I 19F just found out that one of my old student teachers M26 just got a job as a teacher, even though during my junior year of high school my principal had said she thought he was predatory.
All the names in this story are fake
For some context: Jeff was my student teacher in one of my English classes and my actual teacher Dean, would always assign us assignments that had to do with our personal life. Like writing essays about our struggles and one assignment was writing a letter to someone who wasn’t in our life anymore, stuff like that. During this time, my dad had recently became an absentee father and this was just a year after that had happened. Naturally this was the inspiration behind my personal assignments like writing the letter to someone who wasn’t in our life anymore, I always made sure to ask my teacher if these assignments were confidential, and he would reassure me they were. At the time being 16, I was still learning how to cope with losing my father, he was in my life consistently until he wasn’t and that was hard.
In high school I wasn’t much of an outspoken student but I made some friends in sophomore year that I guess gave me the confidence to be more outspoken. I would joke around with my teachers a lot and once Jeff had started student teaching I would joke around with him too. I felt like he was pretty cool, he came out to us as gay and told us a little bit about himself and I being queer latched onto that and felt a little more comfortable in my English class knowing that there was someone who was apart of the community there. I grew up in a VERY conservative state so the fact that my student teacher was apart of the LGBTQ+ community meant a lot to me. Although, both the English teacher Dean and the student teacher Jeff would often overshare quite a bit of their lives, like what was happening in their relationships, my teachers divorce, etc. I don’t think I realized at the time how inappropriate and not normal that was. Jeff even made it a “game” for us to find his social media. Again didn’t think anything of it as a 16 year old high school kid.
Fast forward to months later: there was a store right down the road from my school and I would go there on my breaks and lunch breaks to get some snacks and stuff and one time I brought a drink to my friend that was in that English class (she was in a different period as me). So I brought her it and Jeff stopped teaching the class to say “next time bring me something too”. So I asked if he was serious and he said yes so I brought him something next time I went to bring my friend something. And that same day, I went to class and we had this boring assignment that I worked on but I was also chatting with my classmate right next to me so Jeff pulled up a seat right across from me to ask why I was distracting others. I said that I was just talking to a classmate to pass time because I had hit a writers block.
Jeff then looked at me and said, “no that’s not why, how about we have a therapy session.” And I said “no that’s fine I’ll just work on the assignment”. I thought he would walk away but instead he said “I think you’re distracting everyone else because you want the attention you’re not getting from your dad.” At that point my eyes started watering and the whole class was looking at us, I asked him to stop and just let me work but he continued on. Saying “I read your assignments and psychology is my minor in college, it’s easy to manipulate people when they give you insight into their life. From what I can see, you’re just a broken girl with a lot of daddy issues. So why did your dad leave? Why are you so quiet all of a sudden? Got nothing to say? Finally gonna start working on the assignment instead of distracting the class? See how it feels?”. I just started typing away trying to ignore him, I could feel the tears building and the anger rising because I was so angry that I trusted these teachers to keep my shit private. After class I went downstairs to talk to a teacher I’m actually close with, she told me to report it immediately and asked if I was okay.
After that the principal of my school had him taken out of our class and he had to email his college telling them what happened. People kept asking if I was the reason he was gone. My principal told me she felt like he was a predator but never elaborated on that much. I was told he wouldn’t be able to teach, now three years later I’m going through Facebook and he pops up as someone to follow, I remember his name and I click on his page to block him and there I see he teaches at a high school only a couple miles from my old high school. All the things he said rushed back and I feel sick to my stomach. To this day I don’t talk about my dad with many people other than my family and very close trusted friends. I don’t write about my personal life either in school assignments no matter how “confidential” the writing is. I feel scared that kids in his class will build trust with him and he’ll manipulate them and humiliate them the way he did with me. I feel ashamed as well for ever forming a relationship that seemed friendly with a teacher. And I’m embarrassed.
Comments
Backup of the post’s body: I 19F just found out that one of my old student teachers M26 just got a job as a teacher, even though during my junior year of high school my principal had said she thought he was predatory.
All the names in this story are fake
For some context: Jeff was my student teacher in one of my English classes and my actual teacher Dean, would always assign us assignments that had to do with our personal life. Like writing essays about our struggles and one assignment was writing a letter to someone who wasn’t in our life anymore, stuff like that. During this time, my dad had recently became an absentee father and this was just a year after that had happened. Naturally this was the inspiration behind my personal assignments like writing the letter to someone who wasn’t in our life anymore, I always made sure to ask my teacher if these assignments were confidential, and he would reassure me they were. At the time being 16, I was still learning how to cope with losing my father, he was in my life consistently until he wasn’t and that was hard.
In high school I wasn’t much of an outspoken student but I made some friends in sophomore year that I guess gave me the confidence to be more outspoken. I would joke around with my teachers a lot and once Jeff had started student teaching I would joke around with him too. I felt like he was pretty cool, he came out to us as gay and told us a little bit about himself and I being queer latched onto that and felt a little more comfortable in my English class knowing that there was someone who was apart of the community there. I grew up in a VERY conservative state so the fact that my student teacher was apart of the LGBTQ+ community meant a lot to me. Although, both the English teacher Dean and the student teacher Jeff would often overshare quite a bit of their lives, like what was happening in their relationships, my teachers divorce, etc. I don’t think I realized at the time how inappropriate and not normal that was. Jeff even made it a “game” for us to find his social media. Again didn’t think anything of it as a 16 year old high school kid.
Fast forward to months later: there was a store right down the road from my school and I would go there on my breaks and lunch breaks to get some snacks and stuff and one time I brought a drink to my friend that was in that English class (she was in a different period as me). So I brought her it and Jeff stopped teaching the class to say “next time bring me something too”. So I asked if he was serious and he said yes so I brought him something next time I went to bring my friend something. And that same day, I went to class and we had this boring assignment that I worked on but I was also chatting with my classmate right next to me so Jeff pulled up a seat right across from me to ask why I was distracting others. I said that I was just talking to a classmate to pass time because I had hit a writers block.
Jeff then looked at me and said, “no that’s not why, how about we have a therapy session.” And I said “no that’s fine I’ll just work on the assignment”. I thought he would walk away but instead he said “I think you’re distracting everyone else because you want the attention you’re not getting from your dad.” At that point my eyes started watering and the whole class was looking at us, I asked him to stop and just let me work but he continued on. Saying “I read your assignments and psychology is my minor in college, it’s easy to manipulate people when they give you insight into their life. From what I can see, you’re just a broken girl with a lot of daddy issues. So why did your dad leave? Why are you so quiet all of a sudden? Got nothing to say? Finally gonna start working on the assignment instead of distracting the class? See how it feels?”. I just started typing away trying to ignore him, I could feel the tears building and the anger rising because I was so angry that I trusted these teachers to keep my shit private. After class I went downstairs to talk to a teacher I’m actually close with, she told me to report it immediately and asked if I was okay.
After that the principal of my school had him taken out of our class and he had to email his college telling them what happened. People kept asking if I was the reason he was gone. My principal told me she felt like he was a predator but never elaborated on that much. I was told he wouldn’t be able to teach, now three years later I’m going through Facebook and he pops up as someone to follow, I remember his name and I click on his page to block him and there I see he teaches at a high school only a couple miles from my old high school. All the things he said rushed back and I feel sick to my stomach. To this day I don’t talk about my dad with many people other than my family and very close trusted friends. I don’t write about my personal life either in school assignments no matter how “confidential” the writing is. I feel scared that kids in his class will build trust with him and he’ll manipulate them and humiliate them the way he did with me. I feel ashamed as well for ever forming a relationship that seemed friendly with a teacher. And I’m embarrassed.
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That’s a really inappropriate assignment for high schoolers.
This tracks
His comments to you were incredibly inappropriate. The state of education today is that teachers are so underpaid and undervalued, the bar can be low.
Best case scenario, he’s an idiot and learned something from his student teaching.
Overall I don’t think there’s anything you can / should do here. At most, if you feel like he’s a predator, you could contact his principal and explain your experiences.
That is absolutely horrifying and infuriating. You trusted him with vulnerable parts of yourself and he used it to publicly humiliate and manipulate you—that’s not just inappropriate, it’s abusive. The fact that someone with a known history like that is back teaching is deeply concerning. You did nothing wrong by trying to connect with someone you thought was safe. He took advantage of that. Your reaction now is valid, and your story could help protect others—don’t ever feel ashamed for speaking up.
This is a common thing for abusers. I wish there was a way to vet out the psychopaths but they just love to hide their shittiness.
My high school friend-turned-incel when I rejected him now teaches math at our high school that I reported him to.
The principal at the time told me he was not a threat because he knew he was a good kid because he won top math student in the province that year. There was no record made.
The creep memorized my schedule and informed me menacingly, and told my friend that he wanted to rip my vocal cords out every time he heard me laugh. Gross.
You were victimized and part of a predator’s strategy is to make their victims feel guilty or “special”. This is very traumatic and I hope you can get some help.
i’m so sorry. this gave me chills. i hate how ppl like that get to keep jobs while the ones they hurt carry it for years. u didn’t do anything wrong.