INTERVIEW: Charol Shakeshaft

Dr. Charol Shakeshaft of the Department of Foundations, Leadership and Policy Studies at Hofstra University in Long Island, New York and the author of Educator Sexual Misconduct: A Synthesis of Existing Literature. She was interviewed by fifth estate producer Marie Caloz. Watch the interview online.

Marie Caloz: What is educator sexual misconduct? What would be included in that?

Dr. Charol Shakeshaft: Any behaviour that’s sexual in nature directed toward a student, no matter the age of the student. So, it might be anything from touching a student on the breast, from talking about sexual activities that are specifically personal activities, not the kind of thing you do in a class, showing pornographic pictures, telling pornographic jokes or telling jokes that are sexual in nature to intercourse, kissing, any other kind of sexual touching.

Marie Caloz: I know this is probably a hard question to answer but how prevalent is it? Is there any kind of research that will show how common it is?

Dr. Charol Shakeshaft: Well we have one study of a representative sample of students in U.S. schools, looks at kids’ experiences from grade kindergarten to 11. And of those students and this sample is about 3500 students, chosen to represent different populations, different geographic areas, different races – of those students about 10% say that some time, from the time they started school through the 11th grade -- because the oldest students interviewed in this study were 11th graders – through the 11th grade they had experienced at least one incident of educator sexual misconduct.

…

Marie Caloz: Why shouldn't students sleep with teachers?

Dr. Charol Shakeshaft: Students shouldn’t sleep with teachers because one, they’re not emotionally mature enough to handle a relationship that has to do with a power relationship. No matter what you think, ah the teacher always has the power and the student doesn’t. It’s institutional, it’s structural, that’s the way it’s set up… a teacher shouldn’t sleep with a student or a student shouldn’t sleep with a teacher in addition because ah the expectation is that when you go to school you can trust the people there to do what’s best for you. And in fact, the whole nature of the schooling activity is based upon the notion that these are professionals and we can trust them. …

Marie Caloz: Are you able to tell me from your research a kind of general profile for an educators that might become a potential abuser?

Dr. Charol Shakeshaft: The fixated predator in schools has gone into schools and become a teacher or a coach or some other member of the school faculty because that’s where children are. So they’ve made a conscious decision to be where children are. This type of predator is also usually a very good teacher. In my studies in the United States, fixated predators who are in schools are disproportionately among the recipients of awards. They have best teacher awards, state teacher awards, teach of the year awards. They are seen by their colleagues an by their community as really, really, really good teachers.

The second kind is what we might call situational predators. And this group of people usually targets kids in middle school and high school, older students in the spectrum. And they didn’t go into education to have sex with kids. That wasn’t why they went there. And so situational offenders are offenders who generally are emotionally immature, who haven’t really moved into adult emotions and secondly, who have really poor judgement about boundaries, about who they’re supposed to be, what a teacher is supposed to be, what the responsibilities. The similarity between these two abusers is that the person they care about most and the person that they look out for and the person whose best interest they want to make sure are taken care of is themselves.

…

Marie Caloz: Talk a little bit about the gender differences. Can females abuse in a way that we think of men abusing? Is there any difference in the way that they abuse?

Dr. Charol Shakeshaft: I can’t know what’s going on in the woman’s head. What I can tell you is what women who sexually abused boys have told me. And what they say is that they didn’t really see this as a child. And they were attracted to the person and hey felt I should follow up on this attraction and that this was a romantic issue and that they didn’t really feel they were stepping over any lines because, after all, he was a man and he was an older youth.

And what we see there is emotional immaturity, is the notion that they haven’t moved out of wherever they were stuck when they were 17. And we often find that women teachers are reliving and recreating their high school years. They’re becoming popular when they weren’t. They’re becoming assertive when they weren’t. They’re becoming powerful and in charge when they weren’t.

…

Marie Caloz: From the research you've done are you able to characterize institutional response in these kinds of situation? How well do they do in general?

Dr. Charol Shakeshaft: Most institutions don’t do very well. I did one study of 225 cases where there was physical sexual abuse, penetration, intercourse. And in not one case did the school ever call the police. Every single case was taken care of internally within the organization.

Marie Caloz: Okay I'm a parent. I’ve just watched this documentary and I'm completely freaked out. As a parent how do you handle this information? What should you be on the lookout for? What should you do?

Dr. Charol Shakeshaft: You need to look and see if an adult is spending a lot of time with your child and what kind of time. Everything that an adult professional needs to do and should do in terms of education in school and coaching can be done in an open space with other people around. It doesn’t need to be done at their house. It doesn’t need to be done at their car. There’s nothing that we do professionally that has to be done in those places.

Secondly, the issue is patterns. So a teacher may one time tutor a child or may one time do things. But if you see a pattern, either a pattern with your child more than once being alone or taking him or a pattern with other children that every year there’s a child they’re alone with and spend a lot of time with or behind closed doors with, that’s a signal.

Listen to rumours and listen to kid rumours. The best place to listen to kid rumours is in the car. You’re in the front seat, they’re in the back seat. They forget you can hear and in fact with their music on you probably can’t hear but you – lots of stuff goes on in the back seat. And so you listen to hear kinds of rumours, what they hear.