The early childhood reliever teacher is facing a disciplinary tribunal in Auckland this week. Photo / NZME
An early childhood centre manager says she had to tell a reliever teacher “do not kiss children” after several staff complained about his conduct.
However, due to a language barrier, the woman wasn’t sure the man entirely understood the gravity of the situation.
The man, who has interim name suppression, allegedly kissed a three-year-old boy on the lips multiple times, nuzzled his face into the chest of a three-year-old girl, kissed another girl’s hand and rubbed a young boy’s leg.
The early childhood reliever teacher is appearing before the Teacher’s Disciplinary Tribunal in Auckland this week charged with serious misconduct for incidents at two different centres in 2021.
One of his former managers gave evidence yesterday that she warned him that teachers have gone to prison for their conduct in relation to children in their care, but she wasn’t entirely sure he understood her.
“I don’t know if he fully understood what we were trying to get across,” she said.
“I think with a man you have to be more careful because of the public perception.
“I personally don’t see any difference, but there is a perception.”
The woman told the tribunal that despite concerns from other teachers, she didn’t relay what had happened to the parents of a boy whom the reliever had allegedly kissed on the lips.
“To me when I first saw it it was just someone who didn’t know how to teach in New Zealand and nothing further,” she said.
“He didn’t know the correct way of doing things here.”
However, another early childhood worker at one of the centres said she was confident the man understood her.
“We never had a miscommunication - he spoke and understood perfectly good English,” she told the tribunal.
According to the charges against the man, he stroked the leg of a 5-year-old boy, and then put his face close to the face of a three-year-old boy.
“I don’t do that to another child, I don’t know any other teachers who do that,” the man’s colleague said.
She went on to say that after she informed her manager about what had happened, the man confronted her about it.
“I didn’t go into teaching to protect my colleagues, I went in to protect these kids,” she said.
“Any teacher would have been shocked to see that kind of behaviour.”
In giving evidence to the tribunal, the teacher facing charges said that some physical touch at an early child centre was unavoidable, but going forward he would be extremely careful about which children he touched and how.
He stressed there were significant cultural differences in the way teachers would engage with young children in his home country, and how they engaged with children in New Zealand.
“It is normal to have physical touch but we need to pay more attention to the intention. If the intention is indecent then it is not ok, but if you didn’t mean it like that then it’s tolerable,” he said.
He conceded that as a reliever teacher, it was perhaps not so appropriate to try and establish a physical relationship so quickly with children.
“My mistake was not recognising I’m not a fulltime teacher and should have kept some distance,” he said.
“I think I didn’t keep a good distance that I should have.”
The teacher said the line for physical touch was a blurry one and that his training didn’t cover this boundary.
He claimed he’d seen other teachers hug and sometimes kiss children in other centres he’s worked at.
However, he said he couldn’t remember if he’d kissed one child on the lips, nor having stroked the leg of another child and denied “nuzzling” into the chest of a young girl.
Several of the children he allegedly offended against, he claimed he couldn’t remember at all.
Jeremy Wilkinson is an Open Justice reporter based in Manawatū covering courts and justice issues with an interest in tribunals. He has been a journalist for nearly a decade and has worked for NZME since 2022.
The 19-year-old disappeared without her wallet or mobile phone.