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The acquittal of
Michael Neville, the schoolteacher accused of abusing his pupils, was
welcomed cautiously by the primary teachers' union, the New Zealand
Educational Institute. Its national secretary,
Lynne Bruce, said not that the case marked a victory but that it highlighted
an "occupational hazard" for (particularly male) primary teachers. That is disturbing
enough. But what's more alarming is that the policies and practices intended
to guard against this risk unintentionally maintain the idea of the teacher
as a sexual abuser. NZEI policy encourages
teachers to be very cautious about touching children. So teachers put their
hands in their pockets to avoid holding children's hands. They perfect the
side-on hug or the high-five to avoid problematic physical contact. The policy also reminds
teachers that "visibility in the workplace protects both staff and
children". It urges teachers to "avoid being alone with a child
whenever possible, install mirrors, have glass panels in internal doors or
leave doors open" in order to ensure teachers' conduct is above
suspicion. Thus, particularly for
male teachers, the school becomes a topography of sightlines which, they
believe, will provide them with security. But this policy by its
very nature unwittingly defines the teacher as a potential abuser. The
paradox is that, although teachers must follow "safe practice", it
cannot protect their reputations because the very demand for safe practice
ensures their guilt. How does this happen?
Safe teacher practice has several problematic or paradoxical effects. First, teachers now
demand surveillance. They feel uncomfortable if they are with children out of
sight. Paradoxically, the witness is there to attest that "nothing
happened". The witnessing gaze, which ensures the teacher is not alone
with a child, is calculated to see nothing. Its very point is that there is
nothing to see. But the demand for a
witness to "see nothing" means there may be something to see if the
witness were not there. To put it another way, at every moment the teacher is
a potential abuser who is not abusing only because he can be seen. The second problem in
safe practice is that the process of invigilation - the same one that
teachers believe affords them protection - is highly unpredictable and,
therefore, dangerous. Teachers' required visibility provides a heightened
risk of abuse accusation since the "witness of nothing" is a
potential accuser. One teacher I spoke to
described an occasion at a school camp when he stationed himself outside the
shower block. He believed he was taking responsibility for the girls' safety,
standing "in full view of everyone" to make sure boys did not
disturb them. But a camp parent
complained that it was "inappropriate" for a male teacher to be
standing outside the girls' showers at camp. The spectre of
every-teacher-as-potential-abuser is always present. Thirdly, the
"safe" teacher is charged with the responsibility of training
children's desires for touch. The teacher inculcates ideas such as
"having our own space", "having boundaries" or
"sitting nicely" - all regimes of behaviour that work to control
children's touch. Children are told not
to hold teachers' hands: "I am not your mother or your auntie; I am your
teacher." Thus children learn
that teachers - especially men - are anxious about touch. This has several
effects, not least of which is that some children learn they have a lot of
power in speaking about touch. It is, they sense, a weapon against adults,
with a potency they do not always understand. A fourth aspect of safe
practice is that it has become a measure of professionalism. The
"professional" teacher does not allow children to massage her
shoulders or cling to his legs. Thus it becomes harder for teachers to think
of themselves as legitimately touching children. Finally, and
insidiously, the process of surveillance becomes internalised. Safe teachers
become their own anxious observers. The safe teacher no longer reaches for
the child, or allows the child to cuddle up; to do so would "feel
wrong". "Good" teachers
will feel no pleasure (or at least feel ambivalence) when children cling,
lean or sit on them. Each of these five
effects sustains the paradox: although surveillance and safe practice are
considered necessary to protect them, teachers must come under suspicion
because they need to be visible and act safely. That paradox is further
strengthened by the silence about sex. The headlines may scream "sex
abuse" but in primary schools the word "sex" is not uttered. It does not appear in
school and union policy related to touching children or teacher visibility.
It rarely arises in teachers' talk about the dangers of touch. And yet it is
the unspoken accusation. The rules - and
teachers' continued reticence - are driven by the assumption that teachers as
a group are potential sexual predators of children. Because we live in a
period of moral panic about risk and safety, we no longer merely identify
individual paedophiles and deal with them; rather, we consider the entire
population of teachers as possible paedophiles who must be watched. In other words, what we
do not speak of, we speak of all the time. To utter the edict "never be
alone with a child" is to speak of sex. That teachers as a group are
sexual predators is the unspeakable and outrageous truth, and the unspoken
secret beneath the social anxieties about teachers' proximity to children. To speak this truth, of
course, is to speak an absurdity. As a result, contemporary, professional,
safe teacher practice rests on its silence. * Alison Jones is an
associate professor of education at Auckland University. |
