As CNN's defense expert mentions in the short clip below, the teacher who accidentally included a 6 second clip of herself having sex on a DVD of "Class Memories" she mixed and handed out to her fifth grade class at the end of the year may be "criminally stupid," but is it really something worth looking into criminal charges over? The parent that was interviewed for the segment mentions potential illegalities and is asking for counseling for his kids.
Now, I'm certainly not suggesting that this teacher be let off scott free, though no amount of punishment short of being tried in court is likely to be as effective as the sheer embarrassment she's probably already experiencing. However, I do understand the desire of the parents involved to get some sort of retribution. The question then is, what's appropriate? Does she really deserve to be taken to court and slapped with a potential sex offender tag for what seems to have been just an admittedly large lapse in intelligence?
I'd like to think that if it was my kid in that class, I'd be able to approach the situation with some level of understanding and even compassion towards the teacher. What's done in someone else's bedroom isn't any of my concern, so if the kindergarten teacher down the street likes to get all freaky in their Dungeon O' Love, so be it. As long as they're effective and competent in the classroom, then his or her subscription to Ball Gags Monthly is pretty much irrelevant. If that info does manage to slip out into the public ether through accidental means, then why should I hold it against them?
So, back to this particular faux pas. Assuming it's just a 6 second clip of your standard, run-of-the-mill sex tape (and at this point, there's nothing to indicate otherwise), I'd vote for letting her off with a warning to better vet her video projects before presenting them to impressionable 10-11 year olds. As for the parents who's kids saw the clip, well, get over it. At that age, it's about time to have The Talk with them anyhow, so look at this as the perfect segue into what's not exactly a comfortable topic in the first place! No matter what, try to keep your heads on straight and remember that there are far, far worse things in the world that your kids are likely exposed to on a daily basis than a few seconds of home-taped intercourse.
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on Jul 4th, 2009 at 12:52 am
Putting myself in the position of the parents of the children, I agree completely with you. Was this a massive f-up by the teacher? Yes. Should this lead to criminal charges? No. I consider myself a a fairly paranoid/over-reactive/nerd dad, but there are far greater concerns for our 5th graders than this.
Thanks for speaking out.
on Jul 4th, 2009 at 8:59 am
Well, I have to disagree. With today's technology, how does this kind of mistake even happen? Who accidentally mixes a sex tape onto a DVD for 5th graders? The time and effort it takes to edit and compile and then burn that many DVDs, and at no point did she check? Why is her Sex Tape footage co-mingled in the same pool of footage intended for the 5th graders? Putting myself in the position of a parent with children, criminal charges do not seem like a stretch. There should be a charge for criminal stupidity.
on Jul 4th, 2009 at 10:24 am
There's no denying that she fucked up, and in a big way. But for the father she called about it to run to the media and A) tell them that the teacher had called in hysterical tears, was obviously upset about what she did and was asking for forgiveness as well as help telling the other parents not to let the kids see the DVD and then B) proceed to ruminate publicly and openly that maybe it was a criminal act and that his family was now owed counseling is ludicrous. I agree that the teacher needs to be dealt with somehow, but I'm tired of parents running to the media for everything, trying to grab their 15 minutes and $50K or whatever for situations that used to be dealt with in person and without the intention of fucking up someone's life more than it already is or has to be drives me nuts. Now, instead of being able o handle the situation internally, levying some sort of punishment and dealing with it properly, the teacher's name has been unnecessarily spread all over the country.
We all need to have a say in what our kids are exposed to, no argument there. But shit happens, and it's our responsibility as parents to deal with it when it does. I don't think that going on camera and demanding financial reparations with thinly veiled threats of legal action is how to best make lemonade out of these lemons, is all. I also know that when I was in the fifth grade I had already had The Talk due to stuff I'd heard on the school bus in 3rd grade, and that I had already had access to porn thanks to the older kids in the neighborhood. Considering that I grew up in the countryside, 10 miles away from the closest small town, that my experience was all that uncommon or that kids today, with the internet available everywhere we go, haven't already seen this stuff and worse by the time they're 12. Not saying I approve, but it does happen and it sued to be that parents would deal with it and not run to the news expecting someone else to pony up.
Now, if she'd deliberately snuck a clip in there for her own personal reasons, I'd be all over banning her from all classrooms for life...
on Jul 7th, 2009 at 10:14 am
"With today’s technology, how does this kind of mistake even happen?"
Some software allows you to set the number of thumbnails on the editing timeline. If I know (or think I know) that it's going to be a straight dump from the camcorder to DVD, I don't use any.
When I test a DVD project like this to make sure it works, I normally go to a few points in the middle of the production—I don't watch the entire thing.