Do Your Schools Have These Rules?

[Tiger926]

I am a teacher, and my responsibility to my students doesn't stop at the classroom door because I actually care about them and what happens to them. I don't see how anyone could teach and not care about what happens to the kids in thier charge outside the classroom. If I know something is going on at home, I am not gonig to sit by and do nothing. I have fed hungry kids, seen to it that they have a safe place to sleep, and yes, even had them babysit on occasion. I care about thier futures, and do my best to help them in any way I can. I don't want my interaction with them to be "classroom only", becuase many of them need so much more than that. I cannot fathom being the callous about my students as to say, nope sorry cannot help you. Not my job. No, I am noty their friend, but I do hope that I can be thier role model.

Wow! What great leaps you have made. It's amazing to me that you assume that I am non-caring and callous. That is a horrible thing to assume, and just plain ridiculous. And it actually proves my point of so many teachers having boundary and judgment issues...

What if I told you that I feed, clothe, help find shelter, provide assistance, go to funerals, visit in hospital, set up health centre appointments, bring nurses to school for visits, call for social assistance appointments, provide Christmas baskets, community food sonation program for a food cupboard, donate clothing and baby toys (much of which I purchase with my own money), hand out food giftcards and bus passes, breakfast program, etc. to my students. I have an extremely healthy and positive relationship with my highschool students, as I run a student outreach program. Amazingly, this is all done within the confines of school! Knowing where I live, calling on my home phone or contacting me on Facebook is not necessary in how I run my student outreach program.

Our students are allowed and encouraged to bring their problems to school, but me bringing my personal life into school is not a requisite part of that equation. It's amazing how many things I help my students with, and it's all done within the confines of school, and social media is not a necessary part to any of it.

Tiger

 

[princessmom29]

Wow! What great leaps you have made. It's amazing to me that you assume that I am non-caring and callous. That is a horrible thing to assume, and just plain ridiculous. And it actually proves my point of so many teachers having boundary and judgment issues...

What if I told you that I feed, clothe, help find shelter, provide assistance, go to funerals, visit in hospital, set up health centre appointments, bring nurses to school for visits, call for social assistance appointments, provide Christmas baskets, community food sonation program for a food cupboard, donate clothing and baby toys (much of which I purchase with my own money), hand out food giftcards and bus passes, breakfast program, etc. to my students. I have an extremely healthy and positive relationship with my highschool students, as I run a student outreach program. Amazingly, this is all done within the confines of school! Knowing where I live, calling on my home phone or contacting me on Facebook is not necessary in how I run my student outreach program.

Our students are allowed and encouraged to bring their problems to school, but me bringing my personal life into school is not a requisite part of that equation. It's amazing how many things I help my students with, and it's all done within the confines of school, and social media is not a necessary part to any of it.

Tiger

this is NOT what you said in the post I was quoting however. You said that your involvment with students should ONLY be in the classroom. NONE of the things you say you are donig here are within the confines of classroom only involvment. How can you vist the hospital and never leave the sxhool? Not all of these thigs can be done "within the confines of school". They have nothing to do with the subject you are teaching, and cannot be limited to clasroom involvment only. If this is what you meant them perhaps you should have said so instead of saying your relationship with students ends at the classroom door. I took you at your word there.

I personally have nothing to be afraid of from students knowing where I live. I don't know why a teacher would? I odn't understand why gonig to vist a child in the hospital is acceptable, but having that same child babysit you kids would not be. I just don't sdee it the way you do. I think in order to earn our students trust we have to give a little trust in return. Why should they open up to us at all if our lives out of school are totally off limits. Agian, I don't want them to be my best friend, but they need to know I am human too, and have a life outside of school. There are boundaries there to be sure, but I am not willing to have everything outside of school completely off limits.

 

[Tiger926]

this is NOT what you said in the post I was quoting however. You said that your involvment with students should ONLY be in the classroom. NONE of the things you say you are donig here are within the confines of classroom only involvment. How can you vist the hospital and never leave the sxhool? Not all of these thigs can be done "within the confines of school". They have nothing to do with the subject you are teaching, and cannot be limited to clasroom involvment only. If this is what you meant them perhaps you should have said so instead of saying your relationship with students ends at the classroom door. I took you at your word there.

I personally have nothing to be afraid of from students knowing where I live. I don't know why a teacher would? I odn't understand why gonig to vist a child in the hospital is acceptable, but having that same child babysit you kids would not be. I just don't sdee it the way you do. I think in order to earn our students trust we have to give a little trust in return. Why should they open up to us at all if our lives out of school are totally off limits. Agian, I don't want them to be my best friend, but they need to know I am human too, and have a life outside of school. There are boundaries there to be sure, but I am not willing to have everything outside of school completely off limits.

Perhaps I should have said, school related, sorry for the confusion. But I still stand by my words that our relationship does not need to cross out of the classroom - I can still go to a hospital or a funeral home, which is a public place, with colleages on school time as it's for school business. So, I guess technically that is outside of the classroom, but these are few and far between, and school authorized. But school field trips are off school property, yet they are still school related.

My students open up to me about pretty much everything. All of these are done on school property, face to face. Social media would have no place with private circumstances such as these.

I am a teacher 24 hours a day, as I always am concerned about my students, but most, if not all of my interactions with them are school related and on school property. It's amazing how great this works for students as they know the boundaries and respect them. My students have told me that they trust me more than any other adult in their lives, and that is because of mutual respect and very easily identifiable boundaries for our relationship.

And you hit the nail on the head - teachers do have lives outside of school, that are private. So, students have no business crossing into those lives, whether that be as my babysitter or in the social media forum.

I care immensely about my students, just as I am sure you do, but I have clearly defined parametres for our relationships, just as our professional body, union and school board requires and encourages. It really does make my job as teacher, which by the way, is far more than just pencils and papers, that much easier.

Thanks, and sorry for any confusion, Tiger

 

[leighe]

I personally think the more sensible approach is to encourage/promote *smart* use of technological contact rather than prohibiting it altogether. Banning something that has many legitimate uses and can help teachers better reach students & their families smacks of either covering their butts in the wake of scandal or simply resisting change.

Exactly. Making ridiculous blanket policies instead of dealing with the 1% that were the problem was one of the things I hated most about teaching. And it happens a lot - not just over facebook.

 

[leighe]

And I've also had students babysit before and never thought a thing about it.

 

[sharonmickey]

Disagree with rules from OP's school. I am not nor will I be friends with current students as others have mentioned.

As for rule #2 - DD often babysat for a few of her teachers. They would call or text her cell to see if she was available to babysit. In high school DD was involved in lots of activities and seldom home. The best way to have the teacher contact her for babysitting was by cell.

Also, having been on many high school field trips, students were usually given the teacher in charge's cell number in case there was a problem and the student needed to reach the adult in charge. I've been to Kennywood, Disney World, Busch Gardens, New York City, whale watching and many other places with high school students. There needs to be some way for the students to contact someone if there is a problem. I would not give just any student my cell number - generally the responsible students are the ones who go on the field trips - but if I am in charge of the kids they need to be able to reach me.

Perhaps OP's school provides cell phones for the teachers when on a trip so that students can contact them but our school does not.

 

[luvsJack]

Disagree with rules from OP's school. I am not nor will I be friends with current students as others have mentioned.

As for rule #2 - DD often babysat for a few of her teachers. They would call or text her cell to see if she was available to babysit. In high school DD was involved in lots of activities and seldom home. The best way to have the teacher contact her for babysitting was by cell.

Also, having been on many high school field trips, students were usually given the teacher in charge's cell number in case there was a problem and the student needed to reach the adult in charge. I've been to Kennywood, Disney World, Busch Gardens, New York City, whale watching and many other places with high school students. There needs to be some way for the students to contact someone if there is a problem. I would not give just any student my cell number - generally the responsible students are the ones who go on the field trips - but if I am in charge of the kids they need to be able to reach me.

Perhaps OP's school provides cell phones for the teachers when on a trip so that students can contact them but our school does not.

I don't know 100% for sure, but I don't think they do. I guess they could get around this by giving the kids a parent's number that is on the field trip with them.

I really believe that the principal took a small problem and blew it up. She is one of those type of people that sees one kid throw paper on the ground so the whole grade loses their break. So, if there was one problem with some student texting a teacher or visa versa this would be typical for her reaction.

I really think the texting thing is going overboard but, like I say, typical.

 

[Colleen27]

I don't think this is appropriate at all. Are they in your home? What if your kids say something very private and personal about you? I would never allow a student to babysit my kids, ever. Again, it is past the boundaries of our relationship. Not sure why you would think this is a good idea? I am really perplexed by this... Tiger

I think some of the disconnect here is a small town vs city/suburban mindset. My kids know where many of their teachers live, have been in some of their homes because my kids are friends/teammates with a few teachers' kids, run into them at social events and going places like the grocery store, etc because we're in a small town and most of our teachers live here too. If you're in the city or a suburb and don't live in the district you teach in that kind of out of school contact with the kids would probably feel less normal and more uncomfortable, but in a town of just a few thousand it is an everyday part of life.

In 13 years of school I only remember knowing where one teacher lived, and we discovered that accidentally when we were out trick-or-treating. But it is just different here because of the "everybody knows everybody" nature of a town this size.

 

[Tiger926]

I think some of the disconnect here is a small town vs city/suburban mindset. My kids know where many of their teachers live, have been in some of their homes because my kids are friends/teammates with a few teachers' kids, run into them at social events and going places like the grocery store, etc because we're in a small town and most of our teachers live here too. If you're in the city or a suburb and don't live in the district you teach in that kind of out of school contact with the kids would probably feel less normal and more uncomfortable, but in a town of just a few thousand it is an everyday part of life.

In 13 years of school I only remember knowing where one teacher lived, and we discovered that accidentally when we were out trick-or-treating. But it is just different here because of the "everybody knows everybody" nature of a town this size.

Good point, and I was thinking that. I guess it might be different in a smaller town, but the problems that could happen with having your students babysit or by contacting them on Facebook could still happen, regardless of whether it's a small town or not. But I do see how a larger city like mine, will function differently than a small town in terms of how teachers and students interact with each other.

Tiger

 

[BrerMom]

I am friends with both my principal and my assistant principal even though our union rep has "strongly recommended" that we not have facebook accounts at all. I have no intentions of deleting my account because I enjoy posting and reading what my friends post.

That said, I won't friend a current or former student until they have graduated. That gets a little more tricky because I want to be friends with my kids' friends. I will have to "unfriend" them if they show up on my class roster.

 

[JulyGirl]

Somehow I made it through 12 years of school without ever having to call a teacher. Sure times have changed, but still.

 

[Talking Hands]

I have on been a friend of one student while they were still a student. It was a situation where her mother was part of my small group at church and at the time I didn't have videophone. Most of our church small group is deaf and the daughter would relay messages to her mother as needed for me. I would also go to youth mtgs that the parents needed to attend and interpret for the mother so the daughter wasn't forced to interpret everything. Normally I do not accept current students as friends but many of the deaf students will become friends as they go off to college.