Teacher warned for having 'sexy legs' banter with JC girl

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Teacher warned for having 'sexy legs' banter with JC girl

Nur Dianah Suhaimi

680 words

4 June 2006

Straits Times

English

(c) 2006 Singapore Press Holdings Limited

He was caught after his messages praising her beauty were forwarded to the whole school

HE SAID she had sexy legs and told her that she was pretty. Then he told her he was attracted to girls from her former school.

Flirty conversation between two adults? No, this exchange was between a 28-year-old male teacher from Tampines Junior College and a 17-year-old student.

He was caught after the messages were forwarded to the whole school. He was hauled up by the college principal, counselled and given a verbal warning.

It all started with a friendly exchange of messages on the JC's intranet messaging system between the teacher and the first-year arts student, formerly from Tanjong Katong Girls' School.

But soon, the messages became more than just friendly chat.

Aside from the 'sexy legs' exchange, he asked her if she had a curfew and if she often went out late at night.

When she told him she was only comfortable with people she knew well, he compared her to a new car which has to be warmed up first before it could function. He also asked her to go with him to buy school supplies.

The student told The Sunday Times that she thought the teacher was just being friendly when he started messaging her. She suspected something was not right only when he started commenting on her legs and her looks. She said she continued messaging him because she did not want to offend him.

'But when he asked me out, I stopped messaging him totally,' she said.

It might have ended there but the girl forgot to log off after using a school computer to check her messages on April 13.

Another student using the same computer later chanced upon her messages and read them out of curiosity.

Said the second-year science student: 'I realised that the teacher was doing something very wrong. I thought he should be exposed. That's why I decided to save the messages.'

He also forwarded them to his classmates and the messages, dated from March 31 to April 9, ended up being passed on to almost every student in the school, causing an uproar and a 'student-teacher scandal'.

College principal Goh Hwee Choo told The Sunday Times she has counselled the teacher three times and also gave him a verbal warning. But she added that she wanted to give the teacher, who has been with the school for a year, a second chance.

She said: 'As a new teacher, he might be a little naive about how to conduct himself professionally. His comments were not right but there was no physical relationship between him and the student.'

The Ministry of Education (MOE) said it was leaving it to the school to handle the matter but added that had there been any physical relationship between the two, it would have investigated and taken disciplinary action against the teacher.

The teacher told The Sunday Times that he regretted being too friendly towards the student.

'There was no ill intention on my part but I should not have been over-friendly towards any student,' he said. 'From now on, such over-friendliness will stop.'

The JC girl said the issue had not only affected her studies, it had also affected her social life. She described how schoolmates talked behind her back and some had even approached her friends to ask for details.

She told her parents when rumours about her began circulating throughout the school. Said her mother: 'I was shocked when I heard about it. As a teacher, he should be protecting the students.'

The student said she planned to avoid the teacher in future and regretted not reporting him to the school.

She said: 'I didn't want to blow up the matter and attract unnecessary attention. But now I know that if a teacher crosses the social boundaries, we should report it to the principal immediately.'