If you ask most people if they ever had a crush on a teacher, they will answer with a resounding YES!
A few might go as far as admitting to falling in love with their teacher. Apparently, it’s just something that teenagers do.

As an aside, very few people will admit to having sex with a teacher, but many of us know someone who did. Except for those who see it as a thing of pride.
Some were rumors during our high school days. Others were self-confessed. In a few cases, they were caught in the act. In rare cases, an enraged parent comes to confront the teacher in school.
But the most dramatic moments are when the enraged parents come in the company of the student a couple of months pregnant.

For those who worked as teachers after high school or university, as well as those whose PPA during the NYSC was as teachers, they can testify to how hormone-driven teenagers are.
We know one or more guys and in some cases ladies, who took advantage of students that had crushes on them and had an illicit sexual liaison with them.

There is no universe where sex between a primary or secondary student and a teacher is a wise, logical, legal, moral, or acceptable choice.
The student might be bigger than her/his age, wiser or more mature than their peers, the initiator of the act, or deeply in love with the teacher, it is still not right.

There is no talk of consent here. An underage child cannot give consent. It is not admissible in court.
And if for whatever messed up reason, the child and the teacher are insistent that there were truly in love, the feeling was mutual, consent was gotten, then there is still the charge of statutory rape.

I was moved to write this when a female friend asked what was she supposed to do as a teenage student of hers seemed to be in love with her.
Normally, I would assume that the boy had a crush on her, but her choice of words was deliberate. Her subsequent description of the situation further reinforced her stance.

Looking back on my teenage days, I think it is normal for students to crush on their teachers. That feeling intensifying into love is where things get murky.
But then, with teenagers, every feeling is intense. Love, hatred, happiness, sadness, anger, hunger too. It goes from level ten to a hundred quickly.

Thinking about it, if I have a crush on any of my teachers in school, was there anything she or anyone else could have said that could have changed how I felt?
I doubt that. At the same time, she probably knows ten out of five hundred students from my year who felt the same way towards her.

At the same time, if my parents found out about me being in love with a teacher, how worried would they get?
Flipping the scenario, if a female student was crushing hard, or in love with a male teacher, how worried should her parents get?

With the antecedent of the male folks in our society, I expect them to be a lot more disturbed.
Not that the boy child is not a victim of sexual abuse from older females, but the ratio of the reported and unreported cases is disturbing.

Again, look back to when you first heard of such cases. Revisit your junior and senior secondary school days. Rehash the rumors you heard and the part you know we’re facts.
If you must surmise, who is more at risk? Who is more of the culprit?

Nothing can be done to stop students from crushing on or falling in love with their teachers.
Firstly, they spend much time in close proximity with each other. Secondly, the teachers are more matured, adults, and therefore are less prone to misbehaviors that would be a turn-off for the students.

There is also the fact that teachers are the epitome of power and authority for students. People will always be attracted to that.
Full-grown adults are still falling for people with power and authority. There is no need to get graphic, we all know the truth.

Then there is a category of people that are attracted to intelligence and knowledge. Being sapiosexual doesn’t descend on you after you are already an adult.
The trait would already be in you as you become sexually aware. But then you might have no idea what you are attracted to, why, or what name it is called.
Some people do know though.

There is also a category of students that are attracted to adults like their parents. Or adults that are exactly unlike their parents.
They don’t know it, but they feel a strong love for a particular trait that reminds them of something they love or hate about their parents.

The difference though is that this is not their parent. And their chemical and hormonal composition is in overdrive.
Any love that is not parental or familial quickly crosses over into romantic and erotic.

In all of these, teachers or more specifically, the teachers that the students are usually attracted to are the younger teachers.
They are cool, kind, warm, loving, and friendly. Yet they are matured and firm.
Trendy and sociable like their peers, but smarter and more mature. Yet not too mature and uncool like their parents.

Just like the students with sapiosexual traits, those with BDSM traits are attracted to stern and disciplinarian teachers.
Quickly look back at the teachers your mates in school were crushing on or in love with. You just might know someone who is down for the BDSM stuff.

Back to the serious stuff, what is the protocol for handling a student who is crushing on or in love with you?
You can see it or you’ve heard the rumors. Maybe the student is even bold enough to tell you. What are you supposed to do?

I don’t have a lot of advice in this case. I must give a few that I think would be helpful though.
The most important of this is that you should never be alone with said student.
Again, hormonal teenagers are next in rank to demons.

When push comes to shove, you’d be surprised at their physical strength.
At the same time, you don’t want to give them the slightest chance to try out whatever machinations their hormone-fueled, Nollywood and Hollywood-consuming brain has come up with.

You are better off never having to defend your name. If any accusations come up, it never actually dies down. Not even after you have been proven innocent.
You don’t want to have to change jobs, accommodations, or spend a night or week in a police cell despite being innocent.
It’s going to be your word against them. And apparently, we must believe the victim.

Almost as important as this, stop all physical contact with the student.
I don’t know what syllabus your school operates or what moral system they are governed by, but no student deserves or needs a hug from their teacher to thrive.
Especially a teenage student.

If they are going to fail or go wayward because you failed to hug, shake hands, fist bump, or high-five them, then they might as well start failing already.
Your hug is not the morale booster it is claimed to be. It is only driving their hormones and imaginations wild.

On this same note, no matter how mature, smart, wild, wide-eyed, spoilt, seductive, and daring your students might be, they are still at best, children.
At worst, a statutory rape case waiting to happen.

As a teacher, you have been bestowed with trust.
Trust by the students, their classmates, the proprietors, the parents, and society at large.

You have been entrusted with these students to impart knowledge to them. Not carnal knowledge. Even if you are also teaching them sexual education.
You have been trusted to not take advantage of children. Irrespective of if said children are “innocent” or not.

You are being trusted to have self-control, to know better than the student, and to have your emotions and libido under control.
There is a moral duty on you to not encourage or engage in what Toolz describes as “genital meet and greet” with your students.

The relationship with your student at worst should be limited to imparting knowledge.
At best, you could take an interest in how they are faring in their personal life as that could have an implication on their academic life.
At no time should that interest extend to what is underneath their clothes.

Sexting, exchanging nudes, employing sexual innuendos, groping, smooching, doing everything else except the “main act” still counts as sex.
It will earn you some jail time. And it will be fully deserved.

The student is not breaking any trust by getting sexually involved with the teacher. All the blame, responsibility, and consequences are on the teacher.
You think you are in a tight spot as you weigh up your choices. Wait until you are in a prison cell, then you will know how tight the alternative spot is.

These days, everyone is trying to refuse the title and duty of a role model. As a teacher, you don’t have that luxury.
If you opt to or were coopted to be a teacher, you are automatically a role model. The merits and demerits of the “office” are dumped on you whether you welcome it or not.

Act accordingly. Don’t let your indiscipline cost you the best years of your life.
And if you somehow escape being caught now, you’ll always have the proverbial Sword of Damocles hanging over your head.

All it takes is for your victim to wisen up or get comfortable with telling the truth.
They could be informing a therapist or a spouse who’ll encourage them or personally decide to take action. It might even be a witness or a childhood friend who was boasted to or confided in.

The statute of limitations might have elapsed, but your reputation would still suffer the shame.
And if all these unfold only after your death, your legacy, name, and children will bear the brunt.

In the end, you have more to lose than the student in question. Don’t throw your life away with a momentary indiscretion.
When you are looking back at your life, you don’t want this to be the moment when it all went downhill.

Wilson Joshua is a Video Editor, Content Creator, and Creative Writer.
You can follow him on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. @IJOSWIL