You are a high school teacher in your first year of teaching. You
have noticed that one of your students appears to have developed
a crush on you. Until today, you viewed the student’s crush as
endearing and your student as harmless. You are sitting at your
desk in your classroom after school, and no one else is in the
room. Your student comes into your classroom and begins
acting evocative towards you and makes suggestive comments.
What should you do about this situation?
What are your legal and ethical responsibilities?
The very first thing I would do is inform the student that they are acting inappropriately and record the situation in writing. Given that this behavior has been going on for sometime--even though it had been perceived as harmless--I would more than likely already have an existing record of previous instances just to be safe. I would also monitor my surroundings, making sure all doors were open and, in the case of a band room office, my window blinds were up if they were not already. If the inappropriate behavior persists past the initial warning, I would leave the situation immediately and find my supervisor or principal and report the situation, showing them my records of this student's behavior towards me.
If I ever felt a student was beginning to feel this way towards me, I would speak to them in a non-threatening environment about the bounds and barriers that are placed between a student and a teacher, and how it is inappropriate to allow a relationship to grow beyond those limits. If the situation does not improve and I feel it is escalating towards the behavior described in the case study, I would enlist the help of a guidance counselor to discuss the student's feelings and how to manage and/or eliminate them.
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