18-year-old Eric Arty reportedly had money on his mind when he attempted — and succeed — to seduce his global-studies teacher Julie Warning…. “It was a bet with a group of his friends,” Manhattan Theater Lab HS junior Andrew Cabrera told the New York Post. Arty and four other students were apparently involved in the bet, each pitching in $100.
Once upon a time, I was a teacher. I taught high school for two years right out of college. Yeah, I know; it was close to 30 years ago, and things have changed a fair bit since. I had NO idea just how much things really had changed until I ran across the story of 26-year-old Julie Warning, a teacher at Manhattan Theater Lab HS near Lincoln Center in New York City. There are a lot of things that can happen when you’re a young teacher not far removed in age from the kids you teach…and some of them aren’t good. When I was teaching at a boarding school in Cyprus, I was 24. It wasn’t uncommon for 16, 17, & 18-year-old girls to deliberately be topless when I did a room check before lights-out. Thankfully, I had the maturity and the wherewithal to not react, which could easily have put myself, my family, and my career in jeopardy.
Ms. Warning evidently wasn’t so smart. Of course, it didn’t make things easier for her that five boys in her school decided to see who could seduce her first. Each of the boys pitched in $100…and the lucky “winner” was Eric Arty. Certainly, what the students did was reprehensible, but I have a difficult time ginning up much sympathy for Warning. If she’s in fact guilty of what she’s accused of, she certainly didn’t go to great lengths to keep it under wraps. Arty was photographed by one of his fellow students while engaged in a passionate embrace on a park bench with a woman who looks a lot like Warning. Judging by her Facebook page, discretion isn’t exactly one of Warning’s distinguishing features.
Warning, if she’s in fact guilty of in appropriate conduct with a student, should be disciplined severely…but I can’t help but wonder if the students, particularly Eric Arty, will be held accountable for their actions. After all, their little game contributed to what is the likely the end of a once-promising teaching career. Yes, Warning, being the adult, should have been able to step back and recognize that what she was doing was inappropriate…but the students involved also bear responsibility for their immature and reprehensible behavior. You shouldn’t be able to ruin a teacher’s career without consequence.
And you wonder who I refuse to consider going back into teaching? Talk to me when Americans have recognized the importance of edumication and begin to treat teachers with the respect, admiration, and support they deserve. Perhaps when we stop treating teachers with disdain and disrespect and make education a priority.
