Middle School Boys Created a Database to Document a Teacher’s Creepy Behavior Toward Girls

While teachers worldwide are shocked by the grip that misogynistic influencer Andrew Tate has on their male students, as it turns out, other young dudes are going the extra mile to help protect their female peers from creeps. On Friday, the Boston Globe reported that eight seventh grade boys from Davisville Middle School in Rhode Island created a “Pedo Database” that’s been tracking one male teacher’s every sketchy move towards the girls in his class since January. The database is now being used as evidence in an investigation against him.

In April, the male teacher, whose name has not been released, was placed on leave for allegedly stalking a pre-teen girl while he was her coach. The investigation is ongoing.

The group of boys first noticed this particular teacher’s inappropriate behavior while they were in the sixth grade. According to the Globe, his actions included “leering at some girls, singling them out with pet nicknames,” and “encouraging them to dance for him,” while male students were treated with “contempt” and “sometimes cruelty.” They tried to tell adults about what they were witnessing, but were brushed off without much concern.

“Sometimes [the girls would] laugh. Sometimes they just kind of just sit there awkwardly,” one of the boys told the Globe in an interview. “Even the ones that said he was ‘creepy’ laughed, because they were obviously not trying to tick him off or anything. So they’re just fake laughing, awkwardly laughing.”

What started out as occasional note-taking launched into a full-blown database in January of 2021, which the boys created via a subchannel on Discord and named it “Pedo Database.” Zoom school allowed them to document the teacher’s behavior in real time as a way to “get evidence,” according to the channel’s description. The soundbites that the boys ended up documenting range from deeply uncomfortable to downright gross, and are reminiscent of things we’ve heard other men in power (a.k.a. Dan Schneider) say to young girls in their care:

“You all love me so choose love.”

“You gotta stand up and dance now.”

Everyone “in bathing suits tomorrow.”

“I felt bad for [the girls] because sometimes it just seems like it was a humiliating thing,” the boy told the Globe. “He’d play a song and he’d make one of them get up and dance.”

And while the existence of the database itself is pretty impressive, what feels most concerning about this whole situation is the overwhelming disbelief around the boys’ reports. Per the Globe’s report, even after being reported for stalking, the teacher went on to coach in two other school districts, and even some parents had a hard time taking their sons’ allegations seriously.

Still, it’s heartening to see that, amid so many nauseating displays of toxic masculinity in this culture, at least some of the middle school boys are alright.