Should Students and Teachers Be Friends on Facebook? The Pros

Perhaps a discussion of the issue of teachers and students being “friends” on Facebook should begin with a dose of reality. If anyone – a parent, a school administration, or a state/federal government – thinks that it can ban interaction on social media, than his/her/its head is in the sand. The discussion of student-teacher interaction, however, is a real one and we, as a dissertation writing service that works a lot with students, have narrowed it down to the following pros and cons.

The Pros:

1. Having students as friends on Facebook allows teachers to stay more informed about their kids and to get a sense of “what is going on” in those kids’ lives. If kids are engaging in risky behaviors, for example, teachers may be able to influence them in more positive directions. Kids will often tell teachers things they will not tell their parents.
2.  A teacher’s Facebook page can be used as a “hub” of conversation among students, about homework assignments, but also about issues that typical pre-adolescent and adolescents have. Using a page as such a “hub” will allow conversations among students who would not otherwise interact socially, and this can foster tolerance and compassion.
3. Facebook does make teachers more human and can certainly allow a teacher to act as a good role model on how to use social media in appropriate ways. 
4.  Facebook is really quite public, and it is unlikely that teachers will engage in truly inappropriate interactions with their students using this venue. If students and teachers want to have inappropriate conversations, it will not be on Facebook.

Interesting: Students and Social Media Part 1.

Photo by: Thomas Leuthard.