Should students and teachers ever be friends on Facebook?
It's a new question school districts around the country are having to consider.
In some cases, there's been inappropriate contact when the friending has occurred.
According to the Huffington Post, a teacher in New York "friended several female students and wrote comments including 'this is sexy' under their photos." And this: "A substitute teacher sent a message to a student saying that her boyfriend did not "deserve a beautiful girl like you."
At the same time, districts have to consider the academic benefits of social networking. There are some who say social media – particularly Facebook – can be an excellent means of communicating with today's youth, since a great majority log onto Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and other Internet mechanisms on a daily basis.
Nancy Willard, author of "Cyber Savvy: Embracing Digital Safety and Civility," is quoted in the Huffington Post article. She sees a fundamental problem with Facebook.
"On Facebook, flirting is encouraged," she told HuffPo. "You are encouraged to post your relationship status and your relationship interests. That's not appropriate for a relationship between teachers and students."
What do you think? What do your kids think? If you're a teacher, what are your feelings? Take our poll, and leave us your comments.
Those who voted no, perhaps do not understand Facebook and how to use it and how all the privacy functions work. Everyone is really busy, including students, so when getting messages to kids, you have to go to where the kids are, and we know they are checking Facebook.
Facebook didn't cause any of those teachers to say or do inappropriate things; Facebook merely provided an electronic paper trail documenting those teachers' inappropriateness. In that sense, Facebook is making students safer, because if those bad teachers weren't posting their weirdness on Facebook, there'd be no documentation of it and no parents or school administrators would ever find out about it. If your child had a pervert for a teacher, wouldn't you rather have that pervert incriminating himself on Facebook so you can bring screen shots to the police and school officials? I think you would, if the alternative is for him to remain undercover because of stupid prohibitions against teachers and students interacting on Facebook.
Some teachers do a generic fb page and allow parents to friend that, but what teacher is going to want her students parents in their personal business...
Moral of the story. Teachers should make an alternate fb just for students/teachers.
My students who I sub for do not know my first name, and it's for good reason. I don't want them to send me a Facebook friend request. It has nothing to do with my "privacy" or anything like that, but it's because our relationship is specifically teacher-student. Now, I have nothing wrong with a student friend-requesting or messaging their teachers for the sake of academic purposes, but as a substitute, after I am with them for that day (unless it's a long term assignment with a specific class), I have no ties with their academic work, therefore I have no reason to communicate with them outside of the period that I am substituting them for. However, when the time comes that I am no longer substitute teaching and a student happens to discover who I am and sends me a friend request, I have no problem being their Facebook friends and staying connected with them for the future. If I am ever their "current" teacher (and as long as I'm a sub, I will entitle myself with that status), my Facebook friend they will never be. The only fly in the ointment is I have coached softball since my own early days in high school, and I am also currently coaching HS softball. The player-coach relationship works well communicating over Facebook, so I have current and former players on my Facebook friends list which I won't delete for the sole reason that I also happen to sub some of them. It can work out greatly if handled right.
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