Formula for when teachers can consider former students to be adults

Cary Tennis had a letter from a teacher who had an affair with a former student, who was legally an adult at the time. This triggered an interesting discussion in the comment as to when, if ever, teachers can ethically consider their students as adults for fraternization purposes.

This inspired me to make a mathematical formula for when high school teachers and students can socially consider each other to be peers. I am in no way qualified to rule on this, but I like making up rules, and that's what blogs are for.

In order for the student to be considered an adult on par with the teacher, the following conditions must be met:

1. The student must have graduated
2. Any of the student's younger siblings, cousins, or other same-generation relatives who attended the same school, and whose attendance at that school overlapped that of the student in question, must also have graduated. This includes half-siblings, step-siblings, and any other members of the same generation residing in the same household as the student or any blood relatives.
3. Anyone who attended this school at the same time as any of the people listed above must have graduated. This means that if the school starts at grade 9, the people who were in grade 9 when the people listed above graduated must also have graduated.
4. Any former student who is the parent of one of the teacher's current student is automatically considered socially equal to the teacher, regardless of any other factors.

These conditions should ensure that the student in question is psychologically separated from identifying as a student, and is therefore able to look on the teacher as a peer.

I will illustrate this with examples below. For the purposes of these examples, I am using the calendar year in which the academic year ended to refer to the entire academic year. In other words, when I say 1999, I mean the 1998-1999 academic year. So:

I graduated from high school in 1999, at age 18. The students who were in grade 9 in 1999 graduated from high school in 2003.* This means that, if I were an only child, I would be a social equal with my teachers in 2003, at age 22.

However, I am not an only child. I have a sister, who graduated from the same high school I did in 2002. The students who were in grade 9 in 2002 finished high school in 2005.* This means that I would be considered a social equal with my teachers in 2005, at age 24.

Now suppose my aunt lived in the same neighbourhood as we did. My aunt has five children, the oldest of whom was in grade 9 when I was in grade 13, and the youngest of whom is 10 years younger than me. This means that her children would have been in the same high school that I went to, non-stop, from the time I was there to 9 years after I graduated.* The last of these cousins would graduate in 2008, and the students that were in grade 9 in 2008 would graduate in 2011. This means that I would be a social equal with my teachers in 2011, at age 30.

However, suppose my aunt had only her youngest child, and suppose I was an only child. Under this model, I would finish high school in 1999, and then none of my relatives would attend this school until 2005. This means that there's enough of a gap between myself and my cousin that his attendance at the school wouldn't influence my status, and I would be considered socially equal to my teachers in 2003, just the same as if I were the only member of my family attending.



*The inconsistency in these numbers is due to the fact that grade 13 was eliminated in Ontario in the interim. I find it easier to work with real-life numbers than to redo the math as though grade 13 had never existed.