Teacher is Facing Jail Time for the Honest Mistake of Showing the Class Porn off His School Laptop

DIETER NAGL. Getty Images.

These are perhaps the most challenging, difficult times in the history of America's schools. Parents and school boards are in open warfare over curricula. Shutting schools down in the pandemic curtailed learning in a way that might be irreparable. Violence, depression and drug abuse are all on the rise. Things are not like they were in '90s movies where an idealistic young teacher could connect with the most at-risk students by saying things like, "You think poetry is boring? Maybe you're not familiar with the work of MY favorite poet. Perhaps you've heard of … Tupac?" 

There's another, less talked about problem getting in the way of our kids education. And that is the proliferation of free porn. I'm not talking about the kind of smut that Fox News says they're putting in all the elementary school text books. But the garden variety adult films that are available with the click of a button. It was hard enough getting 16-year-olds to think Dickens was interesting 30 years ago. But now that they can all watching A Sale of Two Titties on their phones under their desk, it's damned near impossible. And if a boo boo from one teacher in Texas is any indication, the Porn Problem is a street that goes both ways.

Source - A high school teacher in Texas has lost his job and faces jail time after he was caught watching a pornographic film when it showed up on a projector during class.

Kevin Welchel, who taught at Klein Collins High School in Houston, apparently was watching the inappropriate video on a laptop when it showed up on a big screen in the classroom.  …

The incident has not only lost Welchel his job but landed him in legal trouble that could end in a jail sentence. 

Parents, strangely enough, were divided on the topic. 

One mom told the Houston Chronicle that it was 'very inappropriate' and 'very, very unprofessional' but another said she was saddened at losing Welchel as an educator.

'He was an excellent teacher and our children loved him,' one of the moms said. 'It's really unfortunate that this happened.'

Good for this mom who has the guts to stand up for Mr. Welchel and admit what we all understand. That there but for the grace goes all educators. 

Can't we as a society give this poor horny gentleman a break? I mean, it's not like it's 1995 and he accidentally popped the copy of The Grapes of Ass that he got from behind the saloon doors at the mom & pop video store into his classroom's VCR. That would be an unpardonable mistake. There's not a man or woman in the public schools who isn't one unclosed tab away from meeting the same fate as him. Everyone of them could be trying to present their unit on the Holocaust and accidentally click on their download of Schindler's Lust. Is what he did a crime? Sure. I guess. Assuming that we're talking about high school upperclassmen. And he exposed them to regular everyday porn, and not like weirdo German stuff, sicko fetish material or teacher fantasies about doing with their students. That would be the kind of thing that should get him fitted for a court-ordered ankle bracelet. A permanent one. 

I just wish someone got video of it when Mr. Welchel's porn first made it onto the projection screen. That one or two seconds between the time he realized he'd fucked up, scrambled to X out of it, and then realized he'd just taken a flamethrower to his career, his pension, his education, and his reputation. Because what else do you do at that point? He might as well have just given the whole class dismissal slips, emptied the classroom and watched the rest of the movie, because there's no coming back from that. However, he might have a future in porn and come out ahead in this whole thing. It has to be a better life than the one he's been living.