Look out for Bookcases

So today was the "Teach don't Touch" seminar. Let me tell you, wicked fun. The seminar started with the Superintendent of Schools giving us a brief history of the district. Boring. "The school district has 13 schools and 600 teachers." (The high school I'm working in makes up 100 of those teachers).

Next they turned on a movie for us to watch about Child Abuse and Neglect and the signs to look for and all about reporting it. It was a boring, poorly produced movie but that's expected and I was actually OK with that. Then the movie began it's second half. "Tips in order to avoid misunderstandings." All about things us Teachers should avoid doing so that it cannot be misconstrued as sexual abuse. It started with the normal ones.

- if you're with a student in your classroom alone, make sure the door is left open.

- remain visible to others whenever you are alone with students

- avoid hugging students

(all valid, but basically common sense)

then the ridiculous things started ....

- "if your going to meet with a student after school, don't do it behind a bookcase"

- "if you have to help a student pull up their pants after they go to the bathroom, don't do it behind a bookcase" [there were elementary school teachers at the seminar too]

- "do not congratulate students by slapping their butts"

-- and so on.

RIDICULOUS

So yeah, here's to teaching.