Teachers on Facebook

[rchristiansen]

Are you "friends" with your kids teachers on facebook? I've always wondered about that. I have a lot of FB friends who are teachers in different schools, but not my DD's school. But then some of their friends ARE my DD's teachers. I've wondered about "friending" them

What do you think? I don't have any strong opinions either way, but wondered if there were any out there....

 

[qtwns]

If you aren't friends with them in real life, don't friend them on FB. I am a teacher and have a lot of teacher friends (IRL and on FB. ) However, I do not "friend" my kids teachers (even if they are IRL friends) until they are "finished" with my kids. And then I only friend them if I am real-life friends with them. I like being able to be me in FB--which is really boring, but still...

I also do not accept request from my students' parents--if they aren't my friend IRL, they won't be my friend on FB. If we become friends, I will accept their request when I am no longer teaching their kid.


And I NEVER accept friend requests from my students. When they ask me about it I tell them that I will accept their request after they graduate from high school (I teach middle school.)

 

[ccgirl]

If you aren't friends with them in real life, don't friend them on FB. I am a teacher and have a lot of teacher friends (IRL and on FB. ) However, I do not "friend" my kids teachers (even if they are IRL friends) until they are "finished" with my kids. And then I only friend them if I am real-life friends with them. I like being able to be me in FB--which is really boring, but still...

I also do not accept request from my students' parents--if they aren't my friend IRL, they won't be my friend on FB. If we become friends, I will accept their request when I am no longer teaching their kid.


And I NEVER accept friend requests from my students. When they ask me about it I tell them that I will accept their request after they graduate from high school (I teach middle school.)

This.
I never ask or accept friend requests from people I am not friends with in real life. I am very friendly with my DD's teacher, but would not consider her my "friend" so I would not friend request her. My daughter's drama teacher did send me a friend request, which I accepted....

 

[RadioNate]

I'm friends w/one of my child's former teachers. We were FB friends when my DS was her student. However, my DS & her DS are good friends, we did cub scours together & she lives in our rental house.

 

[FredinFL]

No way. I don't need to friend my kid's teachers. I have my own friends tyvm. I'll talk to them via email, phone, face to face. Facebook would be creepy. I really don't need to know what they do all day and visa versa. What do you do when the kid moves on? Delete them? Keep them?

No, nope, uhuh. I figure, in the long run, I'm doing them a favor.

 

[JVL1018]

Noooo. I do work at my kids school very part time in the office and I am friendly with a few of the teachers(two I knew from when we were teenagers) those I am facebook friends with.
One was my children's 2nd grade teacher, she friended my husband and I(we di not request her LOL) after our kids were out of her class..and we are friendly with her. The other teachers are not the kids' direct teachers-one is not their grade-I went to HS with her, one is their music teacher-but we have been friends with her entire family since she was about 5 years old. The other is a teacher who will go in and do special math lessons to all the classes, so my kids have her sometimes, but that's it.

I don't want to have to worry about what I say(not that I ever slam teachers on fb LOL), or want them to have to watch what they say, so I have no desire to be FB friends with my children's current or future teachers, even though I do work with my son's teacher once a week and chat all the time. Just not on facebook.

 

[HsvTeacher]

As a teacher, it makes me very uncomfortable when a parent or student, past or present, sends me a friend request. If I friend them, they know more about my personal life than I want them to know. If I don't friend them, then I'm worried about hurting their feelings or making them mad. (And over the years, I've dealt with a few nuts, so that's always in the back of my mind.)

The only exception is a family that I became very close to, because I had three of their boys in my classroom. I have a personal relationship with them outside of school, so they are also friends on FB.

 

[dislaney]

Only the ones that I am friends with in real life.

 

[piperdown]

Are you "friends" with your kids teachers on facebook? I've always wondered about that. I have a lot of FB friends who are teachers in different schools, but not my DD's school. But then some of their friends ARE my DD's teachers. I've wondered about "friending" them

What do you think? I don't have any strong opinions either way, but wondered if there were any out there....

DH teaches middle school, and prefers to keep a very defined line between his professional and personal life. He would never "friend" his students' parents. He isn't even "friends" with his colleagues. There are just too many ways that opinions and comments can be misconstrued. He has nothing to hide, and he realizes that anything you put out on the internet is basically public domain. He conducts himself accordingly. However, why open yourself up for scrutiny if you can make reasonable precautions to prevent it.

Recently, he "un-friended" our daughter. She attends and he teaches at the same school. She is in 7th grade and he teaches 8th grade. She has become "friends" with some of his students, so he had to explain to DD that he didn't want to start receiving friend requests from his students. They would be able to find him through her friend list. She understood, and was probably secretly happy about it. I am still "friends" with her for monitoring purposes.

 

[Danauk]

The county I work in has a policy that you should not be friends with parents of the children you teach. I have had some students parents send me friend requests but I have not acepted them. I have also had former students send requests too, but have declined them as well. I am friends with other teachers and staff at my school, but I see them as real life friends anyway.

 

[Tink888]

Are you "friends" with your kids teachers on facebook? I've always wondered about that. I have a lot of FB friends who are teachers in different schools, but not my DD's school. But then some of their friends ARE my DD's teachers. I've wondered about "friending" them

What do you think? I don't have any strong opinions either way, but wondered if there were any out there....

No. I'm not friends with them in real life. I don't need to know about their personal lives and they don't need to know about mine.

 

[FireDancer]

I'm surprised teachers don't set up public pages for their students and their parents so they can post assignments and communicate things and have a separate private page for their real life friends. This is what celebrities, journalists, and public figures do and is very easy. You get the best of both worlds without having to compromise either.

 

[jenbarnwell]

I am friends with my daughters teacher on facebook BECAUSE we have know each other since kindergarten. We were very close growing up. We lost contact for awhile but are still very good friends. It does call for an uncomfortable situation sometimes though. I cannot wait until the school year is finished so we can both relax and be "friends" again. I am also friends with my daughters former kindergarten teacher BUT we were not friends while she was a student in her class.

 

[happygirl]

No, i wouldn't want to be on my kids teacher FB page, To me I wouldn't want to read about rants about how bad the kids were or whatever, I mean I know kids are bad but I wouldn't want to read about

 

[aprilgail2]

I'm surprised teachers don't set up public pages for their students and their parents so they can post assignments and communicate things and have a separate private page for their real life friends. This is what celebrities, journalists, and public figures do and is very easy. You get the best of both worlds without having to compromise either.

Many teachers in my daughters school have this and my brother who is a teacher also does this.
I have many of her old teachers as my friends on facebook-I also am still in contact with her kindergarten teacher through email and facebook. She and my daughter have always had a special bond- her teacher would always mail a birthday card to my daughter and my daughter would always go into school with a card for her teacher (now she mails it since she is in the Jr. High)-they share the same birthday. My daughter is into drama and her kindergarten teacher comes to all her performances-its so swewet and means so much to my daughter to see her there!

 

[piperdown]

I'm surprised teachers don't set up public pages for their students and their parents so they can post assignments and communicate things and have a separate private page for their real life friends. This is what celebrities, journalists, and public figures do and is very easy. You get the best of both worlds without having to compromise either.

My husband has a blog for just that purpose. He posts daily lesson plans and assignments. Students and parents can download assignments if class handouts are lost. His FB page, however, is private and personal.

 

[Pigeon]

This is why dh, a teacher, won't do facebook.

I do use facebook, but find the whole blurring of family, personal and professional contacts very unsettling. I don't post much, and what I do post is extremely bland because of it.

 

[Pigeon]

I'm surprised teachers don't set up public pages for their students and their parents so they can post assignments and communicate things and have a separate private page for their real life friends. This is what celebrities, journalists, and public figures do and is very easy. You get the best of both worlds without having to compromise either.

Both my district and the district where my husband teaches want the class pages on district operated servers, in a particular format. FB would not fly.

 

[BKMETV]

I'm surprised teachers don't set up public pages for their students and their parents so they can post assignments and communicate things and have a separate private page for their real life friends. This is what celebrities, journalists, and public figures do and is very easy. You get the best of both worlds without having to compromise either.

That's a great idea I'm going to suggest it to my teacher friends. I don't know if the school boards here have any policies re: teachers on FB.

To answer the question...I'm friends with several teachers at my kid's schools both on FB and in "real life", but not my kid's teachers.

 

[SydSim]

I'm surprised teachers don't set up public pages for their students and their parents so they can post assignments and communicate things and have a separate private page for their real life friends. This is what celebrities, journalists, and public figures do and is very easy. You get the best of both worlds without having to compromise either.

I suppose with many school district going online (with grading and e-mails), there probably isn't much of a need for public Fb pages. Especially since teachers are more approachable than celebrities.