Klarinet Archive - Posting 000193.txt from 1999/12

From: LeliaLoban@-----.com
Subj: [kl] re: playing the Clarinet from behind the student
Date: Tue, 7 Dec 1999 16:31:12 -0500

In October, we had some discussion here about how or whether teachers should
touch students during lessons. On Sun, 31 Oct 1999, Kevin Fay wrote a long
and thoughtful post that included the following:
>Teachers rape and molest students. That's a problem. <snip> Prosecutors no
longer pooh-pooh allegations of child rape and molestation by teachers or
anyone else. <snip> The problem that the "innocent" teacher has is one of
evidence. Unfortunately, in the vast majority of these cases, the only
evidence is the word of the teacher/molester against the word of the
student/victim. It's much easier for a student with a grudge to bear false
witness, because the evidence is exactly the same in the case where
molestation occurred as when it did not. Since the evidence in the false case
is exactly the same as the evidence in the typical meritorious one, this puts
the prosecutor in a pickle. <snip> [T]eachers are right to be paranoid about
this, because of the possibility that what they do may be misinterpreted by
the student -- or outright used as a falsehood -- to destroy their career.
kjf >

Some people on the list expressed skepticism that music teachers often get
accused of sexually abusing students. At the time, I thought I remembered
several such cases in the Washington D. C. area fairly recently. In fact, I
believe a school band director in this region got accused of sexually abusing
students just this year. However, I decided not to post a message on the
topic then, because I couldn't remember or find enough details to provide
anything other than undocumented assertions.

Last week, a new case surfaced. On Thursday December 2, 1999, _The
Washington Post_ Metro Section (p. B2) reported, under the headline "Ex-Piano
Teacher Charged With Abuse," that police arrested and imprisoned a 49-year-
old man on August 31 in St. Louis, Missouri and soon will extradite him to
Prince George's County, Maryland. He faces charges of second-degree sexual
abuse, first-degree assault and second-degree assault. "Investigators said a
32-year-old woman came forward in July to report that [name] sexually abused
her on several occasions in the spring of 1980 when she took piano lessons
from him in the basement of this home...." The extremely brief article gives
no explanation of what allegedly happened, whether this is a "he said, she
said" case, whether the alleged victim made any such accusation in 1980,
whether it is a "recovered memory" case or whether police found any
corroborative evidence. Note that this man faces charges *19 years* after
the alleged abuse occurred. The entire article is available online at
<www.washingtonpost.com>.

Lelia

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