{"id":58045,"date":"2019-01-24T06:38:12","date_gmt":"2019-01-24T06:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thefastfashion.com\/?p=58045"},"modified":"2019-01-24T06:38:12","modified_gmt":"2019-01-24T06:38:12","slug":"high-school-teacher-hit-im-done-keeping-quiet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thefastfashion.com\/?p=58045","title":{"rendered":"My high school teacher hit on me \u2014 and I\u2019m done keeping quiet"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ten years ago, Samantha Farber, now a 25-year-old Manhattan resident, tells The Post she was involved in an inappropriate relationship with her teacher at Long Island private school Lawrence Woodmere Academy. While their relationship wasn\u2019t sexual, the experience haunted her for years. When a different teacher at the same school, Daniel McMenamin, was arrested<\/a> for allegedly raping a student, the news brought back many of the conflicted feelings Farber had at the time, and Farber agreed to share her story with The Post\u2019s Lauren Steussy<\/strong>. A lawyer for the school made the following comment: \u201cAt Lawrence Woodmere Academy, academic excellence and student safety have always been and will continue to be top priorities.\u201d The teacher had no comment.<\/em><\/p>\n

I see stories every day about teachers who have relationships with students \u2014 in the news, in movies. And you might be wondering how a teacher could ever cross a line like that. I can tell you, because I experienced it front and center. I was the student the teacher fell for.<\/p>\n

I met him when I was 14 years old. He was the \u201ccool\u201d teacher \u2014 close with all the students. But as the school year went on, only he and I got closer. We would spend a lot of time together in his classroom during and between classes. We had inside jokes about the Red Sox and the Yankees: If the Red Sox won, I would get him a sandwich; if they lost, he would have to get me iced coffee.<\/p>\n

By the end of the year, when school was letting out for the summer, he passed me a note, written in marker on a tissue. I rewrote it in my journal: \u201cDeeply and truly you are what makes me want to get out of bed each and every day. I cannot picture my life without you.\u201d<\/p>\n

I remember thinking it sounded like a wedding vow. But I didn\u2019t dwell on it, and went on with my summer without seeing or talking to him.<\/p>\n

When I returned to school in the fall, I\u2019d visit him between and after classes. He would ask me about boys I was interested in, and told me when he thought I looked nice \u2014 often when I wore skirts or low-cut tops. One day, he looked at me and said he wished I was older. I remember feeling uncomfortable, but didn\u2019t want to say anything. I was conflicted: I wasn\u2019t developing feelings, but at that age, I did like the attention. And even though I was uncomfortable with the way he talked to me, I didn\u2019t want our relationship to change. I didn\u2019t want to make things awkward, because everyone liked him.<\/p>\n

When summer came, he gave me an email address. It didn\u2019t have his name in it, or anything identifying about him.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow else am I going to talk to you all summer?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The first email from him showed up four minutes later. With the click of a button, he basically said he no longer considered the boundaries of student and teacher to apply to us.<\/p>\n

He emailed me every day. And I emailed back every day.<\/p>\n

\u201cWish I was there tanning with you,\u201d he wrote on June 4.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy can\u2019t we just be together,\u201d he wrote on July 7.<\/p>\n

Once, when I told him I was getting ready for a dinner, he asked me to send him photos of myself. I told him no. \u201cThat\u2019s where I draw the line.\u201d<\/p>\n

When school started up again in the fall, it only got worse. He was the adviser of one of the clubs I belonged to. On school trips, he would sit behind me on the bus and hold my hand through the gap in the seats. Between classes, he would massage my shoulders, or put his hand on my thigh when he was sitting next to me at the computers. Once, in front of a group of students, he joked about going down on a girl, and looked directly at me.<\/p>\n

My friends had started to notice. One said, \u201cDo you notice the way he looks at you?\u201d But I never told them about the emails. [The Post has reached out to two friends of Farber\u2019s. One, a former classmate, doesn\u2019t recall seeing the emails, but remembers the two being flirtatious and spending a lot of time together. The other, who attended a different school, says that Farber told her about the relationship in 2012.]\n

Physically, I was in control \u2014 it never got more sexual than that. But emotionally, I was completely out of control. I wanted to break things off with him, but he just kept emailing.<\/p>\n

Then, several months into the school year, when I was 16, he ended our relationship abruptly. \u201cPeople are starting to question why you\u2019re not in my class and taking tests,\u201d I remember him saying. \u201cMaybe you should start doing some work.\u201d<\/p>\n

But I would have failed his tests, because he hadn\u2019t been making me do any work. We had a deal, I thought: I would dress a certain way, look a certain way, answer to him, go and say hi to him. In return, he would let me not take tests or turn in homework.<\/p>\n

Facing the possibility of failure, I decided to come forward to the school administrators.<\/p>\n

In January, I brought them every single email, every single handwritten note. The school said they would have to look into it. The whole time, we were in school together, with him knowing that I told on him. Any time I saw him, I would start shaking and crying. He wouldn\u2019t even look at me.<\/p>\n

 had multiple mental disorders \u2014 anxiety, fear of abandonment, an eating disorder and depression \u2014 and for years after high school, I went to therapy three times a week. I haven\u2019t been able to hold onto serious relationships. My education also took a hit: I barely graduated college, partly because of the trauma I was dealing with and partly because just going to class was triggering. I had a really hard time connecting with people of authority.<\/p>\n

Then, when I saw Mac [McMenamin, who taught at the school while Farber was a student] had been arrested, I felt sick to my stomach. I knew that if the school had listened to me years ago when I told them a teacher of theirs had crossed a line, maybe Mac wouldn\u2019t have had the ability to do what he did.<\/p>\n

At the time, I never knew why the relationship was wrong. And while the school had a responsibility to protect me, I wish someone could have told me, \u201cThere\u2019s no fairy-tale ending. Tell someone who will listen,\u201d and don\u2019t wait, like I did.<\/p>\n

If it\u2019s something you\u2019re keeping secret, there\u2019s a reason. You should tell someone. It\u2019s one thing to have a crush, but if you feel that a teacher is giving you special attention, ask yourself, \u201cIs this something you feel is appropriate for a child?\u201d<\/p>\n

And I want parents to know that just because it\u2019s school, it doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s safe. And just because it\u2019s a teacher, it doesn\u2019t mean they should be fully trusted.<\/p>\n

Maybe nothing my teacher did was \u201cthat bad,\u201d but what\u2019s bad is bad, and that\u2019s it.<\/p>\n\n

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Ten years ago, Samantha Farber, now a 25-year-old Manhattan resident, tells The Post she was involved in an inappropriate relationship with her teacher at Long Island private school Lawrence Woodmere Academy. While their relationship wasn\u2019t sexual, the experience haunted her for years. When a different teacher at the same school, Daniel McMenamin, was arrested for allegedly raping …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58046,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[38],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nMy high school teacher hit on me \u2014 and I\u2019m done keeping quiet - TheFastFashion.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thefastfashion.com\/?p=58045\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"My high school teacher hit on me \u2014 and I\u2019m done keeping quiet - TheFastFashion.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Ten years ago, Samantha Farber, now a 25-year-old Manhattan resident, tells The Post she was involved in an inappropriate relationship with her teacher at Long Island private school Lawrence Woodmere Academy. 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