Saturday, April 20, 2013

Good Morning!

I didn't find anything on the blogs that I frequent that interested me from the past week or so but I did find a post from this time last year on Lisa Nielsen's blog, titled "Not Letting Teachers "Friend" & "Follow" Kids Online? Think Twice!" http://theinnovativeeducator.blogspot.co.il/2012/04/not-letting-teachers-friend-follow-kids.html and felt I must comment.

Lisa bascially tells the reader how policies preventing teachers from friending and following current students are wrong for a number of reasons.
  • She claims that in the same way that potential employees are checked out via Facebook, students need to be prepared for this experience and teachers friending them "helps youngsters keep their behavior in check."
  • Furthermore, Lisa claims that teachers interacting with students on social media encourages them to learn how to use it constructively.
  • She thinks that the policy of forbidding teachers to interact online with students is not ok- why, she asks, are they qualified to work with the students face-to-face for hours on end but not interact with them online?
  • Another argument is that there are cases of teachers behaving inappropriately in "real life" which, Lisa claims, is far more traumatic than inappropraite online interaction.
I disagrred pretty much with her whole stance- I think there do have to be clear boundaries between teachers and students- if teachers want to "friend" past students then fine but friending current students is, in my eyes, inappropriate. As far as her arguments concerning vetting the students- those students have parents- I am not their parent and I do not need to vet their behavior outside of the school grounds. Parents are the primary educators in a child's life and they need to take responsibility for their children offline and online. Additionally, I think that online interactions can be far mroe dangerous than "real life" ones ...I could go on but am short for time. This article just annoyed me and I just wanted to say that we , as teachers, can try and educate the students about safe internet use, etc but, at the end of the day, parents need to step up and take responsibility for ther children...
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2 comments:

  1. YehoshuaApril 21, 2013 at 6:57 AM

    Also, when a teacher is witness to inapproriate postings/behaviour online, they are in quite a bind. Comment? Not necassarily your place to do so. Be silent? That may be viewed as tacit acceptance and approval. In class (or at home with kids) one can turn a blind eye an pretend they didn't see, but here, it is much more complicated.

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  2. rivkahApril 21, 2013 at 11:32 PM

    Right-thanks for the comment. This is another reason why I think they don't need to be friending students- it is not their problem.

    I do believe that school is, more than anything else, the place where students are molded to be good citizens etc and teachers should be concerned with what goes on outside of their classroom- but, like I said above, teachers are not parents of their students and do not have to police the students' actions outside of school.

    What I'm trying to say is that there's a fine line between yes reacting to events that happen outside of the classroom, bringing them up in the safe environment of the classroom ,etc and overstepping the teacher-student relationship boundaries..

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