Jennifer Fraser

Matthew Lynch published in Education Leadership, Policy & Reform, Teachers

When teachers sexually abuse students

Editor’s Note: Sexual abuse is a difficult topic but an important one for educators to understand when it comes to the students they teach. As a warning, the following guest post may cause distress for those who have suffered similar abuse. You can read more about the Quest program sexual abuse controversy referenced in this post by clicking here. 

A guest post by Jennifer Fraser

I was halfway up the rock face when I suddenly couldn’t find any hold for my hand or my foot. I looked down and it was a long way. Of course I was roped in. This was a school-sponsored outing and at the top of the climb were my teachers who were holding the ropes. I was wearing a helmet. I was completely protected, but I couldn’t go up and I couldn’t go down and started to panic. My legs started to shake uncontrollably. Above, the students and teachers could see I was in trouble. And one teacher yelled down at me:

“If you give me a blow job, I’ll help you up.”

I was fifteen and didn’t know what a “blow job” was. I knew it was something sexual and was embarrassed that I didn’t know what it meant. It made me feel ashamed and ignorant at the same time

Now the interesting question is: why did I not tell this story to my parents?

There are many reasons and hopefully in shedding light on this dark part of my life, I can empower parents to watch for telltale signs of abuse and I can encourage students to speak up.

The problem with reporting on the men that sexually abused me, and so many students in the Quest program at Prince of Wales School in Vancouver, was that they were so popular. They had cult-like status at the school. They were charming and extremely funny. They were also leaders in terms of health and nutrition. They were anti-drinking and drugs and therefore greatly respected by parents and quite likely their colleagues. They were counter-culture at a time when kids were questioning their parents’ values. These teachers seemed incredibly cool to us. They were early environmentalists and we worked hard as teens to save the wilderness alongside them.

It’s important for all those who want to protect kids from abuse to know that oftentimes abusers are very popular; they are so good; they are so sought-after. They’re attractive. That’s how they get away with years of abuse. It’s this disguise they are highly adept at wearing that lets them unleash years of soul-destroying abuse on children in their power. They hold the ropes and the child believes they want to keep them safe; the child believes that they care. Abusers convince everyone, probably even themselves, that they act out of “love.” They never ask themselves why the love they offer causes so many kids profound suffering or why it’s against the law.

If adults can’t recognize abusers, children are even less likely to realize that what’s happening is abuse and that it is doing damage of a kind they can’t see.

If I had fallen from that rock face and broken my arm, I would have been rushed to hospital and cared for. But what happened on that rock face that day broke something in my mind and in my spirit. The pain far outweighed a snapped bone, but there was no cast to envelop the break and allow it to heal.

On a bus ride back from one of the wilderness trips, one of the teachers, Tom Ellison, held me down for a stretch of time and he licked my ear in a provocative sexual way in front of all the kids. It revolted me and made me afraid. He was twice my size and strong. It’s the only time in my life a man has held me down and forced himself upon me. The news stories and the court case about this teacher are packed full of such incidents and most of them far, far worse.

While I was scarred by my experience in Quest, I did not end up having sex with these teachers and am profoundly thankful for that. I’ve often wondered how I escaped.

I think there were a couple of reasons. The first one was that I was extremely naïve. As a fifteen year old girl, it never occurred to me that middle-aged men would have any sexual interest in kids. It literally did not cross my mind and so when advances were made, I just felt completely confused.

From the age of four on, children have it hammered into them that teachers deserve trust and respect. To suddenly go against those repeated lessons, is like telling a child raised in a religion that the God they have always worshipped is in fact evil. The mind cannot fathom it.

As a teenager, I was working hard not to look like a loser in front of my peers who all seemed to love these teachers. I was interested in boys my own age and thrilled at the notion that some of the grade 12 boys were interested in me. They were two years older and seemed to belong to a whole other category of sophistication. I couldn’t wrap my mind around the idea that a man who was married and had three children and was middle-aged actually wanted to have sexual relations with me or any other teenage girl. It did not make sense.

Dean Hull approached me at the first Quest dance when a slow song came on. I couldn’t even imagine dancing closely with him and held him at bay as it was just so strange and awkward. He proceeded to humiliate me in front of the other kids saying that I was “frigid” and laughing at how I was trying not to dance right up against him. I was deeply embarrassed and finally slow danced with him. Just writing this makes me feel physically sick.

Adults have enormous power over children.

Their knowledge and experience makes them able to influence those who have so few years on the planet and are just learning. It’s counter-intuitive, but watch out for teachers who are devoted to their students, the ones who appear to be so passionate that the majority of their time—even holidays—is dedicated to students. Adults who don’t spend much time in adult relationships and say that it’s because they’re so intensely passionate about their wilderness program or their theatre production or their sports team should concern parents and administrators and be watched carefully. Of course there are dedicated teachers out there who simply do care about their students and devote their time because education is a calling for them. It’s just that abusers are smart and so they imitate educational goodness to cover up for their real motivations.

After the traumatizing, embarrassing dance with Dean Hull, I didn’t say anything to my parents. If anything, I walked away from that dance feeling like a failure. I had displeased my teacher. I had done something wrong. I had not acted appropriately. Why would I share that with my parents?

I was forced to slow dance with Dean Hull, but I wasn’t forced into having sex with him and for that I am deeply thankful and I feel extremely sad for the teenage girls in my grade who ended up having sex with Dean Hull, Stan Callegari and Tom Ellison. I know how much these men have messed up my brain and I can only imagine what they’ve done to others who suffered far more than I did.

I think there’s another reason I escaped the worst from these abusers and it was because of my parents. They knew something was wrong. And I encourage parents: trust your instincts, talk to your kids, ask them questions, watch for signs of mental illness like eating disorder, cutting, depression. I suffered from all three of those conditions. I was voted “worst dressed girl” in grade 12, but I did not explain to anyone—even myself—that I was wearing sweat pants everyday and baggy shirts so that the teachers would leave me alone and not notice me.

In the summer of grade 11, before I went on a month long trip to the Yukon with these abusers, my mom met with them. She told them my dad was a lawyer and if anything happened to me on this trip, they would do everything in their power to ensure the teachers were held accountable. I suffered terribly on that trip, but I was not the girl who shared a tent or a bed with these teachers. That fate was reserved for two other teenage girls and I thank my parents for making those teachers afraid of what would happen if they abused me.

Schools are so careful to supply students with helmets and ropes, to keep them physically safe.

But they need to work harder on protecting children from abuse that plays on children’s emotions and uses them as a way to gain entry into a child’s body and mind. Schools must teach children what abuse from a teacher looks like, what it sounds like, what it does to the brain and heart and soul.

Kids need to know that if a teacher or coach abuses them, it does very serious, long-lasting damage.

No one told me that when I was a child.

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Jennifer Fraser has a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Toronto and is a published writer. She is presently teaching creative writing and International Baccalaureate literature classes at an independent school in British Columbia.

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Matthew Lynch published in Bullying

When coaches are bullies: What should students do?

**The Edvocate is pleased to publish guest posts as way to fuel important conversations surrounding P-20 education in America. The opinions contained within guest posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of The Edvocate or Dr. Matthew Lynch.**

A guest post by Jennifer Fraser

High-level coaches like John O’Sullivan are concerned about the stark fact that seven out of ten kids quit sports at the age of thirteen. O’Sullivan has written best-selling books on how we must “change the game” so that kids don’t quit sports, but instead become athletes for life. In 2012, he became the founder and CEO of Changing the Game Project such is his passionate belief that we can learn a different and better way to treat young athletes. O’Sullivan focuses mainly on parents, whereas I want to focus on coaches.

Our son, along with five others, quit playing basketball in his final year of high school. He had been dedicated to the game since grade four and had planned to try out for college teams. He quit because he was given the tragic choice for a seventeen year old: play for bullying coaches or quit the game you love. The bullying was the same you might find on a playground or in a locker-lined hallway: homophobic slurs, swearing, insults, ignoring, yelling, grabbing, detaining. It’s just that it wasn’t kids doing it: the bullying was being done by teachers while supposedly “coaching” basketball.

Boys ranging from grade ten to first year university reported their treatment to the Headmaster, but the conduct was brushed under the rug as “old style coaching”; the boys who reported were singled out as problematic because they had “unhappy experiences” and a vague promise was given that the coaches would “tone it down.” Funnily enough, that’s not what the police said. Their assessment was that there was a “definite pattern in the complaints, all pointing to verbal and emotional abuse.” However, the police could not intervene because emotional abuse is not in the criminal code. So, the boys were given the choice by the Headmaster: submit to the abuse or quit the team.

After witnessing what really happens when kids speak up, I started wondering how many other kids are treated this way? We know students find it extremely difficult to report on peer bullying let alone teacher bullying. We know seventy percent of athletes are quitting their sport at thirteen. We keep going on and on about how vital coaches are in kids’ lives; they’re more important than almost anyone. Coaches, we are told, are key role models and ‘sports teaches character.’ But does it in its present form? Seventy percent of kids are losing these crucial lessons and the thirty percent that remain might be learning lessons in bullying and narcissism on some teams. According to the Workplace Bullying Institute and many others, our workplaces are overrun with bullies. Is it possible they learn the advantages to bullying while on the court or the field?

Coaches who bully appear to have the ability to cover up what they do. We want to think of abusers as monsters, instantly identifiable, but that’s naïve. Abusers are far more often the most charming, sociable, and influential. They exude goodness publicly which appears to effectively cover up what they do behind the scenes. They seem to have a dual character presentation that I have discussed previously as a Jekyll and Hyde persona (1). Notably, this dual personality type or charismatic bully appears to be especially attracted to competitive sports because of the win-lose dynamic. Dr. Burgo explains,

It helps to view the bully as a kind of competitor on the social playing field, one who strives not only to win but to triumph over the social losers and destroy their sense of self. As in competitive sport, where winners and losers exist in a binary relation to one another, the bully is yoked in identity to his victims. To a significant degree, his self-image depends upon having those losers to persecute: “I am a winner because you are a loser.”

Dr. Burgo describes this competitive technique used by bullies and often by those who support them:

All bullies are narcissists, with an inflated sense of self-importance and a marked lack of empathy for their victims’ suffering, while many narcissists turn out to be powerful bullies. In defending his winner-status against detractors, for example, Lance Armstrong made extensive use of the legal system and his access to media in order to bully and intimidate anyone who challenged him. In particular, he tried to destroy their reputations. (2)

What’s so interesting is that this sport dynamic translates so readily into the work world and the cost is staggering. In a 2008 article on workplace bullying, Thomas Hoffman, quotes from Jean Ritala’s book, Narcissism in the Workplace where she compiles a list of behaviors exhibited by bullies at work.

There were at least fourteen students who came forward at my son’s school to say that they were being bullied by their teachers under the auspices of “coaching” and they wanted it to stop. Notably, the teacher-coaches involved exhibited most, if not all the behaviors used to describe bullies in the workplace. According to Jean Ritala, bullies or narcissists often display the following traits at work:

  • Arrogant and self-centered, they expect special treatment and privileges.
  • They can be charismatic, articulate and funny.
  • They are likely to disrespect boundaries and the privacy of others.
  • They can be patronizing and critical of others but unwilling or unable to accept criticism or disagreement.
  • Likely to be anxiety-stricken or paranoid, they may exhibit violent, rage-like reactions when they can’t control a situation or their behaviors have been exposed.
  • They are apt to set others up for failure or pit co-workers against one another.
  • They can be cruel and abusive to some co-workers, often targeting one person at a time until he quits.
  • They may need an ongoing “narcissist supply” of people who they can easily manipulate and who will do whatever they suggest – including targeting a co-worker – without question.
  • They are often charming and innocent in front of managers. (3)

This description fits so closely with what teenagers articulated about how their coaches conducted themselves at my son’s school. They found it hard to explain how charming the coaches could be which made no sense when put beside their out of control rages. They struggled to understand why they were penalized while other players were celebrated for identical conduct. They knew there was a history of kids quitting, but didn’t know how to understand it. They knew they were in pain, but lacked sophisticated reporting skills or insight to express it.

If adults in the workplace struggle to identify and shutdown bullying, imagine how remarkably difficult it is for teens. They have been taught all their school years that the teacher knows best and the teacher is a trusted figure to whom they can turn when bullying happens. Then suddenly they are in a situation where the teacher seems to be the bully, but that doesn’t make sense so they can’t even think of how to explain it.

Teachers and coaches have a sacred trust. They have enormous influence over young people. They need to get educated on just how serious the damage of emotional abuse is to the adolescent brain and psyche and they need to ensure it doesn’t happen ever on their watch. If they can’t control themselves, they need to seek help. Considering they too have probably been trained in a bullying dynamic, they need healing. Passing on the hurt is not the way to train young people to move from the court to the workforce.

References

  1. https://jenmfraser.wordpress.com/2015/08/06/recognizing-the-abusive-coach-as-jekyll-and-hyde/
  2. Joseph Burgo, “All Bullies are Narcissists: Stories of Bullying and Hazing in the News Break Down to Narcissism and Insecurity,” The Atlantic, November 2013: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/11/all-bullies-are-narcissists/281407/
  3. Thomas Hoffman, “Narcissists at work: How to deal with arrogant, controlling, manipulative      bullies,” Computer World, June 2008: http://www.computerworld.com/article/2535227/it-management/narcissists-at-work–how-to-deal-with-arrogant–controlling–manipulative-bullies.html

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Jennifer Fraser has a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Toronto and is a published writer. She is presently teaching creative writing and International Bacclaureate literature classes at an independent school in British Columbia.

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