[CalledDownLight]

Sorry this is long. I hope some of you read this and give me some responses/answers.

Wow. I never really have this feeling and hope you guys didn't just instill this fear/nervousness in me since I read this thread.

I have been working at an elementary school as a tutor since I was a freshman in college and just started my third year there on Monday. Since I have worked with about 6 different teachers and with the relatively big after school program for 6 hours a week for the entire school year each of the last two years, I know a lot of the people at the school. I'd estimate that I know probably half of the kids in 3rd grade or higher and maybe another 10% of the younger kids and have worked with all of these kids in some fashion over the past two years.

When I walked into the class I was helping today, with a teacher that I helped last year, I knew all but two of the kids and probably about 5 or 6 of them came up and gave me a hug right away. I didn't really feel like I had done anything inappropriate and don't see why this would be looked at in a negative light by anyone really. Also, one of the kids I worked with today walked into the library and saw a tutor that he worked with last year (there are about 40 tutors from my college at this elementary school) and gave her a hug, which seemed completely normal to me. The tutoring program emphasizes building relationships at the school and with the kids although it is in a school environment. There really just isn't a way that an eight year old won't come up to you and say hi if you see him out somewhere after working with him for two hours a week for a year.

Is this the kind of thing that is being looked at as weird and suspicious from the third person perspective or is this an entirely different scenario that I'm presenting since there is already some kind of relationship? Could someone please explain why observers/parents are so concerned about this as it seems very irrational to me? Maybe I'm just naive since I'm 20 years old, but this view that is apparently pretty prevalent seems odd to me. I'm obviously a guy since that seems to be important to this response.


On a completely different note, I often gave several of my teachers hugs in high school at the end of the year and most of the other people in my classes did as well. Is this only applicable in the female student, male teacher situation or does it go both ways?


Also, to those of you who are high school teachers: if there is a fight does everything get thrown out the window or do you still proceed with caution? I'm asking this because my dad is a teacher in a poorish inner city high school with a lot of gang activity and basically says its a free for all in fights where male teachers and coaches essentially throw people against the walls when a fight breaks out. This also goes for fights involving girls.