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Massachusetts School Board Bans Teacher-Student Facebook Friending

by Lee Bains on October 27, 2010 at 05:00 PM

facebook login pageAs Facebook has grown in popularity, we've gotten some slightly surprising friend requests. There are the long-lost kindergarten classmates, the relative strangers and the former coworkers. But our favorites have always been the teachers. If we're lucky, we all had one or two teachers between grade school and high school that really spoke to us, whether bestowing upon us a love for their favored subject matter, or just a kind, open ear. We've Facebook friended a couple of our past pedagogues, and we're glad that we have; they're good people. But maybe that's just because they're not teachers in Norton, Massachusetts.

Norton's school board recently instituted a policy against the practice of teachers befriending students on social networking sites. Taking its cue from an advisory issued by the state-wide Massachusetts Association of School Committees, Norton has apparently instructed its teachers to refrain from befriending students and from posting inflammatory photos on the social network. Reuters and Time specifically point out that the school board has, in fact, effectively prohibited its teachers from befriending former students, as well.

To us, that subtlety is all too critical. While we respect a school board's decision to enforce the boundaries between teachers and students, we cannot possibly support a decision to stand in the way of what could be lifelong friendships between teachers and their graduated students.

Tags: education, facebook, facebookprivacy, norton massachusetts, NortonMassachusetts, school, SocialNetworking, students, teachers, top

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