I Will Be Like Your Husband

If you have young children in the house, keep them away from the computer: the following details may disturb them and cause them to have traumatic stress disorder, some day.

On November 17, 2015 a Discipline Committee panel of the Ontario College of Teachers held a solemn meeting to discuss an onerous offense by one of their own.

Mr. George Bohdan Kolos (OCT since May 1976), represented by Legal Counsel, was charged with the following serious offenses.

Noticing that the tag on a shirt worn by a female staff member was outside of the shirt, he tucked it in.

Another time, he offered a colleague some chocolate.

 She said, “no thanks– I’m good”.  He said, “oh, I know you are good”.

For penalty and repentance, Mr. Kolos was slapped with a very, very stern reprimand by the Ontario College of Teachers.  The School Board which employed him, after it’s own investigation, suspended him for one day, and then transferred him to a different school.

This kind of poisonous mind-set must be rooted out, of course.  Mr. Kolos was also instructed to take a course– at his own expense!– on “boundaries and boundary violation issues”.

Your children may now re-enter the room.

What do you mean that these incidents do not sound all that serious?  Did you know what he said, as he tucked the clothing tag back in?  He said, “I will be like your husband and tuck your tag in”!  The monster!

You may think I’m being sarcastic.  I assure you I am.  I can assure you that there is also some feminist-consultant-psychologist-herbal-vegetarian-puritanical-zealot who will be paid a small fortune to run the course on “boundaries and boundary violation issues” to repair Mr. Kolos’ mind.   And Mr. Kolos– if he ever wants to teach again– would be wise to nod sportingly and purse his lips and gaze in awe at the splendor of her wisdom and good judgement and the majestic edifice of her imperial sanctimony.  Or else.

Mr. Kolos retired June 30, 2014, after teaching for 38 “unblemished” years (according to the Disciplinary Committee’s own report).  Nevertheless, no sexist offense is too small or insignificant for the tiny minds of the Ontario College of Teachers.   Even the most seemingly casual remark can have a “negative impact on the work environment”.

No one, indeed, should have to tell someone who has been teaching — without blemish– for almost 40 years– “I don’t enjoy it when you say things that are so mildly provocative that one can barely discern the provocation”.   Mr. Kolos should have known it.

Okay.  I know some of my loyal readers– perhaps both of them– are thinking, “there must have been more to it than that”.  That is not likely since the report on the offense is far more likely to enumerate only the most serious particulars.   The report (in Professionally Speaking – The Magazine of the Ontario College of Teachers, September 2016) does make mention of the fact that he committed other similar offenses.  His conduct was “serious, repeated and directed at numerous colleagues”.   I believe it is very safe to assume that the two incidents described would not be the least serious but, more likely, typical, or among the most serious.

Incidentally, these disciplinary reports in Professionally Speaking, make fascinating reading.  I was surprised by the number of female teachers who were charged with “inappropriate” contact with male students.  That really is kind of shocking, not because I didn’t think it was likely to be true, but because we continue to be bombarded with public expressions of condemnation for men who do it, and very little public excoriation of women who do it.

And I know why.  And I’ll bet you do too.  The male “victims” just don’t want to make a drama out of it.  They just didn’t feel the surging power in their loins as they contemplated the awesome power they possessed to destroy someone’s life and career.  What a shame.

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