Teachers believe that touch can be a helpful tool to use in class
Should schools make rules against teachers touching their students?
It is important for students to understand the difference between “safe” touch and “non- safe” touch
It has been found that there is sometimes a unique relationship between female athletes and their male coaches
- One teacher says, “When I was working as a middle-school teacher, I used touch on a daily basis to both connect with and correct the behavior of my students.” (Lahey)
- Some teachers use light, safe touch as a useful teaching tool; “If a student was having trouble focusing, a light touch on the shoulder served as a gentle reminder to get back to work.” (Lahey)
- It has been shown that touch can be a useful tool in the classroom; “One study found that students are three times as likely to speak up in class after their teacher pats them in a friendly way.” (Menges)
Should schools make rules against teachers touching their students?
- David J. Linden, a neuroscience professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the author of Touch: The Science of Hand, Heart, and Mind explains that, “The sensory experience of touch can’t be divorced from the emotional experience, he explained, because the way humans perceive touch depends on its social context.” Because of this, “It is hard to make rules governing touch since the sensation is perceived differently because the emotional touch center in the brain are receiving signals about social nuances, even if the touch is identical.” (Qtd. in Lahey)
- Doug Lemov recalls that “the lowest caste in India is to be called untouchable, but to walk around the classroom and let your fingers briefly brush the student’s shoulders is a mark of normalcy.” (Qtd. in Lahey)
- Lemov says, "It’s sometimes portrayed as disrespectful to touch students. The kids will say, "You can’t touch me," and the adults will agree, but I feel like it’s disrespectful not to be willing to touch students. It says you are afraid of them or think there’s something wrong with them.” (Qtd. in Lahey)
- Doug Lemov states that “Society’s well-intentioned attempts to shelter children from the possibility of inappropriate touching have deprived teachers of an important teaching tool and children of an essential sensory, educational, and developmental experience.” (Qtd. in Lahey)
It is important for students to understand the difference between “safe” touch and “non- safe” touch
- David J. Linden, a neuroscience professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the author of Touch: The Science of Hand, Heart, and Mind is grateful “because his children have been raised to understand that touch is not just for sex, it’s an affiliative thing you do to bond with other human beings.” (Qtd.iIn Lahey)
- David J. Linden thinks, “It’s important for kids to realize that there is a role for social touching that isn’t abuse, that’s simply a normal and healthy means of bonding with other human beings." (Qtd. in Lahey)
- Cheryl Rainfield, author of several young-adult novels based on her own childhood abuse, thinks that, “If a child doesn't have any safe touch in their lives, it's easy to get disconnected from people and life, and to not want to live at all, and a compassionate teacher may be the only safety and caring a child has in their life.” (Qtd. in Lahey)
- As Cheryl Rainfield recalls her abuse she recollects that she “had kind, compassionate teachers who knew I'd been abused, and all of them gave me safe touch. It's part of what kept me from killing myself. I desperately craved safe touch. I was starved for it on a deep soul level.” (Qtd. in Lahey)
It has been found that there is sometimes a unique relationship between female athletes and their male coaches
- “Usually, the relationship remains within the boundary of teacher and pupil, but sports psychologists are beginning to understand that there is a unique relationship between the male coach and the young female athlete, and that the delicate balance can sometimes tilt the wrong way.” (Bondy)
- "The good coaches, the ones with ethics, use the relationship to bring out the best in the athlete," said Mary-Lynn Gelderman, who works with Peter Burrows in Monsey, N.Y.” (Bondy)
- “Female athletes and their parents are complaining about the increasing rate of sexual abuse and harassment that athletes have been receiving from male coaches.” (Bondy)
- John Leonard, who is the Executive Director of the American Swimming Coaches Association even goes to say that, "Any coach who has been coaching for 10 years and says he never fell in love with an athlete or vice versa is lying." (Bondy)
- Jim Loehr, a sports psychologist in Wesley Chapel states that, "There is a high probability of natural romantic feelings by female players toward male coaches." (Bondy)
- Robert Lansdorp, the Torrance, Calif., coach of the tennis star Tracy Austin says that, "There shouldn't be sexual tension at all when a male coach is teaching a young girl." (Bondy)