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At my previous school, a colleague was co-director of a major school activity that maintained a Facebook account for that activity. That was good - and super useful. Things like meeting times and schedules and changes could easily be posted, parents could follow, etc. All the good stuff that social media give us.
The problem was that the colleague let this drift somewhat. Like most of us who have multiple accounts like that, the person would update both simultaneously, and sometimes share content between accounts. This led to students friending the colleague’s personal account, and these friend requests were accepted, suddenly inviting students into this teacher’s personal life. Not good. It may have been accidental, or at least unintentional. But it became more problematic when the adult allowed use of this account for personal communications with students.
I want to stress that this wasn’t evil / creepy / stalking / exploitative sorts of communication. And the teacher may have been trying to do good things. For instance, some students were messaging about personal problems or happenings in the club of which the teachers were unaware. But still….
I and some of the other adults involved in this activity knew about this from students who told us it was going on, so even some of them thought something was a bit off. Eventually, the club director told this co-director to quit, so it stopped, and nothing really became of it.
I think many teachers - myself included - could use practice saying things like, ‘I’m sorry this isn’t the place for us to discuss this. Instead, let’s….’ We know those words, but also can hesitate if we think a student is reaching out for help, but we don’t want to be alarmist and call whatever authorities. It’s a slippery slope and we need to keep firm footing. This co-director should have been more careful to keep accounts separate, kept all students off the personal account, and not let an atmosphere of private contact develop.
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