They Gave Me The Hardest Lesson I Ever Received
That morning, when I walked into the class, I could sense something was off. As usual, I started with an open brainstorming session on the topic. For the most part, this gets at least some of the students to open up, even some of the more reserved ones. Not this time. There was a wall of silence. So, I started engaging directly. “What do you think, X?” Even then, the answers came dripping slower than an icicle in early January. Eventually, I broke the ice a bit. Just as I was instructing the students about their research assignments, my boss came in. He wanted to speak to me. urgently.
I addressed whatever open questions the students had about the assignment. Then I told them that I would be away for the moment and left the classroom. My boss dropped the bomb immediately. There have been memes circulating in student chat rooms. In these memes, you pose with two individuals famous for child abuse. I will not mention the names here. My boss also let me know that he knew the names of three students responsible. They made the initial postings. Their suspension was already a done deal.
Then my boss made a statement. We will stand behind you if you press charges. And that’s when I realised. I wasn’t ready to deal with that decision yet. Making that decision was a lesson for me. Let me explain.
The Moral Dilemma
I believe that the student-teacher relationship is the foundation of the learning process. My belief has a strong scientific basis. But this also means that a broken relationship has a negative impact on the learning process.
With this premise in mind, there was a strong pedagogical argument not to press charges. What else, if not a legal dispute, can damage a relationship between two parties? The problem in this case is that the memes in question circulated in chat rooms. I can only assume that all students saw the images. And I had no control over whether anyone distributed them any further than that. Not even the students themselves could control that. So a criminal investigation could target more students than the posters.
This, for me, was a massive moral dilemma. My students had severely violated my rights. But pursuing this carried risks. It could ruin whatever remains of a positive relationship I had with this group of students. It could make it nearly impossible to do any meaningful pedagogical work for them. I should say that most of the students were legally adults. I love being a teacher. It broke my heart that I had to make this decision.
The Need for a Strong Boundary
If I am honest, the legal arguments far outweighed the pedagogical ones. The students were adults, and they could be expected to act as such. They knowingly posted these images and circulated them.They made the decision to use an AI to create those memes. There was no way to argue that they did not act consciously. The only real argument would be that they did not think through the consequences. To this day, I am sure they did not. I was proven right when my boss, 2 colleagues, and I confronted the class about the incident. I have never seen such a massive cloud of shame in one room before.But that still did not free them of responsibility for their actions.
So there was no way around it. I needed to set that boundary. They needed to learn that actions can have real consequences. Maybe I gave them the biggest life lesson they will ever get. But that did not make it emotionally easy for me. I have been at the receiving end of bullying campaigns before. It destroys you. I even wrote about it here. And I know that most of my students have suffered the same fate. So, this incident ripped open an old wound for me, which I thought was closed for a long time. It may sound selfish now. But if I managed to set this boundary, there was a good chance to close this wound once and for all. When I was little, I was powerless to stop the bullying and harassment. I never managed to set that boundary.
The Relationship Was Broken. That Was Undeniable.
Maybe this was the life lesson I was supposed to learn at the time. But that meant that some of my students could pay a heavy price for the fact that I had this old wound that needed to heal. However, for all my empathy and belief in the good of my students, I needed to acknowledge one thing. The pedagogical relationship with my students could break. Not because I protected my privacy and my professional reputation. It would just be the consequence of their actions. They have, consciously or not, broken the bond of trust. They made the decision to create and circulate those memes. Without consent. As a consequence, they had put the relationship with their teacher at risk.
The Pedagogical Upside
For all this negativity, there was an upside. I decided to create an extra workshop in media literacy around this very incident. Sometimes, life hands you pedagogical gifts and inspiration like that. I previously wrote about how relevance is a major driving force for learning. It is also one of the core essays in my eBook.
How much more relevant could a lesson get? The subject of the lesson was something the students took part in. They witnessed it happen in real time.There was a lot to dig into. There was the psychology of group dynamics. We could investigate how content is distributed online. How little control we have over its distribution, once it is out there. And then there are the legal and ethical implications of it all.
With a bit of luck, their efforts and some good pedagogical work from my side, there was a chance to repair this relationship. There weren’t any guarantees, though.
