4 - Wednesday, February 19, 1986 - North Shore News PO EE Ve Bob Hunter ® strictly personal ¢ IT IS both irritating and poignant, watching British Col- | umbia’s teachers trying to come to terms with the current outbreak of child molesting. Without making too fine a point of it, teachers — like police and firemen and doctors and bus drivers and ship captains and pilots — have a special responsi- bility, unlike us mere pen- pushers, because actual human lives are placed in their hands. When some of them use those hands on our children, in any way whatsoever, they invade. They interfere seriously with the way society is supposed to be ordered. And they did it under a cloak of trust. That’s the way with perverts, of course. I should say, by the way, that there is a vast dif- ference between homosexuality and child molesting. Consenting adults are consenting adults. Children, under the protection of State-appointed guardians, can only be victims. PHYSICAL RISK A child molester’s lot is not a happy one. If he, she or it gets caught, they face serious physical risk in prison. And if they were found out on the street, they’d face even worse physical risk. If someone ever molested one of my kids, 1 know i'd come very close to killing him, if J could. I take that to be a normal! reaction. This is serious stuff. I therefore followed the recent meeting of the B.C. Teachers’ 2. Science 3. Math SCHOOL DISTRICT #45 WEST VANCOUVER MEETING ON LATE FRENCH IMMERSION SENTINEL SECONDARY SCHOOL 1250 Chartwell Drive West Vancouver 922-3291 There will be an information meeting for all parents and students interested in the Late French Immersion Programme on TUESDAY, - FEBRUARY 25th, at 7:30 p.m., in Room 300. This new programme will begin at Sentinel Secondary School in September 1986. The recommended format for our Late French Immersion Programme beginning Grade 7 is: Subjects in French (6 blocks) 1. Social Studies 4. French Grammar 5. French Literature 6. French Conversation 7th Block — French conversation until end of January; English thereafter. 8th Block — PE. in English Association rather carefully, and was basically outraged by what scemed to be their overriding concern with protecting teachers, rather than kids. 1 mean, they sat on their hands, not even cutting off funding for the legal defence of an admitted child-molesting teacher, who was sheltered for a decade from exposure by sup- posedly responsible teaching ad- ministrators so he could go on and take advantage of lonely kids who had mostly been abandoned by their parents. NEED ADULTS Note: it isn't the children with strong bonds to loving parents who are preyed upon by monsters like this. No, no. It’s the kids whose home life is generally pret- ty miserable and who NEED adult companionship. Next thing you know, the “friend’’ is doing creepy things. And the kid, who was so happy not to be lonely for a while, fig- ures, oh well, if that’s the price you pay, that’s the price you pay! I get quite annoyed when I see a term like ‘‘seduction’’ used in connection with kids being sex- ually molested. THAT's not seduction, for God's sake! As a parent, | am not at all in- terested in the name of the psychological disease for sickies like this. I leave my kids in the school system for hours and days and years, undoubtably a cruel thing to do, anyway. Nobody likes confinement. I have to trust those teachers. One speaker at the teacher's convention, to give credit where credit is due, said the right thing. “I'm not even going to TOUCH a child from now on,"* he said. { thought about that. Sad. Yes. There are so many children that need to be loved, need to be held, the whole emotional shot. Yet, One pervert can ruin a child's whole life. LIKE A COP It is better, 1 fear, that the telationship between child and teacher should be modelled on that between citizen and cop. I'll take a little liberal flack on this, but it’s true. My kids get all the cuddling they need at home. If they need a whack, the parents, if anybody, will do it, thank you. It is an awful duty to inflict pain on anyone, let alone on your own beloved — and I, for one, don’t do it except in utter emergencies, | like trying to save the kid from killing itself playing on the road. I would just as soon the teach- ers kept their physical distance as much as they should keep their religious hangups and personal theories on child raising to themselves, thank you. The rela- tionship should be businesslike, with everybody keeping their | emotional distance. That sounds so cold! Yet, for | the benefit of everyone involved, that’s how it should be. Sorry. 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