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Missouri Hedges On 'Teachers Can't Friend Students' Law
bs0d3 writes with an excerpt from an AP story, as carried by NECN.com: "Missouri senators took a step Wednesday toward repealing a contentious new law limiting online conversations between teachers and students, but stirred opposition from the governor by still attempting to mandate that schools adopt their own policies about online chats and text messages. The action by the Senate Education Committee comes a couple of weeks after a Missouri judge blocked the new law on teacher-Internet communications from taking effect because of concerns it infringes on free-speech rights."
That's not the point, the point "why does the child need to fucking be legally banned from friending a teacher on FB or vice versa?"
It's a good thing if teachers have a Facebook account that deals with class related issues, allows students to communicate about homework, ask questions, expand the subject, etc.
It's a bad thing if teachers have a Facebook account they use to buddy with their students simply to share pictures, schmooze, gossip and otherwise engage in behavior that is unbecoming a teacher.
The law is entirely unnecessary as this is a matter of professional conduct to be handled on the teacher level and administration level, not a state government level. Banning Facebook in this manner is like banning teachers from using email, telephones, Skype or any other technology to communicate appropriately with students. So you want teachers to remain teaching with nothing but in person voice, chalk and blackboard for the next 300 years?
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
The schools are running scared. School IT admin seems to lag everywhere by a generation or two or three. We're going through the latest round of IT snafus in our school system as the year begins, and it's really quite sad.
I think the blanket "protective" rules are aimed at setting up bright lines that any idiot can administer without really dealing with the human beings involved or reflecting on how porous technology makes communication to anyone determined. Seduction (in either direction) is a *social* problem not tech, and sure wasn't invented recently. These rules won't stop the problem, they're just a way of the schools burying their heads in the sand instead of dealing with the content of the problem. It's like relying on curfew to stop teenage pregnancy. Preventing abusive relationships is an education topic, not appropriate for some idiotic 50's notion that the key is to prevent the communication of "bad ideas" -- or than the medium generates the ideas!
The real issue is that the law does/did nothing to protect students from predatory teachers. Missouri also has a law that if a sign is posted banning hand guns in a facility, then you can't bring them in. Like the facebook law, this law also does nothing to protect people from somebody intent on doing harm (maybe the signs are made out of kevlar).
The real problem with these types of laws are that they are emotional based to give the appearance that something is being done, when in reality, they provide little if any protections to the people they purport to protect. With regards to the facebook law, now only did it not add any real protection, but it was a poorly crafted/worded law and banned all kinds of electronic communications between teachers and students, far more than friending somebody on FB.
Ironically, under the law as it stood, it was a criminal offense to email a student or former student but not send them an actual letter. Interestingly, since the law applied to all school personnel, not just teachers, it also meant that guidance counselors, nurses, etc., could not communicate with the students electronically. Makes it kind of hard to send out information regarding scholarships, too.
The law could have avoided all of this by only restricting communications that would not be outside of the realm of what constitutes normal communications between a school employee and a student. That way, a counselor creating a FB page regarding scholarships information or when recruiters will be at the high school would not be illegal.
In effect, that is what the legislative committee is recommending -- that these types of decisions (ie acceptable use of electronic communications) be set on the local level by local authorities.
It may take a village to raise a child, but it doesn't require the government to do so.
You think that if the government decides you don't need something its ok to make it illegal. You Nanny State Government knows whats best for us Liberals make me ill. Why do you hate freedom so much. You would have been a good communist. "Nyet, nyet, we don't need our guns, you can take them, Comrade Stalin will protect us."
Woosh!
Liberals - Want to limit your rights to: speech that might offend someone, take risks for yourself, own things that look dangerous (firearms), do anything that might go against "its for the children"
Conservatives - Want to limit your rights to: speech that might offend someone, have sexual liasons with the same gender, own things that look dangerous (technology) do anything that might go against "its for the children"
Its not about left/right liberal/conservative or whatever the banned thing is, its all about control.