Posted on 04/10/2014 6:17:42 AM PDT by JoeProBono
My son's assistant lacrosse coach drove a Maserati. I asked my son what his job was. “Oh - he's a teacher at the High School”.
“Um, son - teacher's don't drive Maserati's”.
Turns out the guy retired from Microsoft at 40-something, then went into teaching, volunteer coaching, etc. The guy no doubt has enough money to do whatever he wanted to - and he was teaching!
Last year my daughter had 2 out of 6 teachers that you could tell enjoyed teaching and the kids. This year it is better, with say 4 out of six. If she had a 79-year old “grandpa” teacher on her facebook that would be fine by me.
The 26 year old guy that does gym class - not so much.
Good for you, perhaps not for the boss. Depending on the situation, there are dozens of problems such an arrangement can cause in office dynamics.
Per the military, after WWII there were studies as to unit cohesion of the German forces during the war. The studies concluded the Germans were able to keep cohesion much longer than thought possible due to bonds between officers and their men. We have adopted some of that attitude in our special forces units.
The bonds had to do with trust and frankly a level of respect that too much intimacy doesn't foster. Great if the Private shares his fears and lack of confidence with his officer or NCO, not so much in the opposite direction.
You make a silly analogy of wearing a chicken suit etc.
Yes, a bit silly, but the point was serious. That everything has reasonable limits. And although it may help for a teacher to know about a student's personal problems, it doesn't work the other way.
Many, many students do not have parents and those who do have parents who could not be bothered with them. It is pathetic to see.
Concur, and an adult that takes interest, as an adult, is great. But an adult that wants to be a peer and shares all of their problems isn't generally help.
These students need some sort of adult support in their lives.
Concur, I think they do better with a professional teacher than an over-sharing adult.
This ain't Leave it to Beaver anymore. The country has changed and not for the better. Your views are warped as a FReeper because you do care for your kids etc. WE are a small segment of the larger population.
And probably warped more by the sane people I hang with and having my children in private Catholic school. I try to take that into account.
I teach and it breaks my heart to see what passes for families out there. Packs of wild dogs treat each other better.
I'm glad people like you are teaching. That said, I think we've strayed along way from the point concerning Facebook. Accepting what you have said, I would point out that there are a lot of teachers that don't seem to understand the difference between being a student's mentor, being their advocate, being their buddy, and in some horrendous cases, being their sexual partner.
So why have a rule concerning Facebook and no personal email? Because it limits interaction to an observable, professional level. Additionally, I haven't seen many 20 somethings out there with a lot of common sense concerning what they share on Facebook, including teachers I presume. Point being that not every example is a good example. You can't control people's personal lives, but you can control how much of it they bring to work, and what a teacher shares with a student, good or bad, is work.
my school has teachr sponsored trips
Is that too “fraternizing” to you?
I was an active duty Army officer, I know what is and what is not fraternization, dude
Absolutely, we had teachers over to dinner, priests too
btw, I don’t do casual at work
It’s “principal”, remember? The principal is your pal?
I used to drop in on my teacher at home.
Always very professional.
I’m not sure who loses an argument first, the person that brings up Hitler or the one that corrects spelling errors.
Well you lost this one dude
Yes in 8th grade our teacher did do a sleepover. We all had a blast and there was nothing inappropriate going on. Of course thats 30 some years ago.
And I did 22 years, so let's talk. Would you say that making your subordinates privy to all of the details of family comments, problems, etc. is crossing the line into fraternization or not? By my definition, it unquestionably is.
So, now that you have your students, family, and friends on Facebook, how are you going to ensure they don't see any of that? I don't think you have a lot of control over it, even if you are extremely restrained yourself. Thus, the no Facebook rule. Great rule for military too, if I was still in, I'd instruct all of my officers and NCOs accordingly.
I don’t facebook at all. However in case you don’t know, you can have your settings such that the page is extremely bland. Seen many professionals whose pages are thus.
Yeah...I was going to include her but she has had a ton of cosmetic surgery.
"Not that there's anything wrong with that."
I'm fine with teachers taking an interest in students, being mentors, offering advice, etc. I just see Facebook as a bad and often counterproductive medium for doing that.
Curiously, kids are moving away from Facebook to smart phone share apps that are more immediate and more shallow.
Is that the same as, "The debate is over!"?
The small towns are very different. Most of the kids my wife teaches belong to friends she went to school with. Most of the older kids that are our sons friends she taught in school and I taught to shoot small arms and archery, and also taught hunter education and firearms safety.
After that we have coached them is soccer and baseball and supervised a hundred different 4H things.
We also tutor when needed and keep some of them if there is a family emergency.
Sure there can be no social contact or social relationship. That is total BS in the tiny rural towns.
What has to be in place is very solid boundaries and ethics.
Next year we will be doing two week long trips out of state with different groups of kids. This year we will be taking a bunch to Washington DC for a week. This summer we will be housing and teaching a couple hundred short term foreign exchange students... They will be scattered out over a couple dozen homes but several will be staying in our home while they are here. In that setting it is my job to be as their parent for the duration of their stay.
It is easy to have a single answer for a hundred questions and situations especially if you have little or no experience with where others live, their local culture, or what they do for a living.
Dream on......
My doctor and the local priest are my best friends,,,,, and I'm not even catholic.
“i do not except”
This has the opposite meaning of your intent.
i agree with you
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