MIAMI - A FLORIDA school district has told teachers not to be 'friends' with students on social networking sites and to be very careful in using electronic communication to avoid legal and workplace problems.
And how many do you think can be stopped, given the fact that you're treating professionals, and adults for that matter, like primary school kids? While it is agreeable that, because of the nature of their profession, teachers should exercise greater degree of awareness of their online behavior. That, however, doesn't mean that we should, because of their profession, deny them of social networking. You mean our teachers are supposed to be old stick-in-the-mud fogeys who are absolutely inept at Facebook, Twitter and MySpace?
'It is inappropriate for employees to communicate, regardless of the reason, with current students enrolled in the district on any public social networking website,' the guidelines said. 'This includes becoming 'friends' or allowing students access to personal web pages for communication reasons,' it said.
Why is it deemed "inappropriate"? Because educators will be stupid enough to divulge examination questions and answers? Because educators are sick-in-the-mind perverts who prey on their students? Because educators will rant openly about their discontented jobs on Facebook? Why not, for a start, trust your educators? Trust that they will have enough discipline to moderate their own thoughts before digitalising them. That they still have a professional code to adhere to and will, therefore, draw a clear distinction between what can and cannot be done. And if there are misdemeanors, I believe that should be where the authorities can then step in to interfere. Or else, what's the difference between stopping teachers from logging in to Facebook and stopping teachers from talking to their students face-to-face?
Please do whatever is NEEDED, not how everyone should adhere to irrelevant rules. Wake up, it's Web 2.0 for you.
No comments:
Post a Comment