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Ask a Teacher: Are You Friends with Your Students on Facebook?

By Mr. Foss

November 23, 2011

Q: Are you on Twitter and Facebook? Are you friends with your students?

A: I have a Facebook account, and it’s getting to the point where most of the other teachers I know have them, too. It’s just a super-convenient way to keep in touch and share information with people without having to, like, talk to them or physically interact. Gross. And I’m totally friends with all my students. I give out extra credit for people who help me in Mafia Wars, and I arrange my seating charts according to which Hogwarts house they fall into. Slytherins sit in the hall.

Okay, not really. I do have a Facebook account. In fact, I had a Facebook account when it was still restricted to college students. And I know teachers who have no problem being friends with their students, but my personal policy is that I won’t accept students’ friend requests until they’re not my students anymore. And when I see some of the stuff my former students post, I’m glad for that policy.

It’s not a knock against you, really, but there are a lot of things that I’d rather not know my students are doing outside of school. Whether it’s the relationship drama that often ends up on people’s walls or the pictures of activities that aren’t quite legal for high schoolers, there are aspects of students’ lives that I’d rather not be privy to. I’ve seen some very…let’s say “personal” stuff on my former students’ pages, and I’d rather not have to see them the next day in class after reading about them online. It’s awkward, and it’d make me feel like a creeper.

And I really don’t want you knowing what I did last weekend either, thank you very much. Granted, I tend to be the kind of person who monitors security settings and doesn’t do anything particularly embarrassing (or post about it) anyway, and most of my status updates are jokes or song lyrics. But I spend enough time with my students at school; there’s no need for me to spend time with them at home, too. Not that I don’t like them, of course. Just not that much.

As for Twitter, I know some teachers who have Twitter accounts for their classes, so they can send quick updates about homework or topics and whatnot, and so students have an easy avenue for asking questions. That might be something I’d do eventually, but I don’t see any need for it right now. I don’t much care for Twitter as a means of communication, really—it’s obviously hard for me to confine my thoughts to 140-character chunks. And don’t get me started on Tumblr.

In short, your teachers are probably just as active on social media sites as you are, though perhaps with some differences in their walls and photo albums. And we don’t take many duckface photos. But whether or not we’re going to interact with our students online is really up to individual teachers. It can’t hurt to ask, or to send that friend request. Just realize that we might not get around to accepting it for a few years.

Are you friends with your teachers online?