This article is excerpted from the Rocky Mountain Pagan Journal.  Each
issue of the Rocky Mountain Pagan Journal is published by High Plains
Arts and Sciences; P.O. Box 620604, Littleton Co., 80123, a Colorado
Non-Profit Corporation, under a Public Domain Copyright, which
entitles any person or group of persons to reproduce, in any form
whatsoever, any material contained therein without restriction, so
long as articles are not condensed or abbreviated in any fashion, and
credit is given the original author.!

IN GRANDMOTHER'S LAP
by The Spinster Aunt

	After last month's excellent article [from Earthrite BBS --
Ed.] on the duties, responsibilities and qualifications of a High
Priest/High Priestess, let's talk about those of a teacher.

	In the wonderful ideal world, where all women are wise and
beautiful, all men strong and sensitive, and all children are
uniformly adorable, teachers would all be stable, secure, ethical,
reasonable, and open to their students.  In those circumstances, they
would be fully aware of the powers and drawbacks of their position.

	The primary power/drawback is "expert power."  Sociologists
describe this as the power derived from the powerful one's perceived
expertise, knowledge, and understanding, which are superior to and not
shared by the one attributing the power.  At its worst, this can lead
to "white coat syndrome", where experimenters in white coats were able
to persuade naive subjects to push a button which supposedly gave a
stronger and stronger electric shock to another experimental subject;
even after the other subject's voice was heard groaning and pleading
for mercy.  Not just a horror story--it really happened.

	At best, the teacher's expert power leads to a desire on the
student's part to develop into another such powerful person, who knows
what to do and how to do it, and that desire makes students study hard
and really work on their development.  But even then, this will induce
feelings of admiration and awe in the student which can make him/her
easy prey for an unscrupulous instructor -- think of Aleister Crowley.

	This leads to two guidelines.  For the teacher, don't borrow
money from your students unless you're prepared to really sweat to pay
it all back.  Don't attempt to get sexy with them unless it's a
serious, love-affair, honorable situation -- they're really vulnerable
to you, and the karma of sexual abuse is heavy stuff.  There are bound
to be some "taking advantage" situations that aren't, really...many
students will want to bake you cakes, help paint your roof, or clean
out your garage, and it can improve their self-esteem and give them a
lot of good feelings to let them.  But by and large, if you wouldn't
want to see your little brother or sister doing it for Bhagwan Shree
Rajneesh, don't let your student do it for you.

	For the student, you need to be aware that a lot of your
feelings of "Gee you're wonderful to know all that" are for the
knowledge, not the person.  Admiration sex can be a big thrill, but
not if you later find out it's a thrill shared by all your fellow
students.  If you wouldn't do a particular favor for a friend/
neighbor/sibling, why would you consider doing it for your teacher?
The worst that will happen if you say "No, I don't think I want to do
that", is that the teacher will fire you -- and if this person is
unwilling to work with you unless you "come across" in some way their
ethics may not be what you want to emulate for your, anlf.

	It's also necessary to look at the fact that all this can work
in reverse.  Teachers need their students in order to keep on being
teachers.  Students also can borrow money/insist on sex/demand favors,
and their very vulnerability makes them powerful.  The teacher can
fall into going along with whatever the students want without noticing
it, and thus do a disservice to both him/herself and the student.

	Most of these issues never arise between students and teachers
in the real world, but the potential is there, and both parties need
to be aware and to take responsibility for their own choices.  They
also need not to judge hastily, and that means saying "Hey, I may have
mis-heard you, but I feel like you're trying to ........ and I'm not
comfortable with that."  Bet you that four times out of five the
response will be "No, I wasn't" or "I was, but it's not a big deal,
let's drop it.", and you can go on from there.  Honesty about feelings
is highly recommended, and fosters trust and good feelings in both
teachers and students.

	Feedback is rewarding, people.  Did this article annoy
you/enchant you/bore you?  Do you have questions, concerns,
suggestions, topics you'd like addressed?  Please send your comments,
etc to Grandmother's Lap c/o R.M.P.J.  -- it gets lonely communicating
with the void.

Blessed Be,
The Spinster Aunt
.......from RMPJ, Oct. '86