Today a friend and I who both work as home teachers were having a debate...

One of my students from last semester sent me a "friend request" on facebook, and I declined, but sent him a response wishing him the best in his school career.

My friend thought this was mean, because the student is autistic, and suffers from depression and a slew of other problems. He has trouble making friends and would often tell me he was glad I was his friend

Still though, it seemed inappropriate to me. Plus I don't want to have to censor myself, thinking about 'kids' checking my page...

But then my friend brought up the fact that I will "friend" some of my friends kids and I don't mind them sending me messages and whatnot


Who here is right?!

Do you already have kids from your school friending you?

Is this student still a student at your school?

You don't have to accept anyone as a friend you don't want to. I don't care who they are. You are right.


Now, if you felt comfortable about it, I'd see nothing wrong with it. But you don't. So you don't have to.

If he or she is a former student I see absolutely no problem here. I have a couple of ex-students on my friends list, though not necessarily on facebook. (I DO have ONE current student in my facebook friends list though...but that´s a long story ). These days, with the internet and social networks and leaving traces on the internet, you might as well give up facebook for good before you start differentiating like that. Then again, there are some dubious students of mine that I dont really want to add to my friends list though they repeatedly asked me to do so. I think age also plays a huge part here. Especially younger people are sometimes unpredictable and interpret things differently.I would not accept a friendship request from someone who is still my student and who is a lot younger than I am. Teaching at the university is different though, there I see it as just another tool of communication, some sort of extended e-mail.
If this child is autistic and depressed and you´re the only person he or she regards as a friend, then I´d do it. You´d feel bad if the kid commited suicide one day just because you tried to be professional.
I´m not really into facebook and rarely check my profile or messages there anymore, as you may know, so sometimes I tend to ignore requests for a long time and those who send me the requests give me funny reactions because of getting ignored.
It usually takes a while for me until it dawns on me why they gave me that reaction.


Oh, by the way, haven´t seen you in a long time...congratulations !!! I´m really happy for you that you´ve received your diploma now.

I´m thinking about canceling all my social network accounts. The internet can be a bitch sometimes.
[Edited 6/13/09 16:23pm]

Are you still in a position that affects the student academically or financially? (in other words, will he require a recommendation or anything whatsoever from you in the future?)

How old is this former student?
Is he sexy?




You need to weight many factors into this.

Since you are "friending" other kids, you might as well be consistent across the board. Me, as a teacher, especially an african american male teacher, I don't add any friends that are former, current, or even future students. It lacks a certain professional appeal. It opens yourself up for all kinds of problems later on. I say don't do it. And if you have already started doing it, do it with extreme caution. Too many crazy folks out there and I don't know about you, but I just don't have time for the drama.

I would wait until he's completely done with school. You don't need any kid, former student of yours or not, digging around on your personal webpages and spreading it around school.

Of course, this situation is different since he's home-schooled (I'm assuming), but generally, I'd wait until your professional association with him is long-past.

This is one of those subjects that I normally wouldn't comment on but this time I felt the need. I am a "big brother" to an autistic child and we both know as you mentioned that it can be a tougher world for him. I would have accepted him as a friend. Heaven bless you and anyone else who works with "special needs" children. I know when I got involved in helping an autistic child, I really didn't know much but have learned so much. Some days it's tough but it is also so rewarding...I think you're doubting because in your heart you "know" what you should have done. Former student with no disabilities, I'm not sure but an autistic child, I would do it...Wishuhvn~

Till one of my students graduates, and is of to college, military, or the real world flipping burgers I will not be his/her friend.

even while i was in school, profs would add me to their facebook
it was really more a way of communicating faster, they knew i'd get their message that way

I don't think it's inappropriate. I have some of my old teachers and professors as facebook "friends".

I only accept friend requests from students who have already graduated.

I can see why some of you say it's okay, but I use my Facebook account for personal relationships, and I think of my students as strictly professional associations

...I hate to sound cold, but especially with specail-needs students, I don't like giving them the impression that we are pals, rather than a teacher and a student

I once had a student who would call my cell phone several times a day to "just talk" and it was hard to do, but I had to tell his mom that he was going a bit overboard I felt awful

KoolEaze said:

Well thats the thing...I don't want to encourage that dependence. I told him he could send me messages whenever he wanted, but I don't want him (or any of my students) to think that I'm a buddy

It would be different if they were college age though

thekidsgirl said:

I think that´s a good compromise. I wouldn´t want to be buddies with my students either but sending messages is OK I guess. Of course you shouldn´t encourage dependence but on the other hand, helping people is part of the job and if a kid has severe issues and you´re the only person he relates to, then I see that as a chance to help or prevent a tragedy, not as a burden or unprofessional behaviour.Over here, we had a couple of incidents which could have been prevented if someone would have paid more attention before the tragedy happened.
[Edited 6/14/09 1:47am]

KoolEaze said:

Well I tell all my students that they can contact me whenever they need to talk, but I don't want them to be tooo familiar
Where I have 15 year olds leaving me messages like, "hey grrrl what you doing tonight!?"

Key word.....FORMER.