My word, I've never seen such an enclave of folks as knowledgable about UU educational practices this side of my wife's Quaker Meeting......

Volunteer roles, whether in a liberal church or a conservative think tank, do draw out the crazies. The woman in question has, for whatever deepseated reason, a poor set of boundaries. Personal use of anectdotes about one's own life experiences is more than wildly inappropirate, given the age difference between the teacher and the student. I don't think any personal story by any teacher in that setting is appropriate, and creating such a construct makes the boundary violation quite clear. In fact, I can't imagine why the woman in question would find it useful, liberating or functionally effective to describe her sexual escapades, however benign the specific content may be.

I also doubt that this woman has the self-awareness to understand precisely what she is doing; she may not be aware that she is transcending appropriate lines of discussion. Her behavior is emotionally reckless, but also quite obtuse. I suspect she is trying to be "modern", "liberal" and just "one of the kids", but in fact, she is domineering, controlling and violating, albeit only in verbal fashion.

My guess is that the concerned teacher has two choices; one is to create a consensually accepted definition of boundaries for the teachers leading this course material, thus making the establishment of guidelines an objective, rather than subjective, discussion. If she protests or disagrees, then the issue can be openly and directly discussed. The other alternative is to sustain a very private discussion with this woman, providing her with the opportunity to deal with the material privately. My hunch is that this woman's rather flagrent inappropriate presentation of her sexual history in tidbit form hides a significant amount of shame affect. The very public discussion of guidelines sees to it that this woman's behavior is not singled out; a very private one provides her with an opportunity to discharge her shame privately, rather than having it grow exponentially in some group setting were the group setting to be used to discuss her specific behavior.

In any case, this woman's behavior needs to be checked, even to the point (if she refuses to shift her ways) of asking her to provide service in some other venue. What she is doing borders on covert/verbal sexual abuse. If this is, indeed, a UU setting, someone is going to have to take up the authoritarian role so detested within the context of consensual decision-making and deal with this woman's behavior on an organizational level.