Judy Buranich teaches English at Midd West High School in Snyder County, Pennsylvania. She’s held that job for 25 years. Judy Mays writes erotic novels. By now, you probably know where this is going. They’re the same person, and some parents are upset.
Now mind you, being a public school teacher means a lot of things: it means you won’t earn much money given the amount of schooling you’ve gone through to get the job; it means you will almost never have the tools you need to do your job effectively; it means you’ll be demonized by politicians who want to take away your right to organize and collectively bargain for raises and benefits; and it means you’ll be expected to just sit back and take this without complaining because teaching is a calling, not just a job. What it also apparently means is that your private life is now subject to the moral judgments of parents in your school district.
I am not surprised that some parents are outraged over the fact that a teacher might have a private life which involves sex. Stories like this pop up all the time, though they usually involve teachers who are involved in some sort of sex work on the side (which should say more about the amount we pay our teachers than anything else). No, what actually surprises me about this story is that Buranich/May had time to write novels. Does she sleep?
6 responses
Brian, when I saw you post about this on Facebook this morning, I could feel my little righteous indignation hairs rising on the back of my neck. And yeah, your question is quite good. I would really like to know how she balances everything.
Perhaps parents are more concerned that she isn’t focusing her time to be a better teacher than of her erotic writings. At least that should be their concern if they should be concerned.
I find this sad and relevant. It’s a question I keep coming up against now that I’m about to get my MFA and had maybe planned to put myself out there on the adjunct circuit. My stories are unabashedly about drugs, alcohol, sex, the darker side of life, and they’re not particularly sorry about it. Sometimes I write non fiction, but even in fiction it’s hard to separate the art from the girl. It takes about 30 seconds of google searching to figure out that Molly Laich is from the wrong side of the tracks. Do I really want to change the way I am in order to make hardly any money teaching freshman composition? Should I have to? I I doubt very much that unless I seriously clean up my web persona (unpublishing my stories? NOT) it would be unlikely I could work as a public school teacher anytime soon. It’s too bad for the world because I’m an excellent educator.
Anyway, this has been on my mind. /End editorializing.
Lillian,
There’s two levels to the problem here. One is what you pointed to, which is the idea that a teacher should be spending their time away from the job becoming a better teacher. Do we demand that of other professions? Do we demand that bankers spend their weekends becoming better bankers and then chastise them if they have other interests? Do we do that to any profession? I suppose it might happen, but it doesn’t often.
The second, though, is more disturbing. This writer isn’t being chastised because she’s a writer–she’s being chastised because of what she writes about. She writes about sex, and that’s what has these parents all bunged up. But outside of a Catholic school where all the teachers are nuns, I don’t think there’s any School Board requiring a vow of chastity as part of the contract. Teachers are people first, and people are sexual beings, and it’s not like this teacher was assigning erotica to her high school students to read. She wasn’t acting inappropriately, and yet she’s being publicly scolded by some small-minded parents who must have no problems of their own to deal with because they’ve got tons of time to manufacture more.
I personally had Mrs. Buranich as a teacher in 10th grade and she was an excellent teacher. She never brought up any of her story’s out of class and she was always prepared to teach the lessons. She is one of the best teachers at that high school and she does not deserve any of this, except for maybe a spike in book sales. I don’t know a student in the whole school that didn’t know about her writing these books. the parents that brought this up’s kid probably is failing her class. Another girl who was on the interview was supposed to graduate with me, and i don’t think she even made it to 10th grade to have Mrs. Buranich as a teacher before she cyberschooled. She also just got married to the woman’s son..basically low life pieces of crap in my book.
This is absolutely ridiculous and sadly unsurprising. People can be so ignorant. This isn’t about protecting children (is it ever really?). This is about puritanical sexism.
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