Social Media Engagement: Should Teachers and Students Be Friends?
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?
7 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.
friends or facebook friends? | educating for the journey
Tuesday, 8th December 2009 at 3:15 pm
[...] from: http://www.isteconnects.org/2009/12/08/social-media-engagement-should-teachers-and-students-be-frien... [...]
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…
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