@jeff: Glad that worked out well for you; the spin of the story sounds much more positive than what this woman’s been up to; if anything, it sounds like it serves of an affirmation that the principal did the right thing in hiring you. I’m also curious as to how that article “found its way” to your principal – buddy of yours? Student? Parent?

I hate having to watch my back like that. Anything I feel like publishing on the Internet that I don’t feel is 100% safe for school, I for damn sure don’t do it under my own name. Also, having tenure helps.

Unfortunately, it looks like you don’t even have to have/do anything questionable to get investigated now.

point d in your comments above is the most interesting to me. she was hired AFTER all of this had happened. seems to me that honesty is the only weapon she has against her youthful indiscretion. but it’s tricky – should she have come clean during the interview, and risk not being hired? keep quiet and hope you’re not the unlucky soul whose video goes viral on youtube?

legally speaking, point c, i think that it’s up to each individual private school to determine what it is that constitutes an action that goes against the school’s mission / core beliefs. and that’s what i’d point out for item b as well – whether or not she is fired may have more to do with the values of one specific school community rather than that of the nation. (although by the time it makes the bbc the school may be forced to let her go due to media pressure even if the community is a forgiving one.)

something like this actually happened to me, although nothing in the story is too NSFW. somehow my new principal received a link to a newspaper article from my uni’s commencement day edition profiling how far i’d changed from my frat boy beer-guzzling days to a committed new teacher. luckily he brushed it off as he knew he’d hired the “after” jeff and not the before, but i’ve often thought that my career would have taken a remarkably different trajectory had that not been the way the event turned out.

I’m having a hard time sussing out in my mind what exactly this is about. Is it about:

a) a young person caught doing something “bad” on the Net
b) a nation’s attitude toward sex and sexuality
c) the right of an employer to include “moral fitness” as an employment criterion
d) the YouTube era’s lack of “statute of limitations on youthful indiscretions” (love that phrase, Diane)
e) other??

I appreciate what folks are saying regarding the Internet-savviness lessons here, but I’m also concerned about what those lessons might be. and if they’re the right ones to be teaching (see D above).

Not sure exactly where I stand on this particular case, but to play the devil’s advocate for a moment: isn’t it possible that what the headteacher is concerned about is the general moral fitness of a person who would make this type of film in the first place? Was this her only misstep along the narrow path of righteousness? What other things occurred that might not show up in a Google search?

We all do things we’re not particularly proud of in our lives. Is there a statute of limitations on youthful indiscretions? Should there be?

Thanks everyone for commenting thus far; I’ll weigh in a little later.

Interesting one this. My first reaction was that the video was considerably more graphic than I was expecting from the descriptions and I absolutely see the problem. The BBC report is quite clear that she has been suspended, pending investigation, and this is a perfectly normal procedure in the UK. I would imagine the school will investigate, and the governors will decide if her actions would prevent her from discharging her role as a teacher properly. An alternative might be that she would be referred to the General Teaching Council who could, theoretically, remove her QTS (Qualified Teacher Status)

While I appreciate this was 4 years ago, as Iteachcomputers says, one of the lessons we’re trying to get over to pupils is that internet age means the actions we took in the past throw a much longer shadow than they used to, and she will have to live with the consequences of her actions. Teachers are supposed to be role models to young people, and this really seems to rub up the wrong way against that.

It’ll be interesting to see the school verdict once the investigation is over, but I’m really not sure what her defense would be. This wasn’t an event ‘captured on camera phone’, but a professionally made promotional video.

Final thought – How many pupils under 18 certified themselves suitable to watch this I wonder?!

That said, isn’t this the lesson we have been trying to teach our kids about the on-line world in general? I am 47 years old, and I have to admit I made some less than stellar choices when I was younger, but my “co-conspirators” didn’t have video cameras, cell phones or digital cameras to capture the moment. People will make the same age old mistakes, but now everything gets captured and posted to the Internet.