Teacher off register after showing film about orgasm

A science teacher who showed students a video about female orgasm has been struck off the register.

Dawn Patricia Ganaha, a teacher at Southland Boys’ High School from 2012 to 2016, showed the year 9 advanced science class a TED talk called ‘‘10 things you didn’t know about orgasms’’.

The Teacher Disciplinary Tribunal decision said the students were studying space and telescopes at the time.

‘‘I was quite shocked, I didn’t see it coming,’’ one student said.

‘‘I was uncomfortable. Some people thought it was funny, but about half the class thought it was inappropriate/ uncomfortable.’’

The incident was one of five matters referred to the tribunal, which included photographing students, taking a student home without permission, and flicking a student on the arm. It found the incidents amounted to serious misconduct.

After Ganaha resigned, she continued to make contact with students to the point the school issued a trespass order.

The tribunal found her behaviour ‘‘repeatedly blurred the professional boundary’’ between herself and students. She was censured and her registration was cancelled.

In evidence presented to the tribunal, Ganaha said she deeply regretted her actions and accepted the cancellation of her registration was inevitable.

In July 2015, three months after she had shown students the masturbation video, Ganaha was observed taking photos and texting students during a cultural assembly. She was verbally warned. A month later, Ganaha denied rumours she had a ‘‘chat room’’ with a group of boys, but told a staff member she had taken a student home. This was done without notifying any senior member of staff, or with parental permission. The rector gave Ganaha a further verbal warning.

The rector received another complaint about Ganaha in March 2016, after another teacher visited her at her home and found a student visiting. Ganaha initially claimed the student’s scooter in her driveway belonged to a neighbour. She assured the rector the boy’s parents knew he was visiting and that he was a babysitter.

On a hot day in March 2016, Ganaha was supervising as her class carried out dissections. Some boys left the room and began throwing food at each other outside. She asked them to come back inside. Two boys refused, with one saying ‘‘I’m not going back in there, it f ..... g stinks’’.

Ganaha told them to stand by an open window while the others cleaned up. Again, they refused. She went to swear, then stopped halfway through the word, amending it to for ‘‘goodness sake’’. But one of the boys said ‘‘you swore Miss . . .’’ Another student laughed and, in frustration, Ganaha flicked him on the upper arm with the back of her fingers. Two teachers complained to the rector about the incident in April 2016. A meeting was held, which the boy’s mother attended.

Ganaha explained her actions and apologised, but the mother did not accept it. Ganaha resigned at the end of the meeting. In her written response, Ganaha said ‘‘it was unacceptable and I am deeply sorry that the situation got to the stage that it did. I was in the wrong and my behaviour was inappropriate’’.