Iyfjky

Question

Occasionally, I head out to volunteer to teach robotics programming at an all-girls school in my area. For context, I'm male and age 20, and the students are adolescent females in 7th and 8th grade (13-15 year olds).

When I head out to teach, most of the students there treat me professionally, with a teacher-student relationship. I usually act "fun" with the students, as if I were another kid with similar interests. However, a few attempt to flirt with me, asking me about my relationship status or complimenting me on my appearance. (The flirting is completely verbal and not physical in any way.)

I understand where they're coming from; they're adolescent teenagers who don't normally see younger males (though the school does have male teachers and staff, but they're much older). For my part, I don't have any "embellishments" or any specific features that would render me "attractive" in my society, but one student has commented that I look "younger" than my age.

When one of these students starts to flirt with me, how can I make it clear that this isn't the right time or place to make such comments or questions and that they should be treating me professionally? The director of the program has told us to lie about our relationship status (i.e. to say "I have a girlfriend") in response to such comments, but I'd prefer not to lie to accomplish my purpose.

Note: Not a duplicate of How to handle students in a classroom who might have feelings for you?. First of all, the person in question is not only much older, but also the consistent instructor of the class; I, on the other hand, am just a volunteer who goes there on an infrequent basis. Second, the "feelings" in question there are genuine romantic feelings, not just casual flirting. Third, the "students" in question there are grown adults at about my age; the answer may be different for adolescent children.

Additionally, the top answer there isn't really a way I wish to handle this situation. I can't "stop flirting with my students" because I am not. Also, I don't wish to say things like "that's not relevant to this discussion" because I'm a volunteer, not a teacher, and the attitude I wish to show to my students is that of a "fun" person who's also knowledgeable; saying direct things like "that's too personal" is too direct for my purpose. The other answer there completely contradicts this as well.

Asking about relationship stasus isn't necessarily flirting. They may just want to imagine being in a relationship/being in love. If you answered you did have a girlfriend, they may very well ask you about what sort of dates you have, etc. — 11 hours ago
@Ã£ÂÂ•Ã£Â‚ÂŠÃ£ÂÂ’Ã£ÂÂªÃ£ÂÂ„Ã¥Â‘ÂŠÃ§Â™Â½ And that's why I'd prefer not to lie. — 8 hours ago
If that is your reason for not wanting to lie, would you be opposed to saying you aren't interested in relationships? — 8 hours ago
@Ã£ÂÂ•Ã£Â‚ÂŠÃ£ÂÂ’Ã£ÂÂªÃ£ÂÂ„Ã¥Â‘ÂŠÃ§Â™Â½ This would cause the student to continue to ask me questions like "why are you not interested?". I want to make it clear that conversations should be professional and that they shouldn't be asking personal questions. — 8 hours ago
Probably they don't want to annoy you, that's the way they really are. The way you describe these situations doesn't seem like harassment so an honest advice to ease your life as a teacher is, don't (excessively) discuss subjects you don't like, keep control over it at all times but forget girls this age to "... treating me professionally". This just isn't realistic. — 26 mins ago

Spagirl 11.5k83040 · Answer 1 · 2018-10-12 10:59:50Z

The nub of this is that you want to have your cake and eat it. You want to act like

another kid with similar interests

yet not have them respond to you as though you were

another kid with similar interests

In your interactions with the students, you set the tone for how they respond to you. If in all other ways you want them to respond to you as though you were just another kid, you set a tone of complete approachability. Their response is an outcome of the tone you set.

Your solution therefore lies in setting a different tone. I'd suggest that the appropriate tone is that of a friendly adult with a specific enthusiasm.

Quite how you backtrack to that position is difficult for anyone else to advise as we don't know that particulars of how you currently present. What you can do is make sure you don't start with the 'another kid with similar interests' tone with new student groups.

For students you already interact with you need to find ways to set yourself apart, that might involve introducing greater formality into your sessions, whether that is but how you dress, how you speak to the students, how close you allow them to be to you physically... you are best placed to judge that.

It is also likely to involve a period of awkwardness as the student body notice that you are presenting yourself differently, but in your own interest you should do this.

While your students are not grown adults, they likely aren't idiots and the ones who push the nature of your interaction already know that they are being transgressive. They are pushing you and you need to push back, and you need to push back when it happens. I know you wish to avoid directness, but it is appropriate to meet directness with directness. if a students asks you such a direct question as 'have you got a girlfriend'or says 'Ooh gparyani you look cute today!' it is absolutely appropriate to reply with something like:

What's that got to do with robotics programming?

If you say such a thing loud enough for other students to hear, but say it with a smile then it is a gentle but public rebuke which is probably just embarrassing enough for them not to ask again, and discourage others from doing so.

This kind of thoughts were the first I had too... The way gparyani acts in class is the way to get asked this kind of questions. Yes I also advice to keep those questions an exception to the daily work. But I think completely cutting of those harmless questions could destroy the whole impression gparyani has built and probably wants to keep. So I don't see a problem in responding briefly like yes I have or no I haven't or I know I look great but thanks anyway, it's always nice to hear and then interrupt further discussions if they should arise. — 42 mins ago

Noon 3,10431132 · Answer 2 · 2018-10-12 05:26:13Z

Warning: I never was in a similar situation before. But I had to deal with comment or question that were making me uncomfortable. So, here is what I suggest doing:

Wait for the thing that makes you uncomfortable to happen, this way everyone would know what you are talking about and they won't have to wonder "what exactly is making him uncomfortable?".

Then state something like that:

Would you mind stopping this kind of comment? It's making me uncomfortable.

Stating that it makes you uncomfortable is important. I, personally, am more likely to follow someone instruction if I know why I have to follow them (if I don't, I tend to just do as I please because your rule makes no sense to me).

Warning: Be prepare for your student to push back and ask "why is this making you uncomfortable?" and "you shouldn't be uncomfortable!".

In this case, simply remember that this is your feeling and nobody can argue with feelings. They are here and, even if they are irrational (I don't say they are), you can't control them. (You might want to tell that to your student if they tell you "don't be uncomfortable!").

After you have made your request clear, quickly change subject!

Otherwise, you might end up in a discussion about your feelings which you don't necessary wants. So, before this (unwanted) conversation start, just say something like:

Let's talk about X instead.

Note: They might still want to talk about why all this is making you uncomfortable but, in my experience, people are more likely to drop a subject if you give them another one to talk about instead.

As I said in the last paragraph, addressing it directly isn't a preferred way of handling this situation. — 8 hours ago
@gparyani Sorry, I was under the impression that you just didn't wanted to sound cold (but you might find my answer cold?). So, would you mind making it clearer why you don't want to use a direct approach? — 5 hours ago

Upper_Case 9,59551631 · Answer 3 · 2018-10-12 15:27:30Z

Given the constraints you've laid out in your question, you can't.

You want to be seen (roughly) as a peer to these students, but also want them to treat you as a professional that is off-limits for any non-professional activities. You want to clearly lay out a broad class of behaviors you would like the students to cease, but don't want to be direct in expressing those. You don't want to deflect the issue by lying, either. That doesn't leave many options.

I don't think that there is any way to accomplish all of your goals at once, and so you'll have to pick which one (or ones) to bend on.

The flirting you describe explicitly is extremely mild, and while I'm not second-guessing your assessment of your situation I will say that those sorts of questions can definitely be ordinary, non-flirtatious conversation. Those are the sorts of things that young teenagers tend to focus on, a lot, and so all else being equal you're simply more likely to have conversations about that than about national trade policy.

Background informing my answer:

I see three large issues at play here: the age and stage-of-life of the students, the nature of flirting, and the way you want to present yourself to this group.

1. Age and stage-of-life of the students

My recollection of young teenagers, particularly girls (and this is very much in the rearview mirror for me at this point, so it may not apply as well as it once did) is that that is the age when they start to practice flirting. They may flirt with anyone, including someone in whom they don't have much genuine interest, because they are experimenting with a new mode of interaction which offers new possibilities. It also feels like part of not being a child any more.

I say all of this to point out that, while you are probably not irrelevant in this situation, it may not be as centered on you as you imagine. If they are looking to flirt more so than to flirt with you specifically, then they are less likely to care what you think about it. The more the behavior is a part of the girls' internal motivations, the more the issue resembles a student with some other arbitrary, undesirable behavior, like being disruptive during class or gossiping. If that's how they want to express themselves, and you just happen to be a target when you're there, you'll have a hard time modifying that. Especially indirectly. This also can make the strategy of trying to appear less appealing to flirt with complicated-- it may just not matter.

2. Flirting

Flirting is about pushing limits and suggesting a bit more than is explicitly stated. If you were to be direct about not wanting to be flirted with, for example, I would bet that you would still see some flirtatious behavior from at least some of the students. Maybe less often, maybe more subtle. But establishing limits of expected behavior also sets the terms for what counts as flirtatious, and establishes the boundaries for a flirt to push.

Using your explicit examples, the behavior you describe as flirting is both extremely mild and easily masquerades as an innocent question. The latter is what makes it flirtatious (rather than forward) and also makes it hard to call out directly (it's easy to imagine a response to a call-out being "I wasn't flirting with you, I was just making conversation!"). Trying to discourage it indirectly can easily just be seen as you coyly flirting back, in which case a determined flirt might just redouble her efforts.

3. Your chosen affect

Your explicit goal in how you approach these students is to seem like a peer. Peers are the acceptable group for these students to flirt with. School is where they do the most interacting with their peers, so for them it is the appropriate place to do things like flirt.

It's a little bit like asking "when I walk down a dangerous alley, how can I appear rich without increasing my risk of getting mugged?". If you really want the one, you're at risk of dealing with the other. I'm not saying that that's right or fair, but the more you present yourself as a peer, the more they'll see you as a peer, and the more they'll treat you like a peer.

Astralbee 20.5k34985 · Answer 4 · 2018-10-12 15:26:45Z

By way of disclaimer, I should say first of all that if the school has a code of conduct or similar that tells you how to deal with this situation, you should absolutely follow that ahead of any advice you receive here. Secondly, I would advise you to make sure that your superiors are aware of both the problem you are facing and of any strategy you propose to try. That way if it backfires or is misinterpreted you have some backup.

While your youth can certainly be used to an advantage in teaching, it just isn't possible to be an authority figure and someone's friend, although you can certainly be friendly and approachable. In England nearly all the cases I have read about where teachers have been accused of impropriety of some kind it has been described as an "abuse of authority", so remember that you should behave like a teacher, and a teacher is an authority figure.

The best and safest approach is to state with all seriousness that their behaviour is inappropriate, and that it should stop. If you try to soften the impact of that statement in any way, perhaps by saying "it would be inappropriate if....." then this could be misinterpreted by a teenager as really meaning "oh, if only I wasn't your teacher, then I would".

Just a short anecdote from personal experience which may be relevant - when I was at school 27 years ago there was a young female teacher, all the boys fancied her, and on a couple of occasions, she allowed some inappropriate things to be said and left them unchallenged. She even laughed about them. Oddly, I visited the school last week because my daughter is now high school age, and I learned two things - firstly that this same teacher has been the deputy head for the past 27 years and just retired; and secondly that the school has suffered from a bad reputation for about the same length of time. A new headteacher has just come in, got rid of a lot of old teachers (some by early retirement) and is trying to turn the school's reputation around. Now, I'm not saying that old teacher of mine is solely to blame for the school's troubles, but it is interesting that a teacher who failed to be an authority figure in the classroom has been in the second highest position in the school during its decline.

Spagirl 11.5k83040 · Answer 5 · 2018-10-12 10:59:50Z

The nub of this is that you want to have your cake and eat it. You want to act like

another kid with similar interests

yet not have them respond to you as though you were

another kid with similar interests

In your interactions with the students, you set the tone for how they respond to you. If in all other ways you want them to respond to you as though you were just another kid, you set a tone of complete approachability. Their response is an outcome of the tone you set.

Your solution therefore lies in setting a different tone. I'd suggest that the appropriate tone is that of a friendly adult with a specific enthusiasm.

Quite how you backtrack to that position is difficult for anyone else to advise as we don't know that particulars of how you currently present. What you can do is make sure you don't start with the 'another kid with similar interests' tone with new student groups.

For students you already interact with you need to find ways to set yourself apart, that might involve introducing greater formality into your sessions, whether that is but how you dress, how you speak to the students, how close you allow them to be to you physically... you are best placed to judge that.

It is also likely to involve a period of awkwardness as the student body notice that you are presenting yourself differently, but in your own interest you should do this.

While your students are not grown adults, they likely aren't idiots and the ones who push the nature of your interaction already know that they are being transgressive. They are pushing you and you need to push back, and you need to push back when it happens. I know you wish to avoid directness, but it is appropriate to meet directness with directness. if a students asks you such a direct question as 'have you got a girlfriend'or says 'Ooh gparyani you look cute today!' it is absolutely appropriate to reply with something like:

What's that got to do with robotics programming?

If you say such a thing loud enough for other students to hear, but say it with a smile then it is a gentle but public rebuke which is probably just embarrassing enough for them not to ask again, and discourage others from doing so.

This kind of thoughts were the first I had too... The way gparyani acts in class is the way to get asked this kind of questions. Yes I also advice to keep those questions an exception to the daily work. But I think completely cutting of those harmless questions could destroy the whole impression gparyani has built and probably wants to keep. So I don't see a problem in responding briefly like yes I have or no I haven't or I know I look great but thanks anyway, it's always nice to hear and then interrupt further discussions if they should arise. — 42 mins ago

Noon 3,10431132 · Answer 6 · 2018-10-12 05:26:13Z

Warning: I never was in a similar situation before. But I had to deal with comment or question that were making me uncomfortable. So, here is what I suggest doing:

Wait for the thing that makes you uncomfortable to happen, this way everyone would know what you are talking about and they won't have to wonder "what exactly is making him uncomfortable?".

Then state something like that:

Would you mind stopping this kind of comment? It's making me uncomfortable.

Stating that it makes you uncomfortable is important. I, personally, am more likely to follow someone instruction if I know why I have to follow them (if I don't, I tend to just do as I please because your rule makes no sense to me).

Warning: Be prepare for your student to push back and ask "why is this making you uncomfortable?" and "you shouldn't be uncomfortable!".

In this case, simply remember that this is your feeling and nobody can argue with feelings. They are here and, even if they are irrational (I don't say they are), you can't control them. (You might want to tell that to your student if they tell you "don't be uncomfortable!").

After you have made your request clear, quickly change subject!

Otherwise, you might end up in a discussion about your feelings which you don't necessary wants. So, before this (unwanted) conversation start, just say something like:

Let's talk about X instead.

Note: They might still want to talk about why all this is making you uncomfortable but, in my experience, people are more likely to drop a subject if you give them another one to talk about instead.

As I said in the last paragraph, addressing it directly isn't a preferred way of handling this situation. — 8 hours ago
@gparyani Sorry, I was under the impression that you just didn't wanted to sound cold (but you might find my answer cold?). So, would you mind making it clearer why you don't want to use a direct approach? — 5 hours ago

Upper_Case 9,59551631 · Answer 7 · 2018-10-12 15:27:30Z

Given the constraints you've laid out in your question, you can't.

You want to be seen (roughly) as a peer to these students, but also want them to treat you as a professional that is off-limits for any non-professional activities. You want to clearly lay out a broad class of behaviors you would like the students to cease, but don't want to be direct in expressing those. You don't want to deflect the issue by lying, either. That doesn't leave many options.

I don't think that there is any way to accomplish all of your goals at once, and so you'll have to pick which one (or ones) to bend on.

The flirting you describe explicitly is extremely mild, and while I'm not second-guessing your assessment of your situation I will say that those sorts of questions can definitely be ordinary, non-flirtatious conversation. Those are the sorts of things that young teenagers tend to focus on, a lot, and so all else being equal you're simply more likely to have conversations about that than about national trade policy.

Background informing my answer:

I see three large issues at play here: the age and stage-of-life of the students, the nature of flirting, and the way you want to present yourself to this group.

1. Age and stage-of-life of the students

My recollection of young teenagers, particularly girls (and this is very much in the rearview mirror for me at this point, so it may not apply as well as it once did) is that that is the age when they start to practice flirting. They may flirt with anyone, including someone in whom they don't have much genuine interest, because they are experimenting with a new mode of interaction which offers new possibilities. It also feels like part of not being a child any more.

I say all of this to point out that, while you are probably not irrelevant in this situation, it may not be as centered on you as you imagine. If they are looking to flirt more so than to flirt with you specifically, then they are less likely to care what you think about it. The more the behavior is a part of the girls' internal motivations, the more the issue resembles a student with some other arbitrary, undesirable behavior, like being disruptive during class or gossiping. If that's how they want to express themselves, and you just happen to be a target when you're there, you'll have a hard time modifying that. Especially indirectly. This also can make the strategy of trying to appear less appealing to flirt with complicated-- it may just not matter.

2. Flirting

Flirting is about pushing limits and suggesting a bit more than is explicitly stated. If you were to be direct about not wanting to be flirted with, for example, I would bet that you would still see some flirtatious behavior from at least some of the students. Maybe less often, maybe more subtle. But establishing limits of expected behavior also sets the terms for what counts as flirtatious, and establishes the boundaries for a flirt to push.

Using your explicit examples, the behavior you describe as flirting is both extremely mild and easily masquerades as an innocent question. The latter is what makes it flirtatious (rather than forward) and also makes it hard to call out directly (it's easy to imagine a response to a call-out being "I wasn't flirting with you, I was just making conversation!"). Trying to discourage it indirectly can easily just be seen as you coyly flirting back, in which case a determined flirt might just redouble her efforts.

3. Your chosen affect

Your explicit goal in how you approach these students is to seem like a peer. Peers are the acceptable group for these students to flirt with. School is where they do the most interacting with their peers, so for them it is the appropriate place to do things like flirt.

It's a little bit like asking "when I walk down a dangerous alley, how can I appear rich without increasing my risk of getting mugged?". If you really want the one, you're at risk of dealing with the other. I'm not saying that that's right or fair, but the more you present yourself as a peer, the more they'll see you as a peer, and the more they'll treat you like a peer.

Astralbee 20.5k34985 · Answer 8 · 2018-10-12 15:26:45Z

By way of disclaimer, I should say first of all that if the school has a code of conduct or similar that tells you how to deal with this situation, you should absolutely follow that ahead of any advice you receive here. Secondly, I would advise you to make sure that your superiors are aware of both the problem you are facing and of any strategy you propose to try. That way if it backfires or is misinterpreted you have some backup.

While your youth can certainly be used to an advantage in teaching, it just isn't possible to be an authority figure and someone's friend, although you can certainly be friendly and approachable. In England nearly all the cases I have read about where teachers have been accused of impropriety of some kind it has been described as an "abuse of authority", so remember that you should behave like a teacher, and a teacher is an authority figure.

The best and safest approach is to state with all seriousness that their behaviour is inappropriate, and that it should stop. If you try to soften the impact of that statement in any way, perhaps by saying "it would be inappropriate if....." then this could be misinterpreted by a teenager as really meaning "oh, if only I wasn't your teacher, then I would".

Just a short anecdote from personal experience which may be relevant - when I was at school 27 years ago there was a young female teacher, all the boys fancied her, and on a couple of occasions, she allowed some inappropriate things to be said and left them unchallenged. She even laughed about them. Oddly, I visited the school last week because my daughter is now high school age, and I learned two things - firstly that this same teacher has been the deputy head for the past 27 years and just retired; and secondly that the school has suffered from a bad reputation for about the same length of time. A new headteacher has just come in, got rid of a lot of old teachers (some by early retirement) and is trying to turn the school's reputation around. Now, I'm not saying that old teacher of mine is solely to blame for the school's troubles, but it is interesting that a teacher who failed to be an authority figure in the classroom has been in the second highest position in the school during its decline.

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