I thought about doing something on the Olympics, but I think it's been well covered throughout the media. Instead, I thought we would read on about the problem with social networking and student-teacher relationships. Click here for your article.
Now, this article (like our previous discussion on Marijuana) isn't really all that clear cut. Sure, a vast majority of these teachers who keep a facebook or MySpace site are just on it for their own stuff, and when kids find it, all they want to do is seem cool by being friends with their teacher. The problem (as is quite obvious), lies within that percentage of teachers who either don't understand boundaries correctly or those that are just predatory and took to the job "because of the easy availability of kids." Should we err on the side of caution and ensure that kids can't have this out of school contact with their teachers? Let's look at each side.
The first side is that allowing teachers and students to have these relationships through social networking sites allows them the chance to build more trust between the two parties and could even help with student's grades and their willingness to learn. It also could help with cases of abuse (not between the student and teacher, although it would provide evidence for court cases - that's a good thing) because as the teacher gains the student's trust, they can become more open to things that are happening outside of the walls of the school. Aside from this little trust thing, it gives the students that one more way to feel like they are part of the community. By being "friends" with other students and teachers, the networking provides them this opportunity to see that they belong.
On the other side of the coin comes the abuses of all of the points mentioned above. Teacher's sites and comments can be taken out of context and used to destroy careers and lives. Relationships can become much more than they were originally intended, leading to legal troubles (we won't get into the ethics of love between a 30 year old teacher and a 15 year old student, because I don't really know the answer to that). There is also the point that relationships need to be fostered in person, and not through stupid online "networking."
Basically, I think that although there are ways to look at each side of the issue, but I really don't think that a complete ban of networking between the students and teachers to be a real solution to the problem. Truth be told, even if we take these steps, predators will find their way through. The real solution comes from us being a tightnit community with not only our own children, but those in our churches and neighborhoods. This way, odd behavior and trouble can be spotted and stopped before things get out of hand.
Until tomorrow, wherein we shall discover the amazingness of button mashing in Soul Calibur 4.
Now, this article (like our previous discussion on Marijuana) isn't really all that clear cut. Sure, a vast majority of these teachers who keep a facebook or MySpace site are just on it for their own stuff, and when kids find it, all they want to do is seem cool by being friends with their teacher. The problem (as is quite obvious), lies within that percentage of teachers who either don't understand boundaries correctly or those that are just predatory and took to the job "because of the easy availability of kids." Should we err on the side of caution and ensure that kids can't have this out of school contact with their teachers? Let's look at each side.
The first side is that allowing teachers and students to have these relationships through social networking sites allows them the chance to build more trust between the two parties and could even help with student's grades and their willingness to learn. It also could help with cases of abuse (not between the student and teacher, although it would provide evidence for court cases - that's a good thing) because as the teacher gains the student's trust, they can become more open to things that are happening outside of the walls of the school. Aside from this little trust thing, it gives the students that one more way to feel like they are part of the community. By being "friends" with other students and teachers, the networking provides them this opportunity to see that they belong.
On the other side of the coin comes the abuses of all of the points mentioned above. Teacher's sites and comments can be taken out of context and used to destroy careers and lives. Relationships can become much more than they were originally intended, leading to legal troubles (we won't get into the ethics of love between a 30 year old teacher and a 15 year old student, because I don't really know the answer to that). There is also the point that relationships need to be fostered in person, and not through stupid online "networking."
Basically, I think that although there are ways to look at each side of the issue, but I really don't think that a complete ban of networking between the students and teachers to be a real solution to the problem. Truth be told, even if we take these steps, predators will find their way through. The real solution comes from us being a tightnit community with not only our own children, but those in our churches and neighborhoods. This way, odd behavior and trouble can be spotted and stopped before things get out of hand.
Until tomorrow, wherein we shall discover the amazingness of button mashing in Soul Calibur 4.
1 comment:
It's a delicate balance I think. Once you allow a student to be an online friend, they can see your pictures, messages, etc. So you have to be careful what you post. I wouldn't want my students to see beach pictures of me in a swimsuit!
This problem goes beyond school too. Think about youth groups and their leaders or scouts and their troop leader. Or just kids at church who want to connect with you.
I think teachers should create separate profiles for their classroom. When I was a teacher, I set up a website for our class. That was back when kids actually thought that was cool. Now a lot of kids are better web designers than actual web designers. So I would create a My Space page just for the class. You could have your personal page completely separate and private and not allow kids to be friends with it.
Finally, kids are smart and they'll understand if you tell them you don't want to add students as friends for perception reasons. It's really no different than telling a student you can't meet with them alone with the classroom door closed. That was a huge issue for me, because I was 22 teaching 16 and 17 year old boys. It's not hard to find a scandal whether it's there or not.
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