NYC Teachers Forbidden To "Friend" Students

betterunixthanunix writes "The New York City Department of Education has issued rules covering student-teacher interactions on social networking websites. Following numerous inappropriate relationships between students and teachers that began on social networking sites, the rules prohibit teachers from communicating with students using their 'personal' accounts, and requires parental consent before students can participate in social networking for educational purposes. The rules also state that teachers have no expectation of privacy online, and that principals and other officials will inspect teachers' profiles. Oddly, the rules do not address communication involving cell phones, which the Department of Education's own investigations have shown to be even more problematic."

Comments

Freedom

[Nerdfest]

Freedom of association? Does that apply? Why do educators seem to love tossing out personal rights and freedoms? Between this, video cameras on laptops, insisting on viewing personal accounts, etc, it's just disheartening. Why not RFID tag them all or lock them in cells on their personal time?

Re:Freedom

[idontgno]

It does seem like a pretty poor recruiting pitch.

Hey! We need you! Your students will hate you, your administration will suspect you, you'll be paid a pittance for long hours and much work, you'll be subject to every lawsuit a disgruntled punk can talk his drunken mother into starting, you'll pay for your supplies out of pocket, we may have to lay you off with almost no warning, and we'll be spying on you on-line. But other than that, it's a dream job!

Re:Freedom

[BootysnapChristAlive]

But most employers don't have control over impressionable young children for 5 or 6 hours per day.

And most people aren't child molesters... And I happen to disagree with collective punishment.

"For the children! For the children! Anyone who disagrees with me is underage/is a pedophile/doesn't have kids! There are pedophiles behind every corner, and since I claim to be a parent, that means I'm always 100% correct!"

I hope you're trolling with those nonsensical assumptions.

Re:Freedom

[similar_name]

So you can trust a person to have control over your impressionable young children for 5 to 6 hours a day but you're worried about them being a friend on Facebook?

Re:Freedom

[similar_name]

I'd be worried if they WANTED to be my child's friend on facebook.

So anecdotally let me say something about my ex. She taught for a few years and we didn't have children. She still had the instinct to be a mom and I think that made her very engaged with her students. She also taught at some less than desirable schools where a lot of kids are lacking with regard to their parents. Many had one parent in jail and the other working late or not around.

She was friends with some of her students on Facebook. They looked up to her and I think she felt better being a positive influence in their lives when they had so many negative influences. They both got something positive out of it. It's a shame to stop that scenario from happening because there are also bad teachers.

Now I'm biased. My ex was a teacher, my mom is a teacher, my sister is a teacher and my brother in-law is a teacher. They truly enjoy teaching and they become particularly engaged with kids that need it the most. Sometimes a kid really needs someone to look up to and sometimes that person is a teacher.

It should be taken under consideration how many kids will suffer from not being able to have a teacher be in their life outside of school. There are pros and cons to these sorts of guidelines and I think the cons are vastly overlooked. And the pros often exaggerated. I mean will this really prevent a teacher from being inappropriate with a student if that is their intent?

(Well, actually, my child will not have a facebook account until they are way past the impressionable age, but that's beside the point).

I think that's an important point. You're concerned about Facebook so you don't let your kids have one. You're being a parent and that will go much further than these guidelines will. Some kids are so lucky and a teacher can make a big difference in their lives and it's not because they taught them how to add.

The issue is about supervision

[kenh]

I hope they worked out the boundary cases (teachers that are parents of students, etc). But by and large I think this is a reasonable first step.

No, I'm not trying to deny the inevitable march into social media, but the issues with Facebook friending are:

- possibility of mixing work and personal lives of teachers - there are many things that teachers are expected to not do in and around students in school, including students into their private social media could create problems

- inability of schools to monitor relationships between students and teachers, hoping to detect, if not prevent them from happening

When I last read about this type of issue, the proposed law was very clear - is a school district runs a Facebook-like web site that includes the ability to monitor communications between employees (teachers) and customers (students) that was fine.

Why do teachers need to 'friend' under-age students of theirs? And no, arguing that this is how kids want to communicate with their teachers isn't good enough - there are too many alternatives for teachers to answer questions, distribute class work, etc.

Re:The issue is about supervision

[BootysnapChristAlive]

- possibility of mixing work and personal lives of teachers - there are many things that teachers are expected to not do in and around students in school, including students into their private social media could create problems

- inability of schools to monitor relationships between students and teachers, hoping to detect, if not prevent them from happening

So basically, an entire group of people should be banned from doing something merely because some people in that group may do things that some people do not agree with? You only speak of possibilities here. This is a perfect example of a collective punishment mentality.

Why do teachers need to 'friend' under-age students of theirs?

Why do you need to get on Facebook? Why do you need entertainment? How about, "Why not?" You just waive off all of their opinions just like that. There are few things that people "need." I'd prefer to not live in fear that teachers will abuse their power. I'd prefer to not punish all of them merely because some of them could do so.

Idiotic Luddite shitheads

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't you also ban teachers from talking to students if they see them in a mall or on the street? This smacks of some luddite shithead who dislikes Facebook deciding on behalf of other people who should use it and how they should use it.

The real issue is that people use their personal social networking accounts to broadcast inappropriate information to all their "friends" (who are really aquaintances). I'm afraid that's dangerous no matter what your profession. 200+ people do NOT need to know that you got drunk, took drugs, got laid, are depressed, like inappropriate jokes, hate work, that your kid vomited, or that your pet did something cute. Thing is it should be self-policed, not regulated.

So what happens if the Facebook profile is public? Is the teacher automatically fired? And if it's not public how the hell do you police this? How do you determine a breach has occurred? Do you force them to reveal their passwords to you regularly? Do you force all students? Are we talking NYC or China here? Perhaps you want teachers to stay off the social networks. Anti-social teachers are the new gold standard.

The sad thing is teachers who use social media for outreach, to post interesting things, to share education resources....they just get left out in the cold because they are drowned out by the hoard of immature ego-centric Facebook addicted teachers with no life who won't use any resource appropriately no matter how you govern it.

Collectively we all get what we deserve...and at the moment that is a society in steep decline.

Re:What about parents of students who are teachers

[Samantha Wright]

It's stated on page 4 of the document, section E, article 1, just after the (a). The provision that communication over personal accounts may not occur between teachers and students is subject to an exception in the case of relatives.

the days when we were not all afraid.

[Anonymous Coward]

I went to school in the 1960's, and obviously social networking and the internet were not a factor. I can't say there were any fewer problems then, but the major difference I see is that were not all afraid.

I'm sure there were unethical and inappropriate contacts between teachers and students then just as now, but it seems like if there was a problem, it was dealt with, but we didn't feel the need to live paranoid lives where everyone was a potential predator and rules about who could talk to who, when, and where had to be put all over the place. If you wanted to see a teacher 1:1 outside of school, you were free to do that. Some students did who were having family problems, sometimes with abusive parents, and they had no one else to turn to.

These days... everyone is afraid of their shadows. How the world has changed.

Re:Even though it shoud probably not be illegal...

[Hentes]

But it's a medium that the kids use, so if a teacher wants to effectively communicate them it seems like an obvious choice.

Re:Good.

[justin12345]

Read the WSJ's publication of the actual policy. It essentially prohibits teachers from actively using the internet except in a professionally approved setting, unless they can be certain that their privacy (anonymity) is assured.

It's not just about Facebook. If you're a teacher and you have a blog (even one you intended to be anonymous) and you students comment on it you could face disciplinary action. The way it's worded even an unauthorized slashdot post could be construed as inappropriate contact if a student posts in the same thread and knows the teacher's handle.

Re:Good.

[t27duck]

Mr. Justin, is that you?

Can I get a three day extension on my final project?

Re:What about parents of students who are teachers

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes god forbid that they should not be indoctrinated into the hierarchical order. They might get to thinking that all men are equal or some other such stupidity. And it would be a truly terrible thing if a younger person develops a friendship with a more mature person and as a result they picked up some of the maturity themselves.
Provided these relationships are not secret, where is the harm? If you do not trust students and teachers to behave responsibly then what do you see happening when the world is run by the students that have been taught by those teachers. If you think you can't trust anybody to act responsibly and think that more authority is the answer to this then who do you envisage administering this authority and why do you think you can trust them any more than anyone else?

Re:Good.

[Mashiki]

Good. That behavior is unprofessional.

No, it's not unprofessional. I'm guessing you didn't grow up at the end of the era where having teachers over for dinner was common. Didn't end all that long ago, just back in the 90's. Most of my favorite teachers came over on my invite, with the permission of my parents.

I'm still in touch with a couple of them, about half of them are dead. But my mechanics, science and history teachers? When I'm back in the americas they still come over to visit, and hear about my travels and take things that I've brought or pictures or other tidbits to show their classes. Hell I've spoken infront of their classes in the last 3 years, and I'm nobody important, just someone who has a fascination with learning and traveling.