Spinoff from the Eric Pepke thread - pedophiles

[The_Metatron]

Of course, none of that considers the other staff at schools who have daily access to the students: administrative, custodial, services, etc. I didn't bother to work those people into those figures.

[The_Metatron]

The lesson to be learned about that, Thomas, is that it doesn't take much of a proportion of a population to expose a person to that proportion over time. We are exposed to more people than you would like to accept, I think.

[Thomas Eshuis]

Yes, people who produce/spread child pornogprahy exist.
The chance that one of them is your child's teacher is actually very slim.
You might just as well have posted an article about a teacher turning out to be a terrorist.


Now that I know this, no.
But neither do I see it as a sound argument against public education.

You're generally pretty good at writing about things you know.

Thank you.

I can assure you, public education in America is not one of those things.

It was not my intention to imply or claim I was an expert on the subject.

However, unless America has a significantly higher rate of child sex offenders among the general population, I fail to see how this one anecdote about a single teacher being involved in this, is a sound argument against the US public school system.
I am perfectly willing to change my mind if you can explain/demonstrate why I should.

You do like to make shit up, don't you?

I have explained this to you mutliple times in this thread already Jesse.
If I misrepresent something you've said, it's either because I've misread/understood something or you have not expressed yourself clearly enough.
There is no malicious intent whatsoever.
Please stop assuming I am trying to set you up.

When you find the place where I wrote this, we can discuss it.

You posted this:

Along the lines of this topic, the subject of this article would be Primus' teacher, if we put our boys in public school:

Cheyenne teacher arrested, faces child porn charges

CHEYENNE, Wyo. -- A Cheyenne elementary school teacher has been accused of trying to distribute child pornography.

The sixth-grade teacher at Henderson Elementary was arrested last week after a monthslong investigation into a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that suggested he tried to send child pornography via email. The Casper Star Tribune reports the suspect is Matt Brandon Bell. He is scheduled for a preliminary hearing Friday.

...

I'm sure it's fine, though. Just a sixth grade teacher, in close unsupervised contact with just the right aged kids.

Is there only a single elementary school in Cheyenne? No.
Would you definitely have chosen this particular school?
Would this be the only possible teacher at that school that would've taught your child?
The cursive bit also makes little sense. Do you think the school was aware that this man did thoses things and then knowingle put him in the position of unsupervised teacher?

What I illustrated is that I dodged this risk successfully.

No, you used an anecdotal event to make an assertion about statistical risk.
As far as I can see you have not demonstrated that there was a high chance that person was a child sex offender.

But, maybe it's not really fair to brag about that. As you'll soon learn below, I had probably at least a one in four chance of being successful at dodging this risk to my boys...

Let's have a look at how slim that chance is that any particular child is going to have a teacher who is a pedophile. As I found earlier in this topic, some 1.7% of adult men are pedophiles. A little more than three out of two hundred, or one in every 66.

How many teachers will a child encounter before they leave school? 50? 100? In my primary and high school life, I estimate I had something around 50 different teachers.

How did that happen? And how typical is this for the average American pupil?

Work the numbers.

As I said before I do not claim to be an expert about US education, but here in the Netherlands that would amount to a number of:
8 years of elementary school, 1 teacher per year = 8 teachers.
13 subjects in the first half of secondary education = 13 teachers.
12 subjects in the second half of secondary education = 12 teachers.
Total = 33 teachers.

This is assuming the highest and therefore longest period of pimary and secondary education.

It is also assuming:
No teachers being replaced.
Having one teacher per year in elementary school, rather than have the same teacher for multiple years.
Not having a new teacher for the same subject each following year for the same subject in high school.
Having a seperate teacher for each subject in the first half of secondary and one for each subject in the second half of secondary education. Rather than having one teacher for multiple subjects and/or for the same subject(s) in both the first and second half of secondary eduation.

So that's 33 teachers which could be less and is a number far lower than 50 which would require an additional 22 teachers for
some reason to achieve.
And thats without even considering what percentage of that number of teachers are actually male. Which given US statistics would be 8 x 0.2 = 1.6 on average for elementary school and 25 x 0.4 = 10. So on average a max of 12 male teachers.

But maybe there's differences in the US education system that could get you to 50 teachers with 30 of them being men or you had an a-typical experience, I don't know.

Note the following questions are not about the validity of your claims, just curiousity about the specific/causes.

In grade school, I had roughly two teachers per grade.

Why? Did they teach together or were there a lot of replacements, temps whatever?

Most of my elementary teachers were women.

That would seem to be the current trend in the US as well, given the statistics from my earlier source.

In years 7-12, each class had a different teacher, and I remember none of them that taught more than one grade.

Is that typical or was there another reason.

More of that group of teachers were men.

Thats seems to be atypical for current US education statistics.

Maths and sciences, mostly. My music teachers were men. So figure, six courses, 5 years, different teachers for each course. In a typical middle school or high school day, I was taught by six different teachers.

I really wonder why that is and whether your experience really is typical for the US as a whole.

Is this common now? Maybe not. Conversations with other parents indicate it is.

With all due respect, I wonder whether you've spoken with a siginficant enough number and diverse enough group of parents to make that determination.
Especially since the stats I linked to earlier demonstrate otherwise.

Probably 30 of those where men. That means there was nearly a 50 percent certainty that one of those 30 men was a pedophile.

Actually it doesn't.

Actually, it does. If 30 of my teachers were men, and about 1 in 66 men are pedophiles, then the likelihood that one of my 30 male teachers was a pedophile is a little less than 50%. I doubt these simple arithmetic problems are beyond you.

The problem, as I pointed out in the post you responded to, is that your conflating two different groups.
Your conflating the group 'men in the US' with 'Men in the US wo are teachers'.
I doubt whether theres a 1:1 correlation.
Just like, for example the average number of drug users in the US will give different figures, than the average number of drug users among the poorest part of the US population.

That only works if you assume male teachers represent a 1:1 representation of the US male population.
Given that men represent less than 20% of all teachers in elementary and a little more than 40% in secondary education, they are not.
http://www.menteach.org/resources/data_about_men_teachers

Yes. And? Some 60 percent of my teachers were men. What of it?

Like I said, the group 'men who teach in the US' does not necessarily form 1:1 comparison with the group 'men in the US'.

Let's do some more of this math stuff:

There was a 50% likelihood that one of my 30 male teachers was a pedophile.

I do not believe this assertion for the reasons given above.

Even at the averages you quoted being men, that still works out to a child having some 15 male teachers. That means there's a nearly 25% chance that one of those 15 is a pedophile.

12 according to my calculations, but let's say 15. You still haven't demonstrated that the group 'men who teach in the US' has a 1:1 comparison with the group 'men in the US'.

That back of the envelope cyphering includes only teachers. That likelihood of a kid encountering a pedophile, even only among their teachers, isn't as slim as you think it is.

Except that, again, the total population of men in the US is not necessarily representative for the population of men who want to, or are employed in education.

Who cares?

People who want to deduce using proper statistics I guess.

Unless you're asserting that the prevalence of pedophilia among those 30 men who taught me is something different than 1.7%? You're going to have to support that, aren't you?

No, I am saying I am skeptical of that claim.
And even if I was, you have just as much a burden to demonstrate that they are, since you have made that assertion.

And I'll ask you again to stop assuming I am posting with malicious intent. I get that this might be a difficult subject, but discussing it is not going to get any better when we get distracted with personalised sniping and suspicions.

[Thomas Eshuis]

Of course, none of that considers the other staff at schools who have daily access to the students: administrative, custodial, services, etc. I didn't bother to work those people into those figures.

You still haven't answered my question:
Do you keep your childen away from any and all situations where you cannot peronally supervise them then?

[Thomas Eshuis]

The lesson to be learned about that, Thomas, is that it doesn't take much of a proportion of a population to expose a person to that proportion over time. We are exposed to more people than you would like to accept, I think.

I get that and why you think that, but I think that you're conflating different statistics, and letting fear and/or revulsion cloud your judgment.
I say this not to 'get you' or talk you down, but because you usually let reason govern yourself and that's one of the reasons I respect and admire you.

[The_Metatron]

Of course, none of that considers the other staff at schools who have daily access to the students: administrative, custodial, services, etc. I didn't bother to work those people into those figures.

You still haven't answered my question:
Do you keep your childen away from any and all situations where you cannot peronally supervise them then?

Yeah, that wasn't your question, was it?

Here is what you asked:

...

So you keep your kids away from the rest of the world at all times then?

...

Didn't warrant a response.

I don't entrust my boys to anyone whom I wouldn't trust with my bank account or my house keys. I wonder how many people wouldn't hand their wallet to their kids' teacher for safekeeping, but don't give a second thought to handing that person their kids.

Ultimately, it's up to me. That's what my boys expect and deserve. It's up to me to figure out how to do it. If activity X cannot withstand my scrutiny, it's not something we have to do.

[The_Metatron]

...

Unless you're asserting that the prevalence of pedophilia among those 30 men who taught me is something different than 1.7%? You're going to have to support that, aren't you?

No, I am saying I am skeptical of that claim.
And even if I was, you have just as much a burden to demonstrate that they are, since you have made that assertion.

What assertion? That those male teachers were men? I have supported the prevalence of pedophiles among men. If you think the prevalence of pedophilia among teachers who are men is dramatically different than that of men as a group, this is your claim to support.

In the absence of any evidence indicating otherwise, no good reason exists to think that prevalence is at all significantly different.

And I'll ask you again to stop assuming I am posting with malicious intent. I get that this might be a difficult subject, but discussing it is not going to get any better when we get distracted with personalised sniping and suspicions.

[The_Metatron]

The lesson to be learned about that, Thomas, is that it doesn't take much of a proportion of a population to expose a person to that proportion over time. We are exposed to more people than you would like to accept, I think.

I get that and why you think that, but I think that you're conflating different statistics,

...

Which statistics, and how? Be specific. Show your work.

[Fallible]

Can't wait till US reads this thread next.

[Thomas Eshuis]

The lesson to be learned about that, Thomas, is that it doesn't take much of a proportion of a population to expose a person to that proportion over time. We are exposed to more people than you would like to accept, I think.

I get that and why you think that, but I think that you're conflating different statistics,

...

Which statistics, and how? Be specific. Show your work.

I did, in my preceding posts. Which is what I was refering to in the post you're quoting here.

[Thomas Eshuis]

Can't wait till US reads this thread next.

US?

[Fallible]

Uncertain Sloth, my husband the male primary school teacher.

[Thomas Eshuis]

Uncertain Sloth, my husband the male primary school teacher.

Thought so. Wanted to make sure.

[jamest]

Uncertain Sloth, my husband the male primary school teacher.

Thought so. Wanted to make sure.

Glad we cleared that up, as I feared that she was talking about Donald Trump, who is now effectively the US. She seems the type to vote for Donald, if you know what I mean.

[Fallible]

I...don't.

[Blip]

!

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