Teaching the internet
Sep. 1st, 2009 10:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
franceslievensFirst day of school today, and everywhere you can find the story of the teacher being sacked because she was friends with her pupils on netlog. Technically speaking she wasn't sacked, but merely asked not to return the next school year. As long as you're not a real civil servant you get yearly contracts. In the long run, the outcome is the same, of course. The boss doesn't approve of the teacher's behaviour and decides to hire someone else instead.
That said, if the netlog-story was indeed the reason given by the school's headteacher, it's an invalid reason*. Teachers and pupils connect outside the school setting. This can be on the street (I was talking to a mother and daughter just the other day while technically still being on holiday), but also on the internet. Social networking sites are as public as the market square. If a pupil decides to talk to you there, so be it. But like danah boyd says in an excellent post from a while ago: you don't stop being a teacher when that bell rings and the gate closes behind you. When I walk to and from the metro station I interact with pupils. When I go out with my nieces, I end up meeting pupils. These contexts are different, but I'm still their teacher, so I still behave like one. The same goes with social networking services. If it occurs that an (ex-)pupil asks to friend me, I always have to keep in mind I'm the teacher. You open yourself up, become reachable, but as an authority figure you can turn to, not as a friend you gossip with or email jokes to.
*She won't get her job back, though. Because of the nature of the yearly contracts a principal doesn't even have to give a reason for not taking someone on for another year. Simply stating this person doesn't fit the school profile is enough.
That said, if the netlog-story was indeed the reason given by the school's headteacher, it's an invalid reason*. Teachers and pupils connect outside the school setting. This can be on the street (I was talking to a mother and daughter just the other day while technically still being on holiday), but also on the internet. Social networking sites are as public as the market square. If a pupil decides to talk to you there, so be it. But like danah boyd says in an excellent post from a while ago: you don't stop being a teacher when that bell rings and the gate closes behind you. When I walk to and from the metro station I interact with pupils. When I go out with my nieces, I end up meeting pupils. These contexts are different, but I'm still their teacher, so I still behave like one. The same goes with social networking services. If it occurs that an (ex-)pupil asks to friend me, I always have to keep in mind I'm the teacher. You open yourself up, become reachable, but as an authority figure you can turn to, not as a friend you gossip with or email jokes to.
*She won't get her job back, though. Because of the nature of the yearly contracts a principal doesn't even have to give a reason for not taking someone on for another year. Simply stating this person doesn't fit the school profile is enough.
