... only he won't be there in the (a-hem) flesh and the discussion will be about his actions, subsequent resignation and the rather startling relevation that the teacher who was exposed as a porn star was also a VCE Media Studies teacher.
You may not have heard about this (given the very wide world from which visitors pop in to visit this blog), and the snapshot is basically this: A teacher from Oberon High School in Geelong made a porn video with his girlfriend and sold it to a porn site for something like $1,500. It was discovered (presumably by one or more Oberon students) and distributed around Facebook, and in the process it was also revealed his girlfriend and co-star in the video was also his ex-student.
In the bonfire and subsequent investigation, the teacher resigned.
But this goes beyond just local news for us here at GTEC in Geelong. Oberon High School is one of our 'feeder' schools; many students move over to us to complete Year 11 and/or 12 VCAL.
Hence a lot of students had already seen the video on Facebook, and many of them knew the teacher personally. He was described, without exception, as a great teacher and many went so far as to say he was the best teacher at the school.
Of course, being 16-18 year-old boys, very soon talk about the issue descended into (a-hem) innuendo and humorous rebuke. But the issue seemed to strike a chord somewhere in many of them. This wasn't just any teacher up to no good on the Internet. This was a teacher many of them knew and respected. The general talk was that there was no way he should be forced to resign.
Following the interview John Walsh and his girlfriend Sarah Bradford did (see above) on Friday night, I see this as an excellent opportunity to really try to explore the issue in a mature way and knock over some of our Senior VCAL Oral Communication outcomes (especially Oracy for Self Expression and Oracy for Exploring Issues and Problem Solving).
Given that most of our students are preparing to become tradesmen, I was VERY intrigued by John's comment that, had he been a plumber, there wouldn't have been any issue. The message there is almost one of: unless you belong to a white collar profession, acting however you like on the Internet isn't going to affect you or your business. Let's see what they make of that...
Below you can see the scaffolding worksheet I have put together to help my Year 12 students prepare for the discussion:
Download GTEC VCAL Senior Oral Communication - Oracy for Self Expression and EIPS
We'll (a-hem) video record the classroom discussion, so that I can go back through it later and apply the outcome assessment elements, as per the form here:
Download GTEC VCAL Oral Communication Assessment Form 1-4
From there, we might see how the whole topic could be extended into reading and writing outcomes as well.
I'm looking forward to this, because it's not often you get a truly local issue as big as this... one that is guaranteed to get your students interested and talking. Given we are also embarking on Mahara e-Portfolios with their embedded social media elements, I think the whole privacy and the Internet issue, digital footprints, etc. will be really engaging to explore.
;-)
