Platinum Choices vs. Platinum People

After I finished college, I had a week to kill before I needed to report for my Teach For America training. Naturally, I went home to St. Louis to hang out with friends and family before my impending move to Hawaii. After going through the process of looking for jobs and making decisions that would have ramifications in both the near and long term, I was pretty reflective with regard to the reasons why I was going into teaching. Simply put, I felt lucky. Despite the fact that I come from what I consider to be a good family that cared deeply about my education, I would call the schools I attended mediocre at best. Looking back, there were maybe three teachers that I thought had had a positive impact on me as a student. The number of teachers who had a negative impact on my learning was easily above 15. Simply put, I became a teacher so I could even that number up a bit for some kids who had probably had even worse experiences than I. You can then imagine how freaked out I was when I saw that Sterling Johnson, one of the three or so teachers who I would have included in my good list, did this.

Pretty messed up, right? Nevertheless, the experience of seeing someone I held up pretty high fall from grace was good. It taught me that everyone is flawed and that my responsibility is not to judge them (aside from the whole super illegal thing), but to try and understand other people on their own terms.

Looking back, I can say honestly that Sterling Johnson wasn't that great a teacher, but at a time in my life where I didn't know if I was coming or going, he was a friend. So while what he did was atrocious and by my own standards I'm pretty sure he should have been fired much earlier in his career (I'm pretty sure I witnessed Mr. Johnson drunk at school several times but was too naive to realize it), I can't help but reflect on the things I learned from him.

I guess it reminds me of that thing I would say to any of my own students when they messed up. I'm disappointed in his poor choice, but I don't think he's a bad person. I think. At the same time, pushing that to it's logical limit means a moral relativism that this dude cannot abide. I guess the question I end up with is when do we go from non-platinum behavior to non-platinum people. I think there is probably no truly consistent rule and the best I can do is go by my gut/logic to attempt to form a system that has some general premises but allows for flexibility given circumstances...any thoughts?