What limitations should be placed on the relationship between teachers and students?

Depends on their ages and mutual dependencies.

When one has power over the other, the relationship should be purely limited to a professional one.

When both are adults and none have control over each other… that may be different.

You’ve got to trust someone, some time.

My daughter works in a school with inner city kids. Some of her kids show up with behavior problems (we think it’s due to lack of physical stimulation at home). These kids are always moving, and they just can’t concentrate. She discovered if she simply goes up and rests her hand on their upper back they can calm down and concentrate, so she does that a lot.

There is an inherent imbalance of power in the relationship between a teacher and a student. The teacher has all the power (the authority vested in teachers; the power of adulthood). Therefore, there has to be a line about personal relationships. Because they are not equal.

School management should make and enforce those rules.

Trust? That should not enter into it.

Teacher/student relationships should remain professional while the student is in the teachers class or has the potential to be under their authority. It’s best to keep it professional until the student is no longer a student at that school (and of course for both people to be of legal age).

School administration makes the rules and is responsible for e forcing them. Teachers that go against the rulers could lose their job and possibly their teaching license depending on the situation.

I think that all the limitations that should be in place are already in place and are enforced.
As for the rest, for example the attitude the teacher has about her students, whether she or he feels he is superior, well, that’s a mindset that you can’t really do anything about, unless it becomes excessive.

At what level? I don’t really see a big deal about college profs fucking their students, and it’s probably not a big deal at the high school level if it’s kept on the down low, though I can understand why it should be banned there.

Certainly the whole point of learning and mentoring is to encourage student-teacher interaction, which a lot of pervs mistake as sexual interaction.

It is a big deal in a High School. You’re talking about 15, 16, 17 year olds having sexual relations with a trusted adult who, in many ways, can be expected to be a parent figure.

When I was in HS in the 70’s we had a male teacher who was always hitting on the girls. We all found him disgusting. I doubt it was ever reported.

My favorite teacher threw an erasure at a kid once for writing the words “a lot,” as one word! We loved it!

They’d both be fired today.

Age isn’t particularly important. A 15-year-old can look like a 20-year-old or like a 12-year old. The only relevant factors are sexual maturity, consent, and power dynamics, and in a school the major concerns are the last two.

In any case, 18— and even 19-year-olds aren’t uncommon at the high school level.

18, some. 19, only if they’d failed a grade or were lower functioning.

Hell, I’ve taught 6th grade girls who looked 18! So that isn’t a factor. Maturity is.

I don’t think social interaction on fb is ok, or outside school events. Kids must be protected no matter what.

Depends on the interaction @KNOWITALL. There is a page called “Where in the World is Kansas,” and it’s a history teacher who used fb to have someone from every city and town in Kansas to hail her class. She made that goal, but she still posts. And sometimes the kids post, with the note “Student posting” before it.

That’s pretty OK. You can’t help but interact with students outside of school. You run into them at Walmart and stuff!