A close friend who is a flute peri in several schools tells me she has email contact with a couple of her pupils so she can send them links to the sites of msuic courses etc etc. One of them, a 14-year-old boy, sometimes sends her jokey emails and she sends jokey ones back.

She mentioned it to her husband and the husband thinks she is crossing a line into a place where she could start favouring that child; in other words he basically thinks it's inappropriate - and she doesn't. She's mentioned it to the Head of Music in that school who thinks it's fine. My friend's husband thinks she should also mention it to the school Head to make doubly sure it's fine. There's no question (as far as I can tell) that there's any danger of any untoward behaviour arising out of this, and she's positive the boy doesn't have a crush on her or anything like that.

I've told my friend that if the Head of Music knows about it and has OK'ed it then it's probably fine and her husband is worrying unnecessarily. I tend to be a bit like her in that I form good easy-going relationships with my students, both home and school, because I think students learn better when they feel you like them.
I think the husband is going a bit over the top thinking my friend should have to talk about it with the Head, particularly when the Head of Music says it's fine.

What do the peris here, or anyone else think?

Violinia

My daughter has excellent relationships with her Tutors. One private the other although through school we pay direct. The tutor in school is male, my daughter gets on well with him. She feels comfortable ringing him up for help and visiting his house during the holidays. They joke and have a laugh. She will give him a hug at Christmas.

She has recently moved schools and he has taught her in both, he was advised at the old school as where all the other staff not to touch pupils in any way. They had great fun Waltzing around the school hall in three time with their teacher. Such things as dancing around the room would help those who where struggling with their counting and rythm but it was all stopped.

I can see that people want to protect themselves from false alligations, but I feel also the whole thing is out of hand. If she isn't doing something right and needs to be re positioned, it is easier to move pupil into the correct position rather than have to explain it.
I think it is great when student and teacher get on well, they obviously both feel comfortable emailing one another. If however the line gets crossed it can be dealt with if it should happen. Untill then I can see nothing wrong with emailing work or pleasure.
In all walks of life we get on with some people better than others. It is no different in the classroom. Rightly or wrongly.

It just takes one teacher to inspire a child for life. I think it is fine.

It's unfortunate and a bit sad really that we live in an age where simple innocent exchanges between a teacher and pupil can be taken out of context.

The problem is that there have been so many reported cases in the newspapers of teachers having inappropriate relationships with their 13/14/15 year old students and I guess this is what first comes to mind in peoples thinking when such instances come to light.

I can understand, on one hand, some of this lady's husband's concerns and on the other that he may be over reacting to just platonic exchanges and familiarity between his wife and the 14 year old boy. It's difficult to know just where to draw the line in trying to maintain a degree of appropriateness and not seeming un-cooperative and unfriendly to the lad.

I know lots of friends that have this relationshups with their pupil One friend in particular chats on MSN with her pupil but from what i've seen, i think it's benefitical. I saw them in a concert recently, they did an excellent duet and seemed like they were enjoying themselves too.



Totally agree. It's sad that some generally good teacher/pupil relationshps are frowned upon

I get the distinct impression from what some of the teenagers on the board have said that it's not that uncommon for teachers to be in email contact with students these days...



True.

Not quite the same thing but similar topic:-

I picked up one of my singing pupils the other day to take her to my teacher so that we compare notes on how she's doing (very useful for her and me). My husband (a football coach) has been on a child protection course and one of the rules for him is that they are not allowed at any time to be alone with a child without someone else around (ie in the car) and to be careful It is really sad to think we have to think like this nowadays but also a parent and hearing what we do in the media these days I can understand it as well. I also have pupils that I email (the parents know we exchanged email addresses) usually about music sites and congratulations about festivals, exams etc. I don't see a problem here as long as the parents are aware, it is then a parental responsibility to oversee email messages if they are worried.

I think that we should be encouraging good relationships between music teachers and their pupils. So many teenagers are completely negative about their school teachers, they never seem to have a good word to say, that I think that being on 'friend' terms with a teacher is good. It is so sad that in today's society you can do so little in regard toteacher/pupil relationships. For example, my littlest sister is at playgroup, and if she falls over and cuts her knee, the playgroup leaders are not allowed to give her a hug!!
I get on really well with my music teachers, at the end of my lessons we always have a chat about general stuff and I often visit outside of leson times. My flute teacher took me into cambridge last year to try out some intermediate flutes, she was much more useful than either of my parents and I was fine with it.
I can understand why we have boundaries regarding teacher/pupil relationships but I think they are really begining to verge on ridiculous.

Child protection issues are such a minefield for all of us these days. Tonight at Youth Music Choir one of the boys - about 9 with hyperactivity and concentration problems, wanted to sit on my knee for some of the rhythm and clapping games. Immediate reaction - this is an absolute 'no no' but I left him (I've had an enhanced discolsure, child protection training, and there were two other adults there as well). It kept him quiet and still, and it helped him to concentrate and get much more from the activity. Then later on one little girl (about 7) was playing with my skirt because she said the silk felt nice. I left her for about a minute and removed myself from the situation. Thankfully my skirt was lined so I wansn't showing anything more that my knees to the rest of the group! Children will be children, but we need to protect them, and ourselves.

The key thing is really to be aware of the appropriate boundaries and to avoid any situations when something might be 'mis-interpreted'. I guess if the little boy made a habit of wanting to sit on my knee that would be one thing, and I would probably put a stop to it, but on this occasion it was fine. I guess doing a quick mental 'risk assessment' and making senseible decisions according to the circumstances is essential. Realistically, though, I guess most parents would just want us to be sensible, and if you're unsure, have a chat with them first.

It's sad that because there are a few weirdos out there, everyone else has to take care not to be mistaken for one There were issues with some idiots when the organist from my church took me on an organ course which was only in the afternoon for a few hours. He gave me a lift into town and then sat with me as we listened to the person running it (and then 'volunteered' me!! Grrrr...) But since he's 10 years older than me some people were like 'Why didn't one of your parents go?' Answer: 'because neither of them play the organ and so would have been much less useful....'

My son is 13 and also has an excellent rapport with his trumpet teacher, though he's far too busy with his Ipod/guitar/books/computer games to actually send emails to her. I know her and trust her well enough not to worry if they started exchanging funny emails.

However, I do think that a teacher should always behave in a very professional way and avoid getting too 'friendly' with their students.

I'm not a music teacher, but if I was, I would prefer not to correspond with children by email -unless it was an occasional request for information.

Steve

I keep in contact with a number of students via e-mail and/or text message. They and I are from a generation which favours these over the telephone. It's much easier to issue an e-mail reminder etc. than it would be to telephone round 26 pupils. Parents seem to accept that this is OK and there isn't an issue, and the majority of time they are copied the e-mail at the same time. I'm not going to stop doing this just because of a small minority in our society who may thing there was something more sinister going on.

David

p.s. on the P.C. issue, I hope you've all been out to buy the single of the Radio 4 UK Theme which reached number 29 in the chart last weekend. Another example of the P.C. maniacs at work!

I occasionally correspond with my sixth form pupils by e-mail but only on things like lessons, music to purchase etc. Never jokes, friendly exchanges etc. Business all the way - I would be anxious about doing anything else. I would not expect to deal by e-mail with a younger pupil.

Child Protection is necessary but it is an increasing pain too. Once upon a time if I wanted to demonstrate breathing I'd put my hand on my student's diaphragm and show them what I meant and let them feel mine working. Never now. I understand dance teachers are really struggling to know how to teach good positioning now that they cannot physically correct anything for a pupil - ie hands off.

I abhor child abuse and would never want to see any child harmed but I think, like many other things in life, we have gone a little too overboard in some cases now.

My flute teacher at school always used to correct our posture by moving us and the diaphragm thing that oboist mentionned; and no one ever had a problem with it.


I fully agree. At brownies we had a girl who had sprained or twisted an ankle or something while we were playing games on the field behind the church, but the first aider was in the church hall, and what was I supposed to do other than carry her to the first aider?? Say "yes dear, you'll have to hop a bit since you can't walk" ?? And trying to tell that to an increasingly hysterical 7 year old girl??






Sorry for straying into the teacher forum

i've had email contact with some of my teachers - after our school production in december i emailed photos to quite a few people, teachers included. i've just been off school for two days last week and if i hadn't been able to email my teachers then i would have been stressing big-time about the coursework and it probably wouldn't have got in on time. if all outside hours contact was cut i think that would be a very bad thing.



i disagree (sorry!)
i get on really well with some of my teachers, we have a chat and a laugh and it's probably the sort of relationship that you would be counting as 'too 'friendly''. i personally think it's great getting on with your teachers because it makes the time you have with them more enjoyable to start with! and the feedback i get from teachers i know more than others is often more useful to me - they seem to be able to be more honest and offer some really good advice and i'm not worried about going to them for help, whereas with some other teachers who i don't know as well, they don't really help explaining what they mean as much or i don't feel i can go and ask them things as easily. and then sometimes they say nice things only to go and change their minds later on, which seems to be in case they upset me or something! but i'd rather be given honest comments and some positive advice rather than someone pretending it's all good and then realising they have to be honest when it's too late to do much about it.



it is a bit of a problem i think. i go dancing and luckily our dance school hasn't moved into the PC brigade yet - it's just not possible to run a school like that. some parents sit in on lessons and so can take their kids to the loos, help get them changed into other uniform and change shoes, blow noses, give hugs etc, but there are around 30 kids in the youngest class and it just isn't feasible to have a parent for every kid in the lesson - plus a lot of the parents go for a cuppa or nip up to the shops during the lesson. it means that it's not too PC - we help change shoes, take kids to the loos, occasionally have to help them change, give them hugs etc. some people might not agree with it but any other way would be unrealistic - what are we meant to do? wait till they go to the loo, get their knickers and leotards twisted up and then just leave them like that? i don't think it's wrong and the parents know what goes on and they're all perfectly happy to leave their kids with us. i trust my dance teachers immensely and i know that they would never let anyone near the kids if it would put them in any danger. i think the parents know this too so that's probably why they're fine with leaving the kids - they can always sit in on lessons if they want to, so it's not like any secrecy going on or anything.
my dance class are luckily all a bit too old to be bothered by the PC rubbish - we were taught dancing with teachers changing postures and correcting positions, to stop now would be stupid. our teachers would never do anything to hurt any of us and i'm fine with them altering positions - i wouldn't want to injure myself just because they're not allowed to help us or break a few bones if they're not allowed to support us doing pointe work and the like

*phew*
sorry, ranting over! just this PC stuff drives me mad!

My teacher is always correcting us. If our arm position is wrong she will take our wrist and move them to the right place. Today for example, I was doing some pointe work (I have only just started) and I held her hands to march across the room (great for building up strength/balance).
The breathing thing with music teachers really bugs me. if I'm struggling to get a breathing exercise there's not a lot my teacher can do about it.
Even I have to be cautious as I teach a small girl the recorder. I always feel guilty if I have to move her hands etc which I shouldn't do, she is only 6 1/2 years younger than me and older than my youngest sister. Also, when I started teacheing her, her parents asked if one of my parents wanted to come for the first time as I would be teaching in the girls' house with her father often at home. Her father is a lovely man, and very enthusiastic about his daughter's music and I think its such a shame that he should be worried about me not being 'safe'.

The problem is that if it gets banned completely rather than just frowned upon, pointe work isn't going to be safe any more - they can't just give us a pair of pointe shoes and tell us to get on with it! Dancers need someone to hold and someone to support them when they're first learning, otherwise there will be a lot of broken ankles around...

So, in fact, by banning it, they'd actually make it more dangerous!

David

Considerably more

Reading through these replies (thanks to all for responding) it seems as if most of you think it's an overreation on the husband's side, but a couple say they would never enter into this sort of email banter with a pupil, not because they feel it's wrong per se, but because it could be misconstrued.

I've since found out that the parents of the boy are aware of the banter (they all share the same email address), know the teacher personally and aren't the least bit bothered. I think I shall advise my friend to tell her husband to lighten up and give it a rest. Perhaps he's jealous!

There was something in the press last week, funnily enough, about whether teachers should establish friendly relationships with their pupils. Some think not, others think yes. From my own experience, my favourite subjects and the ones I worked hardest at were the subjects taught by the teachers I related to the most. A wonderful English teacher who told some of us her Christian name, and we used to bump into her at CND marches complete with duffle coat and bearded husband. A fantastic, eccentric French teacher who used to stay around and chat after lessons. A very warm-hearted music teacher.....

On the other side, a loathsome geography teacher (I hated geog with a vengeance because of her), ditto all the science subjects. Teachers who keep a cold distance from their pupils can't possibly foster a love for the subject. I know there has to be a balance and there's no need to go over the top with friendship to foster a love for a subject, but teachers and children are human beings and should be able to treat each other as such. That's my view anyway.

Violinia

Yep! There's no way I would learn pointe if our teachers weren't allowed to touch us - it's just way too dodgy for my liking!
EDIT: That's the pointe work without support, not the teachers being allowed to touch us...

I agree with Violinia about a good relationship helping the subject - one of our classes hates the double lessons with a certain teacher, mainly because it's really boring and we all hate the teacher! But in the other subjects we all have a fantastic time - if pupils enjoy being in the lessons then they're going to learn more, and if having a good relationship with the teacher leads to enjoyable lessons then I can't see that there's anything wrong with it.

Amen to that.

That will translate to different things with different teachers (and different children, come to that) of course - but being able to realise a teacher is actually human under all the learning and authority, and that *gasp* they are on your side, makes a world of difference

I find myself wondering how much we are damaging children by an unnatural stand-offishness. I remember a story a vicar used to tell of how in America the government orphanages cleaned up their act as they learn about the need for hygiene. In one place there were two close together; one with the new standards imposed which also involved far less touching and cuddling of the babies, and a nearby one which was filthy and babies shared bottles etc. but lots of love and cuddles.
The startling results of a comparison was though that the clean orphanage had a much higher mortaility rate.

It really does worry me that children are being taught that touching is wrong by excessive political sensitivity to touch and that young brains can't grow properly because they need the physical stimulation and loving care. How much does this contribute to the alienation so many teenagers feel?

If there was less violence and sexually explicit material around on TV and press perhaps that would be a better way of protecting children from people who are affected by the materials, yet there seems little political will to do that.

Yes - teachers and pupils are Human, and need to be treated as such. Theres nothing wrong with teachers being friendly, it makes life a little nicer for everyone. Just a shame some people can't tell the difference between friendly and dodgy. PC has a lot to answer for TV should definitly be cleaned up. Then perhaps people wouldn't misinterpret things, because they had not been exposed to misinterpretation?

This post really interested me. I have a very close relationship with my school music teacher, and will often email her. Often it's about work, but often it's just random stuff / jokes. I think child protection laws have gone too far now. Ok, so if an adult is touching a child inappropriately it should be picked up on, but the rest of the time i can't see a problem with it. My teacher has hugged me before (which no doubt she wouldn't really be allowed to do), and being a school music teacher rather than an instrumental teacher, she has helped me through a heck of a lot of other issues as well. I think it's very sad that teachers/adults have to be so carful about what they do nowadays. A friend of mine (only 3 years older than me) has recently started working at my school and we have to be so careful about seeing each other at school. It's almost as though he cant be my friend anymore because I'm a student and he's a member of staff. Does 3 years really make that much difference?

I am a private teacher and I teach mainly adults I do not communicate to my child pupils directly and would refer always to the parent in the first instance It is safer for me and for them

I also am friendly with a lot of my female pupils but emails are always strictly business but friendly because my sense of humour may not be shared by them and give them offence I have one pupil who is a friend as well but he is a 50 something widower with 3 sons

Thing is, you either trust someone or you don't. If you don't trust them, don't, at any cost, leave your child with them, not for an instant, however many other adults are around and however many CRB documents they hold... But if you DO trust the person, they just trust them! Stop worrying about emails between teacher and pupil, stop worrying about the teacher touching your daughter or son - he's only trying to help them improve their technique, or demonstrate an important part of breath control, or a tricky finger position.

What I'm saying here is, no amount of government sledgehammer legislation will protect children from those few psychopaths who are, unfortunately, around, no matter what we do. But they ARE few. Very, very few. Most teachers are decent, well-meaning, trying to do their best for their students. So make up your own mind (if you're a parent) and just ask yourself if you trust this guy or woman. If you do, then relax. If not, get the ###### out.

And if you are the teacher - keep doing the right thing for the pupils. You have to teach them the best way you know how, and if that involves physical contact then there can't be anything wrong with that. Your intentions are honest and proper, that's what matters. It's only by teaching well, and making a difference in people's lives, that these stupid pc rules can be shown to be exactly that.

The Girls have a Piano teacher who is in her 70's. Last year she gave them a little gift at Christmas and they both gave her a hug. I was a little unsure, form her reaction, she was a bit surprised. They see her as a Grandma type figure (she's not been teaching them very long but we have known her a long time) and she does have Grandchildren of a similar age. Now if they pass exams or she gives them some rock form her holidays she is quite used to being hugged. They are very fond of her.

It's such a shame that children are often put off building a special relationship with someone who is totally trustworthy because of how society has developed. Children need to associate with a variety of people from outside their family in order to develop understanding of others, not everyone is a threat or a risk.

One of my pupils gave me a big hug when I gave her the results of one of her piano exams. She's moved on now, but I still see her in Youth Choir and a couple of weeks ago she came over and put her head on my shoulder cos she was tired.

My flute teacher brought me home from school today, as I had frees and she was going on to a village nearby. If I was under 16 she would have had to have parental permission for me to be brought home..

Isn't it interesting that all these posts indicate that commonsense is prevailing in spite of all the politically correct stuff.

I think the huge majority of instrumental teachers know what is appropriate for them, their pupils and in their general situation. Each pupil is an individual and it is important to build up the kind of working relationship that everyone concerned is happy with.

I have been told in a child protection training that it is inappropriate for a child to hug someone who is not a family member or primary carer....

I could see the problem if a person asked for a hug, but not if it's spotaneous. Also in the case of our Piano Teacher she used to help at the eldests playgroup, and her Grandchildren went to the same school as the Girls, so we have known her a long time.

A friend of mines kids go to school in France. They were a bit nervous about starting and had heard terrible rumours about discipline and corporal punishment in French schools.

On day one their new teacher wellcomed them by kissing them on both cheeks in front of the whole class. Nobody thought it was odd at all, but then European people are a lot more relaxed about this sort of thing than we are!

I'm not generally a huggy sort of person, but I still gave my music teacher a hug on the last day of term, as she was leaving. It was fine. It's a shame that people can't simply be let alone to get on with others as they see appropriate. It just depends who the person is.

I would never be the one to start it but if a child comes up to you with arms wide for a hug is it really in their best interests to treat them as though they have some nasty disease?

I would be rather put out for one....... My teacher did ask me to hug her, but she knows me very well, having taught me for 5 years. (and helped me through some rough patches). I think I would be worse off now if my teacher had simply taught me, rather than being friendly as well.

I've hugged my school music teacher on a number of occasions. When she found out that i was having issues at home and had been hurting myself she hugged me, and again on results day when I got an A in music. My mum was there the second time on results day and didnt have a problem with my teacher hugging me.

What was I supposed to do - push her away? The first time it was entirely unexpected and spontaneous, the second time it was in Youth Choir practice with about 40 other people around. I have visions of small nursery class age children all wanting a bit of comfort from their teacher who is running around the classroom shouting "No, no get off me, you can't hug me!!!"

I remember when I was a little girl of about 6 or 7, a bee stung me when I was in the playground and then dropped down the front of my dress. I was a bit distressed, but the headmaster was there and I asked him to get the bee out. I remember being a little bit puzzled as to why he hesitated, but then he put his hand down the front of my dress and got the dead bee out. There was nothing untoward about it, but can you imagine the hullabaloo about a headmaster doing that these days?!!

This is a really hard issue, and it's not about protecting the children, it's about protecting ourselves. I think a lot of it is to do with your relationship with pupils and their teachers. If they like and trust you, and you sort out any problems at the earliest opportunity, and they feel they can approach you about any issues informally, then you are much more likely to be able to follow your instincts rather than the letter of the law. But it depends whether or not you are prepared to take the risk - it only takes one parent to misconstrue something and get histerical about it, and it could be the end of your career. I am very conscious of this, but I am still prepared to risk it because I agree with a previous poster that what harm are we doing to our children by not teaching them the appropriate way to touch people?

I got hugged by a 7-year-old boy at the end of choir last week - it was only the second time he had been so I don't exactly know him well, and since he is quite small and I was standing up at the time he buried his nose in an intimate place and flung his arms round my legs! Was I supposed to push him away and say he must never do that again?? As it was, his mother was watching and we both laughed - it was really sweet of him.

I know a male teacher who will never teach a female pupil on her own unless his wife is in the house and the door is open, because he is paranoid about accusations. That's up to him. He would be shocked at the way I operate... but ultimately that's my decision. I like to believe that I have a good enough relationship with all my parents that it will not be a problem - but of course I can never know for sure. It's a sad world we live in. At least one-to-one teaching has not been legislated against... Yet.

It's understandable that most of the contributions one will read here will be about when everything is fine and not a problem. Sadly, however, problems do occur.

If I can be discreetly vague for a moment, I know someone who has music lessons with several peris at school and has known most of them for several years. Earlier this term they had a lesson on a Monday and sorted out what was to happen in preparation for the following week's lesson. At the end of the week the parents got a letter saying the peri had 'decided to move on with immediate effect'. No one has said why. The person I know never had a problem with the teacher, but it's all too easy to speculate that someone may have.

I was struck by something in yesterday's Sunday Times. In an article about the sleaze scandal engulfing the Republican Party in the USofA at the moment, commenting on the failure of the party leaders to take any action following a complaint from a parent, Myrna Blyth, former editor of Ladies Home Journal said "What were those guys thinking of? Every parent knows there is something very fishy about an older guy, any older guy, sending overly friendly e-mails to a 16-year-old". (I doubt she meant it was necessarily an issue unique to "guys".)

Whether Myrna is right or not, she is not alone in her opinion.

b