I've recently broken the seal and become friends on Facebook with a bunch of former students. The evolution from firm stand (Never! Students aren't friends; they aren't even adults!) to slippery slope (well...maybe just the seniors in high school) to landslide (what the heck) was surprisingly quick. I've heard I can put them all on a limited profile, which I probably will. But the truth is, there is nothing on my Facebook worth shielding from underage eyes. It is far more likely, in fact, that I am on their limited lists.
Very few of them have actually contacted me directly. Instead, we interact as people do in 2010, through status updates and posts. Having spent countless hours teaching them capitalization, spelling and subject/verb agreement, I had to get over the random loWerCase and UPPErcaSe and texting lingo that accompanies each tidbit of news. But someone else, I'm sure, has taught them code switching by now. I feel old when I have NO IDEA (not even a clue) what some of them are talking about. But it's been fun to be in touch.
Speaking of being touched, it is also interesting to see who has reached out. The last time I interacted with some of the faces that now smile out from profile pictures, I was instead on the receiving end of glares, teeth sucking, sulks, fits or, in one case, the stone-cold silent treatment. That all is forgiven is no surprise--anyone who works with kids knows how long I'll-never-ever-ever-get-over-this lasts (a few hours max) but it makes me smile to remember those moments from a nostalgic distance (as opposed to the emotional vortex of immediacy). It also makes hearing about their high score on Bubble Spinner or their need of a horse stable in Farmville extra cute.
So, the landslide has stopped somewhere around "never kids on the same campus" and here I will remain. It's that emotional vortex of daily personal interaction thing that definitely does not mesh with FB. Daily virtual interaction, however, works just fine.
What do the other teachers you know do about facebook?
ReplyDeleteThey are the inspiration for my slippery slope. Most of them accept friend requests and then put them on a limited profile...
ReplyDeleteI dont even know how to do limited profile, but I also dont maintain my page. I accept friend requests if 1. the student is no longer in my class and 2. I find them mature enough to handle being my cyber friend. So, annoying students who never listened to me and were disrespectful from a deep place within do mot make the cut. Note: it is easier to make the cut if you no longer attend my school. I think that if it is my facebook page, I dont really have to have consistent rules.
ReplyDeletealtho' having been on facebook for only one year, this quandry hit me full in the face right around my birthday. by then, i had been on fb for all of five weeks. i was turning 54 sun orbits young, and had to plum deeply all the folds and turns of my brain, and the fields of my heart. it took some discrimination, but i chose to friend most of the students who sought me out.
ReplyDeletewhy? mostly because THEY are so darned interesting! i love watching, and sometimes guiding where their lives are going. love them in action, heated with passion and energy; love them in repose, reflective and sometimes pushing against the gravitas of emergent wisdom.
so they are exposed to my obsession with baseball and the sf giants (yeah, baby!), travels with my adult disabled son, many heated debates with a childhood friend who is now a tea-party activist (i know, i know...)and my lame attempts at lending a hand to two friends who are (i hope and pray) cancer-survivors. my students ask questions, they make observations, and they are making informed choices.
remember, i have been selective. like dawn, some of the kids won't make the cut. mean kids, or put-downy kids might never become my fb friends, because i get hurt easily. especially when someone not as flinty as i am is attacked.
so my young friends have read my gushing comments about my 38th high school reunion in golden gate park (denise hall's 30th reunion). how important it is to reconnect, to forgive past hurts, to love. it's worth it, in the end.