Facebook.Students.Teachers.Friends?

I created a Facebook account some time ago merely to understand what the fuss was all about. Then, a few months ago, I started using it (kind of) when I realized that it was the best way to keep in touch with a friend back from my high school days. And before I knew it even students emailed me to add me as a "friend" .... I find it kind of strange to read status updates about students who do what students do, while I am glad those days are far behind me :-) Thankfully, because I am in a university setting, I don't run into the kind of ethical issues as in the following one from the NY Times Magazine:

My friend is a popular eighth-grade teacher. She has a Facebook account and has been “friended” by many of her students, who make their pages available to her. Consequently, she has learned a lot about them, including the inevitable under-age drinking and drug use and occasional school-related mischief like cheating on tests or plagiarizing assignments. Must she report any of this to the school, the police or the parents? The school has no policy for dealing with this modern problem. A.S., NEW YORK

This teacher should respond to students apt to get themselves into trouble, and the most significant peril you describe may not be a little teenage drinking or recreational drug use but the public exposure of this “mischief.” Your friend has a chance to teach these students about Internet privacy or the lack of it. She should carpe that diem. Were she simply to bust these online doofuses, she would squander a chance to convey something of lasting importance and leave them feeling that she had betrayed their trust. In short, her essential role is educator, not cop.

Strictly speaking, when these students gave her access to their Facebook pages, they waived their right to privacy. But that’s not how many kids see it. To them, Facebook and the like occupy some weird twilight zone between public and private information, rather like a diary left on the kitchen table. That a photo of drunken antics might thwart a chance at a job or a scholarship is not something all kids seriously consider. This teacher can get them to think about that.

She might send e-mail messages to transgressing students, noting their misdeeds and reminding them of their vulnerability. Or she could address her entire class, citing (anonymous) examples of student escapades. Or she could encourage her school to include a regular instructional session on the Internet and its pitfalls.

This is not to advocate turning a blind eye to bad behavior. It is to establish priorities. If a kid is in genuine danger, she should intervene swiftly. When students violate academic standards, she should warn them sternly — in her first e-mail message — that the lesson has been conveyed, there are no more free passes and henceforth they can expect her to respond vigorously to anything she learns online.

Your friend should also think about the boundaries she maintains between herself and her students. It is great that they can confide in her as long as she remembers that “confide in” is different from “gossip with,” and that she is their teacher, not their pal, a necessary distinction if she is to be effective as the former.