At heart, all the best teachers are actors. Their stage is a bit circumscribed, the audience often sullen and hard work, but the ÔhighsÕ when they do respond are one of the best rewards for the practitioners of this performance art.
But while we expect actors to behave outrageously off-stage, we seem to want teachers to be icons of respectability out of school as well as in class.
So when Lisa Ellis, aka Penny, drops her towel as she emerges from the shower on the set of Big Brother 2, it becomes an issue of whether sheÕs fit to return to her job teaching English at a girlsÕ school in east London. Cauthar Tooley, headteacher of Sarah Bonnell School where Ms Ellis works, was reported as saying: "If she chooses to behave in a lewd manner she will have made the choice to leave the school."
Ms Tooley clearly believes Ms Ellis had a duty to use her appearance on the television marathon to set a standard of morality for the pupils. When 'Penny' is ejected from the Big Brother house Ð or emerges victorious Ð she will have to face the headmistress armed with a decision by the school governors and the local authorityÕs legal team.
The ÔlowsÕ of the teaching profession evidently include ridiculous hours, inadequate pay and the disapproval of po-faced colleagues who seem to think teachers must behave like prim little household gods, off-duty and on. The whole premise of the Channel 4 series Teachers was that the characters actually got drunk and slept around Ð how scandalous can you get!
Headteachers have wide and vague powers over staff who "bring the school into disrepute", but in this case the head has misjudged the concerns of families. As long as their children are not involved, most parents couldnÕt care less about their teachersÕ private lives. Even when that private life is being broadcast to the nation.
"She is young and she is only enjoying herself. It doesn't stop her from being a good teacher and that is enough for me," said sensible sounding parent Teresa Rhodes today. Her 13-year-old daughter Danielle added: "She makes English fun. All the girls like her. It would be a shame if she had to leave the school."
A second parent confided that since being taught by Ms Ellis she had discovered her daughter reading poetry. Now that really is subversive. Once impressionable children start on poetry goodness knows where it will end.
Talk about it
Should Penny be sacked from her teaching job?
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