I chased penguins and slept in Shackleton’s sleeping bag
AN increase in the number of female teachers being accused of sexual acts against male students could be just the tip of the iceberg, a child protection expert says.
At least seven female teachers have been charged with misconduct or criminal charges in the past three years. This week, a Bay of Plenty teacher, now 39, was charged with misconduct after marrying her former student, who is now 23, after they struck up a friendship while the student was in prison.
But a ‘‘romanticised’’ view of sexual contact between teachers and male students could be leading to severe under-reporting of cases, according to Child Matters chief executive Jean Searle.
‘‘I think what people have to be clear about is that there is no Romeo and Juliet romance,’’ Searle said. ‘‘This behaviour needs to be recognised for what it is, sexual abuse of a child. It should be viewed exactly the same way as if it’s a male offender and a female victim. It needs to be acknowledged that there is a certain process of grooming involved before the abuse begins.’’
Searle says the vast majority of teacher-student abuse is committed by male offenders, which perpetuates the myth that female teachers are not abusers.
The Education Council is developing a code of professional responsibility and standards for teachers. And although it’s draft form, the council’s teacher practice manager Andrew Greig said guidelines for teachers are clear.
‘‘The number of teachers that come before the council is small. Although one is one too many and I want to ensure my kids are safe at school.’’ TEENAGE Oliver Sutherland was chasing penguins when he almost rode an ice floe into the vast Antarctic Ocean.
The year was 1962 and the 19-year-old zoology student lived in Ernest Shackleton’s Hut, spending nights wrapped in the great explorer’s own sleeping bag because his own wasn’t up to scratch.
‘‘People would be horrified to know I did that because the whole place is a museum these days,’’ he said.
What few New Zealanders know is that the self-effacing Kiwi’s life-and-death adventure became the inspiration for the Hollywood movie.
Now 73, Sullivan this weekend recounted his three months on the White Continent to commemorate the centenary of Shackleton’s expedition and the ‘‘heroic era’’ of Antarctic exploration.
He was one of the last to live in the hut before it was sealed up, and described it as ‘‘frozen in time’’.
‘‘It was extraordinary ... looked exactly how it did in 1917,’’ he said. ‘‘There were uneaten scones on the table and bacon in a pan.’’
Sutherland was there studying the breeding patterns of penguins and the effect of humans on a colony.
He estimated he would get up to 40 visitors a day from people on expeditions to see the penguins.
‘‘What they found was me,’’ he said.
‘‘I was an object of interest as well because I was there by myself.’’
One of his visitors – journalist Graham Billing – was inspired by Sutherland to write a novel. Forbrush and the Penguins, about a biologist studying the life of penguins in the Antarctic, was published in 1965 and, in 1971, the book was adapted into the feature film Cry of the Penguins starring John Hurt.
One of Sutherland’s most vivid memories from his time at the bottom of the world was cheating death on an ice floe when he and a dog handler from Scott Base went to watch penguins diving into the sea.
‘‘We were out there for a while and when we turned around to go back, we found we were on an ice floe and a big gap had opened up and we were slowly drifting up McMurdo Sound,’’ he said.
‘‘We rushed down the ice and found just one gap which was near enough to jump across – we jumped back and lived to tell the story. Later that night we looked at that ice floe as it was heading off towards the horizon. I don’t know if we would have ever been found.’’
The End of the Heroic Era of Antarctic Exploration was a conference held at Auckland’s Torpedo Bay Navy Museum on Saturday, commemorate the conclusion of Shackleton’s Antarctica expedition in 1917.