Teachers on Facebook (or: Ah! What’s a teacher to do?)

Posted on August 24, 2009 | by billselak

Being a teacher in this social networking era is a balancing act. Do you want to find old friends? Do you want all your students (and their parents) to see “what’s on your mind”? Do you have 3 accounts for each social networking site? I’ve heard of two extremes:

1) Share everything (hide nothing).

I have friends that are quite candid on Facebook. You know really personal things (which can be good and bad). Some of these friends are teachers, and they share everything… from they can’t wait to get out of class to drunken photos from Saturday night. If you do this and you’re a teacher, don’t add your students as friends.

2) Hide from the world.

I have friends that join Facebook, but are impossible to find–friends like beachgoer05. It’s impossible to find them online, which sorta defeats the purpose of being online.

There’s got to be a better way! Maybe, teachers can be online, but remain professional. They can share photos of family events without their students commenting on their outfits. So, here’s what I propose: do not add a k-12 student as a friend on anything. If you want to keep in touch, create a teacher account, where you do nothing personal.