This weekend I decided to Google my sons’ teachers. I have a first grader and a fourth grader and don’t know either of their teachers. I was able to find one of their teachers on Facebook. I found out a little bit more about him and his family. I also found out a little more about how one of the boy’s teachers likes to run and some of the clubs she is involved with in the community.
I felt a little guilty, but then I thought, “These people are with my kids six and half hours a day, I deserve to know the most about them.” In this day and age we can’t know too much about the people who are teaching our children. What if they were in the news for something crazy or something that wasn’t illegal, but something I didn’t agree with?
In my searching, I noticed that some of my friends, who are parents, are friends with one of my son’s teachers. I know they weren’t friends in high school or university and they didn’t work together, so what was their link? It made me wonder if I should friend my kids’ teachers.
This article, from TODAYMoms, warns against parents and teachers interacting on social networks. Jill Schulman-Riemer, a former teacher, tutor, and educational consultant, says teachers and parents should keep their distance outside of the classroom, particularly online.
“Parents friending teachers and teachers friending parents can be a slippery slope. You put a lot of trust in your children’s teachers. We all need to stay in our professional roles with each other, and Facebook just isn’t a place for that.”
We should all know that things on the internet can be misinterpreted or read in the wrong way. It could be that a teacher may not agree with something in a student’s homelife or a parent may not agree with something on a teacher’s Facebook page. Many states are wroking on creating laws to regulate student/teacher/parent interactions in social media.
Missouri’s new “Facebook Law” requires every school district to have a formal policy in place regarding students and school employees online communications.
“It encourages social media with teachers but there is a lot of training and rules to make sure no lines are crossed. Instead of using private accounts, teachers create open Facebook ‘fan pages’ to communicate homework assignments and class activities.
Private messaging is allowed, but the rules are clear: there must be a school designated public device, parents and the principal must be aware and it has to be used during ‘appropriate times.'”
It seems like a new issue that parents and teachers will have to navigate carefully. I decided that I wouldn’t be friends on Facebook or any other social network with my children’s teachers unless we were friends first. I want us to be focused on my sons’ education and not on finding out what the teachers did this weekend.
Are you Facebook friends with your child’s teacher? Do you think there is a line parents and teachers shouldn’t cross?
