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Strollerderby
State Outlaws ‘Friendships’ Between Teachers, Students
Teachers must unfriend students: it's the law.
Me? I love a little emotional distance from the under-18 set. While I send my children to a school where kids use the teachers’ first names and even the youngest ones have input on what’s good student conduct, I’m still pretty old school. I love nicely defined kid-adult boundaries.
But I get it, I get it. Social networking, times have changed, 40 is the new 30 and 12 is the new 25. Age doesn’t matter, we’re all friends here.
Not so, say lawmakers in one state who have had enough of student-teacher Facebook “friendships.”
Teachers in the state of Missouri have until August 28 to unfriend any and all students on their personal Facebook accounts.
It’s part of an effort to more clearly define student-teacher boundaries, the lawmakers say. And also to protect kids from teacher sexual misconduct.
Teachers will still be allowed to create Facebook Pages, where students and teachers can interact through social media but in a more public setting.
I’m not sure about making this into a law, but then we’ve seen examples of teachers who haven’t really understood the reach their personal posts have in their schools and communities. So maybe a law will save a reputation or two.
Do you friend kids on Facebook? Are you careful with what you post?
Photo: @boetter via flickr
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9 Comments
Lisa commented on Aug 01 11 at 5:59 pmI have a long standing policy of not friending any student at my school. If they move on (or I do) and they still want to be my friend, I will accept the invitation.
Sara commented on Aug 01 11 at 7:04 pmWhat exactly qualifies as a student? Would my dad not have been able to friend me in HS because he taught at my HS?
Kristy commented on Aug 01 11 at 9:56 pmToo bad all the students in Missouri will miss out on the current and future benefits of social networking thanks to this decision. If teachers aren’t allowed to friend students, I doubt they’ll be allowed to incorporate the positive aspects of this technology into their classes. So rather than prepare students with appropriate digital citizenship curriculum, they’re choosing to bury their heads in the sand and pretend like the Internet isn’t going to catch on. Of course teachers should be careful about what they post and how they interact with students, but this legislation sounds extreme.
Shannon commented on Aug 01 11 at 10:46 pmI think this is definitely a good idea. Teachers are authority figures, not your friends. You can be friends with your teachers after graduation. I taught for 6 years and made a point of keeping my personal life separate from my professional life. I didn’t need students (or more likely their parents, since I taught elementary special ed) to know that I liked to drink and go clubbing on weekends and that sometimes my job drove me crazy. I didn’t WANT to have to be careful of what I posted on Facebook. Teachers can take advantage of technology through class websites and email. You don’t need to bring in the social networking aspect into the teacher-student relationship.
Jennifer commented on Aug 02 11 at 12:04 pmI agree with Shannon. I like the line. We have other methods of incorporating social networking that are specific to school now, so using Facebook isn’t totally necessary. Don’t know that a law is/was needed though.
Mistress_Scorpio commented on Aug 02 11 at 12:46 pmSomehow, teachers and students were capable of inappropriate relationships prior to the advent of Facebook.
Brandi commented on Aug 02 11 at 2:58 pmI think the idea & intent of such laws are coming from good places, just the fact that it’s becoming LAW is very very scary. The government needs to stay out of our PERSONAL lives. It scares me to my very core that people voted to put this in place. People are asking, practically begging the government to infringe on our personal freedoms all in the name of “protecting” an extremely small number of people/children. I’m not saying this issue shouldn’t be addressed, however it should be a local school district issue at most.
Sandy commented on Oct 04 11 at 1:32 amI am a teacher and I make it a practice not to “friend” students on Facebook or any other social networking site. I simply just don’t want any trouble. Also, I want to keep my life outside of school hours a private thing.
TheStrid commented on Nov 18 11 at 9:47 pmI am a teacher at an alternative high school, one of those first name teacher places, which I love. I will totally be internet friends with kids, after they graduate. If they quit school and then come back, I unfriend them, after I explain why, and then they can friend me again when they graduate. I also never seek out and friend kids, I wait for them, and as the English teacher, I am pretty upset that friend has become a verb. The other thing is, I consider my facebook page a public forum, so I wouldn’t post derogatory comments about my students on it, just like I wouldn’t talk about them in the grocery store.
PS to other English teachers…yes, I know the grammar is not so bueno in this writing sample. :)
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