The silent chorus: When teachers’ secret romances turn tragic

There is still a love that dare not speak its name. Or, rather, one that everyone else will avoid talking about when the people involved step into the staffroom. That unspoken love lies hidden somewhere in the murky world of the workplace dalliance. 

Some such romances have all the innocence and purity of the students’ own fledgling relationships. I have seen young teacher couples gradually getting together while addressing each other formally in front of students. It has all been incredibly sweet. You can bet their classes noticed and glowed. And I have also seen other, older couples, beaten by life more than a bit and bruised by past broken hearts and hurts, slowly drawing close enough to allow themselves another last cautious start. My unalloyed best wishes have gone with them into their shared sunset. 

But there is a darker side to work relationships too, which I am sure is common to every workplace in the world where people with hormones and libidos work side-by-side. All of us with eyes to see will have seen it many times over. There can be something deeply unsavoury and unsettling for those of us standing on the sidelines, a strange and silent chorus who slink in the shadows and watch events unfold, unable to warn ahead of time of the car-crash we can all see waiting ahead. The Chorus are supposed to speak, to forewarn, to see all. This Chorus, however, do indeed see all but are unable to say anything at all. So we simply spy the dices’ roll and then watch as the fires burn and the towers inevitably fall. 

Many modern colleges are filled with glass. Receptions and atriums are open and visible. Classroom doors contain windows and classes can be seen from corridors. In a way, the modern college is a sort of panopticon. Everything can be seen. Or almost everything.

What is hard to avoid and harder still to describe is how very visual a teacher’s professional life is. Students watch you. Managers observe you. The world keeps its eye on you. You spend lessons putting on a show. Teachers are entertainers and academics at one and the same time, jollying things along to keep the learners’ focus sharp and keep their interest up. You are there to be seen. Until you have taught, it is impossible to know quite how much the students see of you. The students’ eyes see it all. Mercilessly so, sometimes. We, by contrast, can be blind.

Sometimes, though, we watch it all unfold. We see one unable to resist being adored. And one who wants much more. Late evenings follow behind locked office doors. Then, predictably, the surreptitious attraction sours. Sense prevails. On one side, at least. And regret puts paid to passion. So we, the silent wide-eyed Chorus, watch her withdraw. We see him plead in return. But she does not turn. And then we see his rage. And his mighty sulk. Then comes scorn. It is all played out on the college stage. We watch him seek some semblance of power if that is all that is left for him to have. They do not know that we know. But we see it all. So they stand somehow naked before us all now, secrets exposed and inner selves sadly revealed. In technicolour tawdry detail.

We silent members of the Chorus can see more which we don’t say, too. We can see through our windows up to the top floor where the lights in the support staff offices glow. We can see there the door of the head of HR. We can see where this might all lead. But what can a Chorus do when their warnings have not been heeded, when their song has not been heard? Then the Chorus becomes Cassandra. All that is left then is space, a vacuum. To be abhorred. That’s when tragedy stalks onto the stage and draws its dulled sword. When Fate steps into the scene. When Defeat is plucked from the jaws of short-lived Victory, Chaos severing Nike’s golden life-cord, and the one who was gifted by the gods with the chance to start again with an unaware wife who waits at home chooses instead the insane coup de grâce, the self-conflagration, the immolation of protest, the impotent bonfire of his own self-focused vanities. And we the silent Chorus turn away, afraid to see the children involved, at home and afraid as they watch their family fall.