why teachers do this

[briannell]

my take is that they are SICK!!!!!
-rebecca


Allure behind teacher-student affairs
What causes teachers to initiate sex with underage kids?


Updated: 6:46 p.m. ET Aug. 5, 2005
In the past few months, many teacher-student relationships have been uncovered and put into the media spotlight. What is making these attractive women take part in affairs with their underage students? MSNBC-TV's Alex Witt speaks with clinical psychologist Jeff Gardere about a possible explanation for the behavior.

To read an excerpt of their conversation, continue to the text below. To watch the video, click on the “Launch” button to the right.

ALEX WITT, MSNBC-TV ANCHOR: A married mother of four and teacher in New York arrested this week for having sex with her students. Just yesterday, a judge in Texas sentenced a Catholic schoolteacher to eight years in prison for having sex with one of her students and the list goes on and on. We all remember Mary Kay Letourneau. Why are there so many cases of teachers having sex with underage students?

Why do you think this is happening? What is the attraction here?

JEFF GARDERE, CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST: I think the attraction is somewhat of pathology. I think you’ve got some of these teachers that get involved with students. Perhaps they’ve been abused themselves when they were children or they’re having marriage problems at home. They’re certainly having a lot of psychological issues where they just cant seem to control their impulses.

For the students of course, it’s being with someone you’re not supposed to be with. Being able to cross that boundary from having that teacher to that teacher now becoming a friend or intimate partner and I think a lot of kids are somehow attracted to that not knowing psychologically what that can do to them in a very negative and damaging way.

WITT: But can you speak, Jeff to the women or the man, particularly the woman who is an older woman attracted to a child basically. I mean, 13, 14-years-old is a child as opposed to someone of her own age in her 20 or perhaps 30s depending on the individual case, what’s that about?

GARDERE: It’s more than just a physical attraction. I would say the attraction if nothing else is even more emotional. This is a situation where perhaps a teacher, this female teacher, may not have the power in her life, may feel infantile in her relationship with her husband or with others, may have been abused as a child and now they’re in a situation where they can use their authority and control in order to now be in charge of a relationship with someone of the opposite sex.

WITT: Do you call this a sickness?

GARDERE: I think it is a psychological illness for sure and we’ve been finding out that a lot of these female teachers are actually very attractive women who don’t need to be going into the pool of children in their schools in order to be able to get dates. It’s not just, again, a physical attraction, it’s something much deeper. It has to do again with the psychological issue that they have that’s then bleeding out into their work.

WITT: Do you think this is happening more with female teachers as opposed to men? Or, do you think that society allows more for men that are a little bit older to go after younger women?

GARDERE: I think in many ways, society looks the other way when men are promiscuous and seem to not have as big an issue. For example, when we see men who are acting out in this particular way, we know it’s a bad thing, we know its about rape.

But for the female teachers, they’re crossing all sorts of boundaries by just getting involved with students. But they’re doing something we don’t expect women to do and therefore when we see it, it gets much more attention then normally with just a male teacher acting out in this way.

© 2005 MSNBC Interactive