Social Media Engagement: Should Teachers and Students Be Friends?

Tuesday, December 8th 2009 by Katie Stansberry
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Recent efforts to make Facebook safer for kids may provide more options to control who sees what postings, but they may not address affect the fundamental conundrum facing educators – whether they can or should engage with  students in social media networks like Facebook…

Friend requests from students have caused quite a dilemma for teachers in several school districts in Georgia that have recently proposed policies restricting how teachers and students can interact online.

According to the article “Ga. District Hones Social Media Policy” published Nov. 19 by Teacher Magazine, teachers in Barrow County near Atlanta, Georgia are facing a proposed policy that would prohibit teachers from interacting with students as peers, both online and off, and would ban them from posting “provocative photographs, sexually explicit messages, use of alcohol, drugs or anything students are prohibited from doing,” on their personal social media pages.

Although I maintain a personal Facebook page, I have a policy against Friending students. On occasion I will accept friend requests from students after they graduate, but I’m concerned about blurring the line between social and professional relationships.

I’m sure most middle and high school, and maybe even some elementary school teachers face this kind of dilemma. Do you interact with your students through social media sites? What do you think of administrative oversight of educators’ online activities?

One of the commenters quoted in the Teacher Magazine piece expressed concern about students who see teachers as confidants, particularly young people who have no other close adults they can trust. Could restricting student/teacher relationships be detrimental for students? Or is it a good idea to have clearly defined boundaries supported by official policies?

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8 Comments

Lori Reed

Tuesday, 8th December 2009 at 2:45 pm
 

I maintain a separate Myspace account on which my middle & high school students can communicate with me. I do not post anything personal on this page and all of the pictures are “G” rated. This way, students can connect with me on their level without any worry about them being exposed to any offhand remarks or photos which might be posted by other adults.

I have students from 2 and 3 years ago that still message me with the good and bad news in their lives. It’s important that children have adults they can feel safe confiding in.

Noah Geisel

Tuesday, 8th December 2009 at 6:15 pm
 

I agree with Lori. Smart policy is to have separate accounts for personal and professional use. http://www.TeachPaperless.com blogged on this very topic on Sunday: http://bit.ly/7EpB3i

Andra Brichacek

Tuesday, 8th December 2009 at 6:49 pm
 

There is an interesting discussion on this topic on the L&L group page on the ISTE Community Ning.

Bonnie

Tuesday, 8th December 2009 at 8:43 pm
 

I personally do not friend students. Everyone needs some privacy. My students have my home phone number and two email addresses where they can contact me if they have questions about assignments, so I don’t friend them on Facebook or any other social networking site because I’m not comfortable doing so; I need to draw lines between my professional and personal lives for my own emotional and mental health. No one can be “on” all the time.

Yvonne Field

Wednesday, 9th December 2009 at 12:06 pm
 

I am a teacher at a postsecondary, residential, music school for student with developmental disabilities. Our students face challenges in understanding and maintaining proper boundaries. I do not friend current or graduated students because facebook is a website that I use to keep in touch with my family and friends and friending students would allow them access to my personal life, crossing the boundary from professional to friend. I feel this is completely inappropriate. The dilema that we face at our school though is how to teach students to use facebook safely without being their friend on facebook. We do a lot of modeling of “correct” behaviors at our school but this is one area where the students models are not the teachers but the other students who are their friends on facebook and anyone else they choose to friend. One hopes that parents monitoring their chilren’s activities on facebook. Perhaps the push in education should be towards getting parents up to date on the dangers of facebook and how to keep their children safe.

mistermark

Wednesday, 9th December 2009 at 12:58 pm
 

Personally, i don’t befriend students, current or past.

I constantly am considering and re-considering this – and still don’t have a definitive answer. I think having two accounts is a decent solution – and this is how i’ve handled my in-class social networking activities…

HOWEVER

this i believe to be a major difference and a challenge. Our students don’t differentiate in their online lives like we feel the need to. When they “friend” our other identity they give us access to a lot of stuff that…to be honest I do not want.

A lot of the buzz of these technologies (who’s momentum we are hoping to use to drive us toward our learning goals) is using the power of true social networking – and the students’ love for it – to drive an educational goal. If they were to beginning creating other identities for “school stuff” then a lot of that power could be lost, or in other terms we would return to simply “doing this for the teacher”.

My attitude is that although the definition of “friend” is rapidly changing – the one that i use…doesn’t include my students. Thus i do not include them in my “friends” on facebook…

like i said at the outset, a lot of thought…but no real answers…

Lori R

Saturday, 21st August 2010 at 1:49 pm
 

I teach 7th-12th grade students in a private school in SC. We do not have any policy prohibiting normal faculty/student interaction on Facebook.

Our school is purposefully relational. Teachers actively work to form solid relationships with students that are healthy, respectful, and genuine. We hope students will see us as mentors as well as educators, and ask for help when they are overwhelmed with classwork or life.

This educational structure has promoted an incredibly positive environment for discipline and instruction. For example, classroom misbehavior is handled within the context of a teacher/student partnership that already exists. As a teacher, I can say to a student, “Let’s talk about what happened in class today,” and the student knows our interaction will be “normal” not “awkward.” They know that I will listen to their side of the story because I “listen” to them talk about their lives all the time. We aren’t adversaries.

Every one of the teachers at my school has a Facebook account. The school does not have a policy regarding teacher/student FB relationships; I think all but one teacher in our history has accepted FB Friend requests from our students.. but it’s a personal decision. We have a vibrant, active, caring relationship with the student body as a whole which carries on as students graduate and go through college.

I urge educators to see themselves and students as real people, and work to bring that viewpoint into the classroom. Distancing your life from your students can trigger accusations of hypocrisy from students. They know you “have a life.” Pretending you don’t doesn’t really help anything. And if a teacher doesn’t have enough maturity to avoid posting sexually explicit material all over their Facebook or getting so slam drunk on the weekends that people post shocking images online… perhaps that person is in the wrong career?

Seeing you, an adult, maturely and wisely work through the challenges of everyday life gives kids the tools to build healthy coping strategies for their own problems. Teens desperately need stable, caring adults in their lives as they face Big Questions.

Be honest to your students about the differences between being an adult and being a minor. *I* can drink beer because I’m in my 30s. My students can’t drink beer because 1) they aren’t legal, and 2) most of their parents would forbid it anyway. When kids grouse about the difference in privileges, I remind them that life isn’t fair. Ticking off parents rarely ends well. The mature response is to learn self-control, and stop thinking that alcohol is the magic portal to a good time.

As parents get to know us teachers and see that we genuinely care about their kids as people, they are willing to see “school” as a community rather than a place. Students need to learn how to interact with adults outside the classroom, which is a relatively artificial environment. And while educators have many things to fear (including litigation), we must do what is best rather than what makes us feel “safe.”

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