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I recently read a post on
Dangerously Irrelevant and came across a post that talked about Facebook and students. So right away I was intrigued. Of all the posts on the blog, this one caught my attention the most. It is about "friending" your students who add you. The post mentions that they go through multiple steps and criteria that classifies when they befriend a student and when they defriend a student. This teacher believes in adding the student under certain conditions. I guess my opinion in this is that there needs to be a fine line between student and teacher. I think that a teacher can add a student after they are out of their class and no longer their professional teacher. I have been using this method with coaching my jr. high baseball teams. I have gotten multiple friend request from my players and I feel that I need to stay professional so I ignore them until they are done playing for me. This year I will inform my players of this rule so they are aware of it. I feel that this keeps a level of professionalism between player and coach. This can correlate to the classroom as well.
I agree with you that there is a line between student and teacher/coach. If you want to friend students then maybe you should have a school facebook account and a personal one. This way your post could be school relevant and not include things from your personal life. I don't post things that would not be appropriate for them to read I just feel that my personal posts and those of friends do not need to be viewed by my students.
ReplyDeleteSandra
John,
ReplyDeleteI agree 110%. As teachers we need to be professional, by adding students it can make the student feel like we are more of there "friend" and not there teacher. Of course we want are students to feel comfortable around us, and want them to be able to ask us questions but I don't think by be friends on facebook is going to make the students more comfortable. I think you should be able to add your students once they graduate or are finished with your class!
-Austin Jacobson
This is a tricky line that we teachers have to tread.
ReplyDeleteZ
BTW, NOW I get the play on words you use for your title.
ReplyDeleteZ
Glad to hear it. I thought that the capitalization would help out! You should consider going to the game this weekend Z. Should be a good one!
ReplyDeleteHi John,
ReplyDeleteI wrote about the post from Dangerously Irrelevent on my blog...newdadat40.wordpress.com. I agree with you there is such a fine line between teachers/coaches and students. I have seen teachers get themselves in a bind with parents by friending students. The more I have thought about it is having a professional teacher page. I think that is a happy medium.
Have a great week! Good luck! Go Panthers!