but this is the simple facts of the situation.

 

[Deck Knight]

There are a couple of different dynamics at play here.

1. The age of the students being taught.

The problem with having a former porn star teach middle school children is that it's an attraction to an activity that is illegal for children that age. Every porn site has 18+ written all over it (21+ in some jurisdictions). Children will obviously ignore it because they want to see Tiffany Six get sexed, and the particularly cruel/spoiled ones will add the vid to their smartphone and play it in class, among a million other potential distractions. The parents are also right to be concerned because some may not even want the topic brought up in class to begin with, and Ms. Halas's history makes that impossible.

2. The act itself.

Let's be clear here. "Sex work"/Porn isn't empowering, uplifting, liberating, meaningful, or any of that other PC academic-course-requirement-filler bullshit. It's filling a market demand primarily driven by horny adult men to see as much of their desired fetish fuel as possible. Putting your body up on display for the titillation of others is a base activity designed to stimulate the most primal urges of the human race to mate. It is not therefore not without personal risk or social implication, and in a perfect world the demand for it would be less - the problem is it's addicting for both the consumer and the producer because it works off that primal impulse, and because there is enough money to be made on it in certain realms - thus the sex trafficking circuit. It is a legal activity and should remain so despite the people who abuse it and the people who have problems because of it, but that does not mean it is a positive or wholesome activity.

Middle Schoolers are in the first phase of dealing with that impulse, and unfortunately it would be just like trying to have Barney the Dinosaur teach a classroom full of elementary school children - they will all fixate on "OMG BARNEY!" and forget about actual learning. Parents will complain that a 7 foot tall purple dinosaur is not a realistic role model for elementary school children to emulate.

As far as Ms. Halas, my recommendation is she try and go for higher Ed. Middle Schoolers don't care about disrupting class and suffer no real consequences for doing so. College students that openly mock and damage their professors can be punished with real world consequences that will actually resonate. Her actions have consequences for her present employment, and that's just the way reality is. She chose an adult activity as her financial means in her earlier life, so her access to children is now limited.

 

[capefeather]

I simply can't believe the blatant disregard in this thread for the rights/needs of students who have are having their studies hindered through no fault of their own (especially those who have not acted out, and students of the future). For those in the thread who wish to be educators, and those who really care about education-- remember that a school exists for the children, and their learning.

Rights go both ways. No one can have everything. Somewhere along the line, there has to be some recognition of give and take. If we did absolutely everything we could for the sake of maximizing educational value, we'd bankrupt huge chunks of the country. So obviously the situation is a lot more complicated than that.

The analogy of the construction worker is flawed for reasons that WaterBomb already enumerated. It's not that he can't lift things (something obviously fundamental to his work), but more that he's gay and subsequently cannot get the respect of his homophobic coworkers who can't see past the stereotypes. Responsibility to change goes both ways. Let us please consider situations like what Oglemi mentioned. Society doesn't just magically move forward. People have to stand up for each other along the way. Why is it that Halas seems to be the only person getting all of the consequences for this?

The worst part of all this is that we're sitting here claiming that people with flawed pasts cannot be good role models to children - that Mary Sues are the best role models for a future generation to which we will hand over a whole host of problems. If they don't learn about sexual maturity now, when will they learn it? During a forced sex ed sexual harassment class at work that no one pays attention to? Maybe when they marry into an abusive relationship? Or perhaps when they give into aberrant urges and find themselves in jail? Oh, I see where this is going. We value punishment over prevention.

EDIT: I typoed and and said the vague "sex ed" when I meant "sexual harassment". Sorry about the confusion it may have caused.

 

[Deck Knight]

@capefeather:

First, WAY too much use of "the royal we."

There are no conflicting rights here. Ms. Halas does not have a right to teach middle school, just as the kids don't have a right to have their class free of former porn stars as teachers.

There is a discussion of what is the proper thing for the children in this situation. Unfortunately Ms. Halas' early work choices, now that they are known, are an attractive nuisance that can be used by her students or others to disrupt the class. However much Ms. Halas may think she can deal with this stress, it is ultimately up to the school to decide whether it should even be a factor in the first place. The school will have to deal not only with her own students harassing her, but also the complaints of parents, the scrutiny of other school systems, potential liability and fallout from school assets being used to look up her porn movies etc.

This is not the place for a moralistic Aesop about society and protecting rights. A right is not synonymous with "what I think is right." Rights have a specific definition and specific boundaries. They aren't in play here - not in the slightest. Ms. Halas has not been forcibly barred by government authorities from teaching anywhere in the abstract (which, in the absence of an actual crime would be a violation of her liberty) - this school system as decided they do not want to incur the potential negative publicity and other issues associated with her continued employment. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

[capefeather]

I've only used rights/needs as vaguely as chou did. Nothing in this thread is affected by the semantics of what constitutes "rights".

 

[Chou Toshio]

I think we were using the word "rights" more as in "interests" / "cause" rather than legal "rights."

BTW DK, you completely had me with you until you dissed my pron. lol

edit: First DK disses my pron, then Cape ninja's me. :<

edit 2: Cape, I'm sure seeing their science teacher having unprotected anal sex ending with internal ejaculation will fit right in with the responsible sex ed curric. Brilliant work btw.

 

[Deck Knight]

I think we were using the word "rights" more as in "interests" / "cause" rather than legal "rights."

BTW DK, you completely had me with you until you dissed my pron. lol

edit: First DK disses my pron, then Cape ninja's me. :<

edit 2: Cape, I'm sure seeing their science teacher having unprotected anal sex ending with internal ejaculation will fit right in with the responsible sex ed curric. Brilliant work btw.

Yeah but you know I'm a language pedant Chou and lament the loss of a Lockean / Constituitional conception of rights purely as a negative construct (rights are things which cannot be taken away, not things that can be granted) - muddling it in with mere needs / interests. Definitions OCD is what I do.

Also I did not diss your pron. I haven't really said anything about it except call it a consumer product with potentially negative consequences and implications, which is by what I imagine are expected standards a very neutral position.

I'm pretty sure we both like the busty asian chicks. Truce, Bro?

 

[capefeather]

We're not going to get into positive versus negative liberty and whether one is "more right" or "more supported" or whatever, because that has nothing whatsoever to do with this topic. The moral legitimacy of the porn industry is also completely irrelevant. Honestly it's a bit rich that you would paint me as someone who imposes black-and-white morals and what-I-think-is-right nonsense. I do go by two very fundamental principles that I can identify, but having fundamental principles is unavoidable so that has nothing to do with anything.

Chou, you're completely missing the point of what I'm saying. You're never going to get a role model that truly reflects what a role model "should be like" because there are no Mary Sues irl. What you're implying is that any teacher, regardless of everything else, can and should be fired due to a single scandal involving his/her past, flaws, or maybe even more arbitrary reasons. Like I said before, I'm not even suggesting that she should keep her exact position. I'm just calling foul over firing someone for dubious reasons. I think that more could have been done about this situation.

I agree there might be a conflict with sex ed if Halas was still doing porn on the side, but the fact is, she wasn't. Somehow not doing porn anymore teaches children that it's okay to do porn in unsafe ways? What if someone used to be a drug addict, but then got clean and got a job as a teacher? Is that somehow teaching children to do drugs?

 

[Stratos]

What you're implying is that any teacher, regardless of everything else, can and should be fired due to a single scandal involving his/her past, flaws, or maybe even more arbitrary reasons.

No, what he's saying is that the school board gets to make the call as to whether keeping Mrs. Halas around was worth all the effort it was taking, and they decided it was not, and that's perfectly fine. The other thing he's saying is that he agrees it was not worth it because her past in pornography was causing a disruptive classroom which – even though the kids responsible could be disciplined – was probably not likely to change, and it would be in the interests of the kids involved to just hire a new teacher instead of dealing with the problems of the one they currently had in place.

If you're trying to take this up as some larger crusade for people's "right" to a blemished past then uh, good on you i guess? but ultimately it's about the education.

 

[capefeather]

Well, yes, the decision is "perfectly fine". I suppose the board has the "right" to do what it feels is the best solution. I just don't think it is the best solution.

Also I typoed and and said the vague "sex ed" when I meant "sexual harassment", as in seminars one might have to take in employment. Sorry about the confusion it may have caused.

 

[TheValkyries]

I think it's pretty clear to see that this role has problems of compatibility, and is compromised, with the public knowledge of her former porn star career. Unfortunate, but this is the simple facts of the situation.

Most of what you're saying about the necessary attributes of an effective teacher are true. However the problem is the statements like this. You're basically setting forth the argument that "Ms. Halas is a former porn actress, and a porn actress would create distraction amongst middle school students, therefore she cannot do her job". You've yet to actually describe why she can't do her job because of her history (Or even why a teacher can't deal with distraction in general). It's not as if a single distraction opens forth the gates of hell and the children turn into soulless demon beasts of Satan, intent on never listening to anyone with authority (Although some truly do believe of that of children).

There are a couple of different dynamics at play here.

1. The age of the students being taught.

The problem with having a former porn star teach middle school children is that it's an attraction to an activity that is illegal for children that age. Every porn site has 18+ written all over it (21+ in some jurisdictions). Children will obviously ignore it because they want to see Tiffany Six get sexed, and the particularly cruel/spoiled ones will add the vid to their smartphone and play it in class, among a million other potential distractions. The parents are also right to be concerned because some may not even want the topic brought up in class to begin with, and Ms. Halas's history makes that impossible.

An attraction to an activity that's illegal for children of that age? No more so than seeing a parent smoke cigarettes or drink alcohol. A million other potential distractions? Distractions in a classroom are not a rarity, and the certainly do not mean chaos. Part of a teacher's job is mitigating distractions. Such actions that you described would be swiftly dealt with by the teacher.

And while I can understand the sentiment of parents not wanting information like that being brought up in class when they don't want it to, I'd also have to take the standpoint of 'When does information like this EVER come up at the time the parents wanted it to?' And nor does the possibility of the subject being brought up by fellow students merit the removal of a teacher.

2. The act itself.

Let's be clear here. "Sex work"/Porn isn't empowering, uplifting, liberating, meaningful, or any of that other PC academic-course-requirement-filler bullshit. It's filling a market demand primarily driven by horny adult men to see as much of their desired fetish fuel as possible. Putting your body up on display for the titillation of others is a base activity designed to stimulate the most primal urges of the human race to mate. It is not therefore not without personal risk or social implication, and in a perfect world the demand for it would be less - the problem is it's addicting for both the consumer and the producer because it works off that primal impulse, and because there is enough money to be made on it in certain realms - thus the sex trafficking circuit. It is a legal activity and should remain so despite the people who abuse it and the people who have problems because of it, but that does not mean it is a positive or wholesome activity.

Let's be clearer here. Hunger too, is a primal urge of a baser form of our beings. Yet we do not frown upon cooks, who take up the profession of creating foods for the titillation of these desires. Baser instincts do not imply immorality. Nor is the arbitrary immorality of an act a justifiable excuse to terminate someone's employment.

Middle Schoolers are in the first phase of dealing with that impulse, and unfortunately it would be just like trying to have Barney the Dinosaur teach a classroom full of elementary school children - they will all fixate on "OMG BARNEY!" and forget about actual learning. Parents will complain that a 7 foot tall purple dinosaur is not a realistic role model for elementary school children to emulate.

This amused me because Barney as a character is fundamentally designed to be a role model for children, so a complete and disastrous failure of an analogy here.

My suggestion at this point is to stop trying to just use (poor) analogies to demonstrate why you feel she's limited in her capacity to effectively teach, and try explicitly outlining the reasons.

As far as Ms. Halas, my recommendation is she try and go for higher Ed. Middle Schoolers don't care about disrupting class and suffer no real consequences for doing so. College students that openly mock and damage their professors can be punished with real world consequences that will actually resonate. Her actions have consequences for her present employment, and that's just the way reality is. She chose an adult activity as her financial means in her earlier life, so her access to children is now limited.

Fundamental misunderstanding of education, here. Teachers who teach at the k-12 level need a degree in Teaching. Professors at a university do not, and have a much different set of requirements for employment. I cannot speak for Ms. Halas personally of course, so I cannot be certain she's precluded from such an occupation, but I will say that the majority of k-12 Teachers are not qualified to teach at the University level.

As for the way reality is, that's really the point here. Just because reality plays out this way, does not mean that this way is the correct way.

There are no conflicting rights here. Ms. Halas does not have a right to teach middle school, just as the kids don't have a right to have their class free of former porn stars as teachers.

This is not the place for a moralistic Aesop about society and protecting rights. A right is not synonymous with "what I think is right." Rights have a specific definition and specific boundaries. They aren't in play here - not in the slightest. Ms. Halas has not been forcibly barred by government authorities from teaching anywhere in the abstract (which, in the absence of an actual crime would be a violation of her liberty) - this school system as decided they do not want to incur the potential negative publicity and other issues associated with her continued employment. Nothing more, nothing less.

You're correct in your assessment that this issue is not "Teacher vs Student" rights. It's actually about the Employee's right to not be terminated from their position without justified cause. Being a former porn actress is not justifiable cause. Neither is general unrest amongst the parents of the area a justifiable cause for termination of employment.

In other words, "You've done nothing wrong on the job, but your existence is irksome and bothers some people, so I'm going to fire you" is said in no legitimate workplace, ever.

There is a reason that the court and school used words and phrases that stated that she was incapable of doing her job, because that's the only way they can actually get away with firing her.

 

[Stratos]

You're correct in your assessment that this issue is not "Teacher vs Student" rights. It's actually about the Employee's right to not be terminated from their position without justified cause. Being a former porn actress is not justifiable cause. Neither is general unrest amongst the parents of the area a justifiable cause for termination of employment.

SINCE WHEN

WAS THIS A RIGHT

why do people think they have a "right" to someone else's money? breaking news: you don't. Someone can stop paying you at any time if they want to. Now is this always smart? Obviously not; your company can get a reputation for poor job security and people won't apply to work there if there's competition on the market. but "not being fired" is NOT a right.

 

[capefeather]

There's no actual need to appeal to "right versus wrong" here. My gripe has been with whether an opportunity was taken or missed. It's entirely possible that someone out there helped or is helping Halas out so that she gains fulfilling employment in an environment that can take the steps that the school couldn't. It's also possible that the students will still learn something from this incident. "Man, it's just that easy to fuck with people's lives." So a happy ending is still possible. Sadly, the school will have no claim to have participated in it.

Seriously, though, consider how easy it is to fuck people over. If you're so much as accused of a crime, and for whatever reason the process becomes long and drawn-out before you're finally acquitted, it's that much more people who will either still suspect you or wish you had been guilty. This impacts employment. So this is a situation where the person actually made no negative decisions, AND there is no unavoidable disability making him incapable of doing whatever his/her job is. So to the people who say, "Oh but she made a decision in the past," is that really what this is about?

maybe the people in my sig should be fired from places

 

[Fishy]

"not being fired without justifiable cause" is actually what TheValkyries' said.

and that is how it works. a manager cannot fire an employee on ONLY a whim. even if a boss is shitty and wants to fire an employee for no good reason at all, he still has to actually have a reason, regardless of how deep he has to dig or how microscopic an excuse is before he blows it out of proportion. businesses don't operate under flippant decision making. you DO have to go through proper channels and paperwork to get shit done. TV's point was that the school board was basically scraping together the reasons for why ms. halas was incapable of doing her job, instead of listing factual support and evidence as to why she could not perform.

the school board/parents reacted to a single "incident" due to their own nosiness and prejudices, and ms. halas lost her job not because she did not PROVE HERSELF CAPABLE OF PERFORMING IT UNDER DURESS, but because the faculty simply decided, given the circumstances, it would be impossible.

 

[Deck Knight]

You're correct in your assessment that this issue is not "Teacher vs Student" rights. It's actually about the Employee's right to not be terminated from their position without justified cause. Being a former porn actress is not justifiable cause. Neither is general unrest amongst the parents of the area a justifiable cause for termination of employment.

In other words, "You've done nothing wrong on the job, but your existence is irksome and bothers some people, so I'm going to fire you" is said in no legitimate workplace, ever.

There is a reason that the court and school used words and phrases that stated that she was incapable of doing her job, because that's the only way they can actually get away with firing her.

Most people operate under at-will employment. People have been fired for good reasons, bad reasons, or no reason routinely in basically every legitimate private sector endeavor, ever. Middle school teachers don't have tenure. They often have unions that will make claims on their behalf, but this story makes it clear that Ms. Halas lost an appeal - meaning that there was just cause to fire her after an analysis of the facts of the case.

I thus cede the point about rights given the specific instance of a union contracted understanding that termination requires just cause rather than a traditional at-will relationship. The employer qualified their right to control the makeup of their employees by signing such an agreement to that condition.

My Barney analogy is fine. Barney is a good role model for children - in a half hour non-specific edutainment children's TV show. Having a teacher come in wearing a 7 foot purple dinosaur costume for a full day of classes is entirely different, as Barney's slow, more entertaining style is not conducive to the pace that would be needed for proper formal instruction.

The role model debate is pointless in my mind anyway. I didn't even address whether Ms. Halas was a good role model for children or not. Children don't go to school for role models, they go there so that they can receive the knowledge and skills necessary to function as independent adults. Knowledge of the existence and purpose for pornography in middle school is not pertinent to either of those basic functions.

Ms. Halas' existence will cause classroom disruption. The school is under no obligation to keep her in that position if they have an alternative that will not cause that disruption. Whether Ms. Halas is a good role model or not is entirely irrelevant to that. What is relevant is the unfortunate fact that a large number of parents do not want teachers to discuss sexual matters with their middle school aged children, and the attractive nuisance of Ms. Halas' former profession makes that impossible among what is effectively a class of hormone-crazed little savages that cannot be reasonably punished in a way that will make them stop perpetuating the subject.

Ms. Halas made a choice in her life to perform in adult movies. Many parents of middle school children don't even want their children to know those videos exist. Unfortunately, the rumor genie about Ms. Halas cannot be put back in the bottle, and in this case the rumors are true. Thus, the only person to blame for Ms. Halas' predicament is Ms. Halas herself. I don't know whether she wanted to become a teacher at the time she made the films, or whether she snapped out of it and wanted to atone for it by teaching children, or what her motivations are. Actions have consequences, and this is the result of Ms. Halas former actions no matter how unintentional.

She may in fact be a stellar educator, who like a childhood delinquent turned boot camp instructor would be an excellent case study in knowing what not to do from having gone down the wrong path in their own life. The school however is under no obligation to deal with the associated problems that experience would bring.

 

[Yeti]

how the heck do YOU know the 'proper formal instruction' pace needed? what if for some children, having barney walk into their classroom WOULD be more conducive to their learning?

children are not all one single identity, they do not all learn the same way, react the same way, not everyone was catcalling, some students probably were not bothered at all by this news and chose to see past her former choices that she clearly takes no part of now.

making these ignorant assumptions that all children will react the same way and learn the same way and suffer the same distractions as others is just stupid. stop doing it, now.

this relates to the disruptive children who will NEVER want to be in a classroom and learn and just take for granted the chance to get an education. there are some children who dearly want to be in school learning, some who have accepted they should make the best of being in school because they have to go, and some who are going to be disruptive brats because they don't want to be there.

it is these students who made the problem in Ms. Halas's classroom and these students who would have made a scene and caused a problem in ANY classroom. simply the discovery of an unfavorable past choice and action is what made THEM be excused for being pathetic little snots and what got their teacher fired instead.

nobody has addressed my much more fitting example either: a teacher coming in dressed as X does NOT fit this situation because Ms. Halas did NOT make it known to her students what she had starred in, nor did she make it her identity or persona that she had been in porn. the teacher who did illegal drugs in the past, stopped, participates in the school's anti-drug lectures but is found out is a much better suited example to discuss. does he have the right to still teach because of PAST bad choices that he doesn't take part in now but can't take back?

this thread is going nowhere except further up the butt of misogynistic posters who want to pin the blame on a woman instead of accepting a past choice she has made, if dealt with PROPERLY by her school and authority system, is not a good reason to fire her. again, just because you did not say "being with a whore makes her less of a person because she has slept with others" does not exempt you from reeking misogyny or treating this teacher differently because of how you view women and their interactions with sex.

 

[blarajan]

I am surprised that I agree entirely with Deck Knight...besides the sentiment that pornography is somehow wrong. I do think though that the termination is justified.

 

[popemobile]

how the heck do YOU know the 'proper formal instruction' pace needed? what if for some children, having barney walk into their classroom WOULD be more conducive to their learning?

children are not all one single identity, they do not all learn the same way, react the same way, not everyone was catcalling, some students probably were not bothered at all by this news and chose to see past her former choices that she clearly takes no part of now.

making these ignorant assumptions that all children will react the same way and learn the same way and suffer the same distractions as others is just stupid. stop doing it, now.

this relates to the disruptive children who will NEVER want to be in a classroom and learn and just take for granted the chance to get an education. there are some children who dearly want to be in school learning, some who have accepted they should make the best of being in school because they have to go, and some who are going to be disruptive brats because they don't want to be there.

it is these students who made the problem in Ms. Halas's classroom and these students who would have made a scene and caused a problem in ANY classroom. simply the discovery of an unfavorable past choice and action is what made THEM be excused for being pathetic little snots and what got their teacher fired instead.

nobody has addressed my much more fitting example either: a teacher coming in dressed as X does NOT fit this situation because Ms. Halas did NOT make it known to her students what she had starred in, nor did she make it her identity or persona that she had been in porn. the teacher who did illegal drugs in the past, stopped, participates in the school's anti-drug lectures but is found out is a much better suited example to discuss. does he have the right to still teach because of PAST bad choices that he doesn't take part in now but can't take back?

this thread is going nowhere except further up the butt of misogynistic posters who want to pin the blame on a woman instead of accepting a past choice she has made, if dealt with PROPERLY by her school and authority system, is not a good reason to fire her. again, just because you did not say "being with a whore makes her less of a person because she has slept with others" does not exempt you from reeking misogyny or treating this teacher differently because of how you view women and their interactions with sex.

I never thought I'd see the day when an argument from Deck Knight gets strawmanned this badly, rather than the other way around.

 

[WaterBomb]

stop saying the disruption was being caused by her porn history. The disruption was being caused by immature kids, not the fact that she had been in porn before.

I hope you guys realize that kids were not always this ill-mannered. This whole thread people have been attributing these behaviors to kids as if they were unavoidable, when quite frankly they are very avoidable. A child's limited mental capacity and maturity does not make it impossible to teach them how to behave properly. Saying "kids will be kids" is just an excuse to not hold them and their parents accountable for being stupid. You don't even have to go that far back to see drastic differences in the behavior of 12-year olds. 15-20 years ago none of my classmates would have even considered doing some of the things these kids were apparently doing. There was a time when 12 years old meant time to go out and get a job. There was a time when 12 years old meant some kind of responsibility. Nowadays kids are being babied well into their teenage years and sheltered from any kind of responsibility, and thus have almost no opportunity to learn life lessons. This kind of sheltering leads to a sense of entitlement and disregard for authority because they've never had to deal with consequences for their actions before. And this is why we're even having this debate right now, because HEAVEN FORBID we expect anything of our children!

 

[Chou Toshio]

stop saying the disruption was being caused by her porn history. The disruption was being caused by immature kids, not the fact that she had been in porn before.

Yeah, damn those KIDS for being IMMATURE. Are you listening to yourself?

I honestly can't take this thread seriously anymore when it seems that no one is willing to take the other side seriously. In all my posts (especially look at the ones at the beginning of the thread) I have seriously weighed what was said in the thread. I don't think anyone can look at my posts and say I don't understand the sentiment of the other side (I even agree with it on many points, and expressed that in my posts).

Based on the responses, it's clear that I shouldn't bother with this thread any further, because discussion is not on the menu.

 

[elcheeso]

Chou, you know exactly what he meant.

But yeah, this thread isn't really going anywhere because one side thinks that children are utterly incapable of behaving themselves when faced with certain things, and the other side thinks otherwise. This "discussion" is pointless unless you agree with the other side's opinion re: kids always/only sometimes being awful douchebags.

I have a feeling that almost everyone in this thread doesn't actually interact with middle schoolers regularly and are just thinking back to vague memories about the time they were 13, anyway. Everyone's an expert!

 

[humbug]

i think a lot of you are choosing to look past the actual issues here just to argue and debate about things that are pretty irrelevant. there's not going to be an analogy that fits the situation perfectly, so why keep trying? maybe you'll eventually find the perfect analogy and we'll all see the error of our ways and admit you were right all along? probably not.

more likely the response turns into an argument about the legitimacy of the analogy in question and why that particular square peg doesn't fit this circular hole (if only that were the case with ms. halas). carry on arguing about which analogy is the best fit, then others will readily chime in: "no! that doesn't fit exactly, there are X and Y differences between that analogy and this situation, so your whole opinion is wrong and my argument is correct!" - whatever.

i know the intention is to help people better understand where you're coming from, but people are choosing to ignore that and come at this on a much grander scale. is ms. halas being unfairly treated because she's a woman? is she being unfairly treated based on a past decision she regrets? is this actually little to do with ms. halas personally, and more about how women are treated and women's rights in general? unfortunately none of the above, a school board are just doing what they deem best for their pupils, regardless of how it may affect one person.

you can downplay her career in porn as much as you like; as i said in my first post, i, nor any of us here should judge ms. halas for participating in porn. but it really isn't about our own personal feelings on the issue.

honestly, ask yourself these questions:

- if you had impressionable young children who, as far as you were aware, didn't know anything about porn and certainly hadn't watched any: how would you feel when they came home talking about porn and even having videos of it on their phones? however much sympathy you may have for ms. halas and her situation, i still think you'd put your children first and the school understands that will be the majority of parent's stance.

- how would you have reacted at 10-14 if you found out one of your teachers used to do porn? i think you're all seriously underplaying how big a deal that would be for children in that age group. you can say it wouldn't, you weren't like that at that age and you'd look past it for whatever reasons, but you'd be lying.

- if you were on a school board and had invested interests in what was best for the school, how would you deal with this situation? we can all appreciate ms. halas getting a pretty bad hand here, but would you put that over the best interests of the school? you know it'll be disrupting the children's lessons with her, you know parents will complain and maybe even take further action, but you also know she doesn't do it any more and is otherwise good at her job. what do you do? like i said in my first post, ideally she would have been allowed to stay on and see exactly what the reaction was like, rather than just assuming and making a pretty big decision based on that assumption. but ultimately, it is a pretty valid assumption; it's not that difficult to predict what the outcome would be, it'd get out of hand eventually regardless of any disciplinary action from the school. at the end of the day, the main purpose of a school is for the children to be educated as affectively as possible, not just as an excuse to create a job for someone. so shall we put the needs of this one person before the needs of the many children attending? when the whole point of it is for the children anyway? i don't know what you guys think, but there is only one logical answer in this particular case.


and finally, a lot of you are making the case that it'd be the children's fault for reacting badly and being immature, which i suppose is true. but honestly, how else do you expect them to react to this? in an ideal world it wouldn't be an issue at all, all of the children would accept it as a past mistake and continue learning efficiently. but we don't live in an ideal world, so should we spend time punishing the children for being children? they either act like adults (towards something that's actually a pretty adult issue, not just something you can easily explain and expect them to perfectly understand), or they'll be punished for it?

ms. halas made the decision to do porn, knowing that there could potentially be some consequences in the future. why do you think she chose to keep her past to herself when applying for the job in the first place? i know it's not just something she could casually bring up, but she was being realistic. she knows it's just not a compatible history for a career in educating young children, otherwise she may have mentioned it then. maybe then they could have took more precautions to make sure it never got out to the children at all.

tl;dr: is the school being selfish and/or misogynistic for putting the children before ms. halas? they're just choosing to take the easy option and cut her off entirely, for whatever reason they gave in court, rather than deal with the issue in a way that could potentially let her keep her job. they know it'd take time and effort to discipline the children and deal with any negative attention from parents/media about having a past porn-performer as a member of staff. it is unfair on ms. halas, but in their position, i wouldn't have dealt with it any differently and neither would any of you. there's not much point in posting in this thread though, everyone's just going to think what they think about this whole thing and not change their opinion regardless of what someone over the internet has to say. everyone knows best.

oh and yeti: you are taking this completely out of context and just arguing with something no one is actually saying. try and understand where the opposing side is coming from rather than just attacking without any reason.

you're taking this pretty personally and seem particularly angry at anyone who doesn't have the same opinion as you; i wonder, have you been unfairly dismissed due to a history in pornography? i'm pretty sure bestiality is illegal, so it's not exactly the same.

 

[Yeti]

ah yes one of the best fallacies: make a slight about someone instead of their argument to try and crumble their credibility through nothing but mockery.

I already stated my opinion on pornography. I am against it as an industry and don't see the need for it. that said, my argument against the immediate ruling out of Ms. Halas as the sole problem when she did not ask for her porn history to be exposed nor did she make the problems in her classroom nor has she seemingly been proven to be a poor role model currently, is that anyone who is immediately blaming her and saying her firing is justified is saying nothing but misogynistic things.

There is simply no way around it. Putting the blame on a woman for having sex and being filmed doing so, especially with some of the terminology used, and saying she deserves to have been fired and can no longer be a role model, is stemming from the idea of separation between women and sexual pleasure. Women cannot enjoy sex, should not be seen actively participating it and seeking it out, and when they are, are judged much more harshly for it than men.

If this had been a MALE teacher who did porn it would be difficult to say the reactions - perhaps he would have gotten whistles of approval, or mockery his only recourse to get money was having sex, or even fired even faster thinking he was some sort of sexual deviant and a danger to the children. Regardless there would likely be a lot more defense for him because he is not a woman who made a sexual mistake.

I actually DO work with middle schoolers weekly. They are capable of controlling themselves and acting well mannered. There are some who, for whatever reason, whether just their temperament, troubles at home, how they were raised with a lack of discipline, or the need for attention, who will act up and try to soak the discussion all towards them. I assume it is the students who would be disruptive in the first place who catcalled.

Not to mention if the students FOUND her porn films, they CLEARLY know what pornography is and are actively seeking it. Instead of sweeping the issue behind the label "Ms. Halas is a porn star and not fit to teach as a role model" how about address the fact these middle schoolers are not sexually oblivious, do know what porn is and have easy access to finding it with any Internet literacy. Instead of infantilizing them further which is what Americans LOVE to do treat them like they are growing adults and need to be confronted about porn. If they know about it, talking about the issue isn't going to suddenly make them all become sexual deviants jerking off 24/7 to images of women being beaten by multiple men at once and whatever else.

it's not a strawman to call his flawed analogy out, or his assumption there is one proper learning model that applies to all children. because there isn't.

children in middle school are not fully mature yet. they have problems focusing for long periods of time, staying quiet and respectful, and not acting out. however, they CAN take responsibility for their actions, they DO know right from wrong, so TELL them "it is wrong to make fun of a (wo)man for being involved in pornography and making past choices that no longer identify them" and stop acting like they are babies. let them grow to becoming mature adults like middle school should be helping them to do by teaching them you cannot be disrespectful in a classroom. they do know that, they do know how to act, they are not stupid. stop treating them as such.