Just when you think the story revolving around dismissed Gilroy
High teacher Kristin Porter couldn’t get any stranger, along comes
some comment that will keep this story alive through the
summer.
Just when you think the story revolving around dismissed Gilroy High teacher Kristin Porter couldn’t get any stranger, along comes some comment that will keep this story alive through the summer. In Tuesday’s Dispatch, one Rebecca Childers writes the following: “I have never met this woman (former teacher Kristin Porter) and I don’t have any children who go to Gilroy High, but I would be very hesitant to allow my children to be in the same classroom as someone who also works as a stripper.”
Her letter was strategically placed alongside a letter by Jeff Byler, someone actually in possession of his faculties and able to read. I find it troubling that there are adults who might conclude that Ms. Porter was moonlighting as a stripper while teaching English.
I find it disturbing mainly because it is not true. How anyone can make the mental leap that being part of an improv comedy group is the same thing as sending stripping telegrams just boggles my mind. I just don’t see where anyone gets the nerve to take the time to write such nonsense.
Ms. Childers might have prefaced her letter with the disclaimer “I am not capable of reading with comprehension, so I am about to spout some garbage which makes no sense and has no factual value. I have never met this woman (former teacher Kristin Porter) and I don’t have children who go to Gilroy High, etc.”
I can take the new angle of this story a step further. Why does it matter what teachers do in their time out of the classroom? Are the extracurricular activities of my children’s teachers any of my business? Who decides what level of information the public needs to know about the teacher in the classroom?
I have friends I have known for more than 15 years. They are brilliant people, salt of the earth, and longtime weekend recreational drug users. No hard drugs, just weed, wine and cheese kind of people. I had no problem with this when they weren’t married, nor when they were newlyweds, but started feeling conflicted about this once they had kids.
They are good parents, I trust them with my kids, but it always bothered me a little that this phase of their life never seemed to end. Neither of these people are teachers, however, they are both college graduates, so they could be teachers. Would the fact that they shared a joint in their own hot tub on Saturday night have any impact on their teaching ability? Since drugs are still illegal, let’s switch to alcohol. What if they got rip-roaring drunk on Saturday night? Is there any impact on the classroom there? Suppose one of them is a registered Communist – does that person still get to teach math? Are the outside the classroom activities of teachers ever any of my business?
After careful consideration, I have decided the answer is no.
Unless a teacher has a criminal history (in which case they would not be in the classroom in the first place) it is none of my business what they do outside the classroom and/or off campus. I bet that there are teachers in Gilroy who have hobbies which I don’t share. I bet there are some teachers in Gilroy who are gay, some who are frigid, and some who are having affairs. Not my business, not my business, not my business. I don’t usually want to know about the off-campus life of teachers. When I do want to know, it’s because I have developed a personal relationship with a teacher. Then I care about how their daughter is adjusting to high school, or the play they just saw, or the choir they sing with, or the stand-up routine they are working on. I don’t want or need to know how the hundreds of teachers in GUSD spend their weekends, how they unwind after a long day’s work, or what they do for kicks once the papers have been graded.
It is highly presumptuous to believe that it’s anybody’s business what Kristin Porter does in her post-class time. Kristin Porter was not rehired because of reasons that have nothing to do with what kind of clothes she wore. She was too tough a teacher for Gilroy High; and she’s a tough woman in real life as well I suppose.
She now gets to open the paper every day and read a bunch of half truths and untruths and “no comments.” I can say this much about Ms. Porter – she is not now and never was a stripper. I can also say that if she were a stripper, it would be totally irrelevant to her firing.
Denise Baer Apuzzo has lived in Gilroy for seven years. She is married and the mother of three children who attend Gilroy Unified Schools. You can reach her by email at: lu*****@****ic.com. Her column is published each Thursday.
