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I know this has been discussed before but I
want to get more and probable more updated opinions
Do you accept you students as friends on
facebook?
Do you have a different account to share
with your SS?
Is there any policy regarding this in your
countries or the places where you work at?
I have been working at the same school of English
for 4 years and most of my students have been my students during all these
years and as the groups are small (not more than 5 SS) I get to know them very well,
we have a good relationship and they like sharing things of their everyday life
with me.
They asked me some time ago if I had fb and
I said yes, and now they found me there and some of them sent me the request to be accepted
as my friends, they even get a bit angry if I refuse because for them it means
"I don�t like them"�I know what kind of kids they are and I don�t have anything
to hide but is it a good idea to share that much????
I �ve decided not to accept students of mine until they are adults. When I get asked to become a contact, I send a private message telling them that until they are in the school system of my schoolboard, I will not accept them. My schoolboard does not have a policy but some do.
A friend of mine who teaches older students got caught up in a weird situation with a student. Even if he did nothing wrong, it got him thinking to the point where he closed his account for 7 months.
I �m very careful of what I write and which pictures I post on my FB account.
I never accept students as friends on FB unless they are former students that I don �t teach anymore. And even then, I �ve removed some of them for being totally inappropriate. On the other hand, I had a case of cyberbullying in my class and it originated on this girl �s fb page, but I couldn �t access it because I wasn �t her friend.
I don �t use Facebook but if I did, I definitely wouldn �t accept students as contacts. It would be similar to taking work home, plus you don �t really want to be scrutinized by yet another 100 or more �friends �, do you? It �s a recipe for trouble.
I think Ss should find their own friends, preferably of a similar age, with similar interests and if possible from another country so they can practise their English.
Because I teach adult students I have no problems with accepting them as friends. There has never been a moment when I have regretting doing so. I think it is great to keep in touch with the ones who �ve graduated and those who are still studying with me are often given a reminder if they are skipping class.
At present I am extremely grateful to all my student FB friends as they have been flooding me with kind thoughts as my husband is in hospital having nearly lost his life.
I also have students as FB friends, no problem until the present moment. I also keep my ex-students as friends in Orkut and MSN messenger. As MSN used to allow only a limited number of contacts, after almost 13 years teaching I had to open another account whenever the accounts I already had couldn �t accept any more. Now I �ve got 15 MSN accounts with more than 3,000 contacts - all of them active at the moment.
My twitter and FB walls are configured to publish all of my blog posts and my students like to "follow" me through the internet. Some of them are teachers now and I was really glad a few weeks ago when I found out that a student of mine (also an ESL teacher) has an account at ESL printables and started uploading her work.
Since the messages I get and send my students are not often personal - mainly related to school, English, Spanish or Portuguese, I see no problem at all.
Facebook has an option for you to create a group, so I group them all as my students, another one for teachers, for family, for high school and college friends, clubs and so forth. You can control what to upload and post per group depending on your preferences.
So far, in my more than 2 years with Facebook, this set up has worked very well and has even helped me become efficient in my job. I use it to post announcements and it builds good rapport and relationship with my students, not to mention favorable feedback i get from their parents. They are extremely happy to see pics of our latest activities and they seem to be more inspired each day and cooperate better than before. They think I can relate with them better especially in these times of technological advances, updating ourselves and keeping up with them in this modern age is a big plus.
It �s funny how they set up a fan page for me in facebook too. It �s really amusing how they show their appreciation for their teacher. Hahaha.
Just sharing with you my scenario in this part of the world. Cheers!
I do not accept my present or former students as friends.
I also keep two separate email accounts, one for work purposes (to be used by students when they have to send me their work via email) and one personal.
It says : ACCEPT AS A FRIEND. My students are not my friends.
I always try to keep the distance as long as I can. There are cases when students fall in love with the teacher, committe suicide....guess whose fault is it? Teacher �s fault , of course! I even coordinate volunteers and we were taught to take all the cautions as our acts not to be misinterpreted. This is why we are always at least two leaders.
Tabloids here are always eager to publish explicit pictures with teachers and students or to talk about these kind of relationships. The teacher is always the one to be blamed!!!
So..no, thank you.....no students for me on my FB profile!
