The case of Georgianne Harrell, 24 year-old third grade teacher in Georgia, pushes the boundaries of even this inherently sick site. She was arrested this past May when she cut her wrists with a piece of broken glass in front of her students in the classroom; at the time there was some talk in the news of "suspicion of molesting two students."
Today she pleaded not guilty to molestation and reckless conduct. More details on what was going on over the past school year were also released. The AP article says, "Authorities also say she performed oral sex on a 9-year-old boy in her classroom, let students peek down her blouse and talked to some of the children about sexual matters. Between August 2004 and May, authorities claim, she abused a total of seven students."
This story raises some uncomfortable questions about the extreme abuse of power and the destructive behaviors that seriously delusional people are capable of. Had Harrell been a 10th grade teacher, the story would probably get a lot of smirks and raised eyebrows, as did Mary Kay LeTourneau's. But these were 9 year-olds. If a teacher is having sex with her students, at what student age does it change from child molestation to less serious misguided maniupulation? The age of consent? I suppose it's technically molestation if the student in question is underage, but even if the student is 16 (or whatever) the issues are essentially the same. It's abuse in all cases, it's just more horrible with pre-pubescent kids.
There are some creepy similarities between Georgianne Harrell and Bad Love Superstar Mary Kay Letourneau, and their inabilities to classify themselves as adults and not as kids. On a student website (no longer up) that she maintained while she was a student at Valdosta State, preparing for a career in early childhood education, Harrell already sounded like maybe not the ideal person to be molding young minds. A crime blog called The Dark Side helpfully posted some choice excerpts: "I am also bringing to the teaching profession an innate ability to attract the attention of children. The most important ability I possess is patience. It is by far the most important skill along with a desire to understand children. By making students and their needs the main focus of my classroom, they will value learning. By placing myself in their position, I can encourage them to achieve remarkable feats. With the right experiences, children can love school. They can feel that I am no different from them, because after all, I am still a child at heart." The Dark Side describes her site as having an overly-busy design and childish font, and generally looking like "unicorn puke."
Harrell also wrote "I strongly believe children are angels right here on earth," and about her early student-teaching experiences, "I taught a group of kindergarteners and a group of first graders French for a semester. I did better than I thought I would have. I inspired those children to want to learn more. I was able to touch those children."
She sure was. Ew.
Her self-destructive act in front of the very children she was molesting reminds me of the Brooklyn gym teacher who shot himself in the head when his ongoing sexual relationship with a teenage girl in his school was uncovered. (See previous Bad Love post). Perhaps some kind of reality intruded into Harrell's disturbed mind, and she reacted with extreme guilt. Unfortunately, her wrist-slashing surely traumatized even those kids in her class that she wasn't having sex with.
