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Should Your Students Be Your “Friends”?

In his blog post, “Why Facebook Is these sites.... 2) People on these sites send for Old Fogies,” Lev Grossman of Time friendship requests to friends of people magazine lists 10 reasons why the popular _social _networking _site _is _more _useful _{for middle-aged} _folks _than _the _kids _who _{first embraced} _it. they have linked to. A teacher would be- _come _the “_guarantor” _of _all _of _his _or _{her online} _{friends—including} _all _of _the _{ma- terial} _these _friends _post _and _the _friend’s

“Facebook is about finding people interactions with students. you’ve lost track of,” Grossman writes.

The post garnered 23 responses:
“And, son, we’ve lost track of more people
than you’ve ever met.” You often ask us to avoid blaming the

The Facebook story of the year is not technology. I think this might be an about lurking predators or lost opportunities from young example of that. If a teacher gets a phone call at home people posting inappropriate photos for potential employ- and a student’s name is on caller ID, should he answer ers to view. What’s made Facebook newsworthy lately is it? A lot of flirting happens on the phone. that this tech tool has become so mainstream even (gasp!) —Brandt Schneider parents are using it.

I don’t accept students as friends. At one time, I ac-

With more than 175 million active users, many of them
cepted them without question until a number of them
30- and 40-somethings, it might follow that social network-
went away to college and started uploading pictures
ing would become accepted in schools as well. Not so.
of themselves doing keg stands, playing beer pong, or
Larry Anderson, founder of the National Center for
something similar. — Patrick Malley
Technology Planning, wrote in his NCTP blog that he was
floored when a teacher recently told him he would be fired I remember years ago when e-mail first began, we
for having a Facebook page. Anderson’s response: thought that students should not have e-mail accounts,
then we thought a teacher should not e-mail a student.
During recess times, don’t we actually encourage
The idea of e-mailing or texting a student information
students to interact with each other? We even create
about a homework assignment has now become the
games and other situations during recess that force
norm. —Rob Darrow
students to “network.” What excuses do we cling to
that lull us into believing these situations are not as When it comes to social networking sites such as
dangerous as interactions on Facebook? Do we think Facebook, I wonder how students are going to learn
that since we’re monitoring students’ activities on the responsible use without engaged adults providing
playground, nothing will happen? feedback and advice. —Shannon Walters

But many educators, even those who embrace Web 2.0, are wary of Facebook. Doug Johnson wrote in The Blue Skunk Blog that he was recently asked if a teacher should “friend” his or her students on Facebook. His response: “Absolutely not.” He felt it violated the teacher–student relationship and could lead to inappropriate interactions. He quoted Nancy Willard, founder of the Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use, who said:

Any teacher who links to a student on MySpace or

Facebook is an ABSOLUTE FOOL! I strongly support and advise district policies against this for 2 reasons: 1) There is a vast amount of flirting that goes on on

Anderson says the main advantage of Facebook for him is the connections, and there’s a lesson in that. “Is there value in building connections among people?” he asks. “Is there value in teaching students how to handle personal interactions? Is there value in digging deeper to learn more about the people we call ‘friends’?”