MO bans teachers from friending students on Facebook

[Kitty]

I wasn't friends with any of my teachers on facebook until after I graduated. I was friends with the campus minister on facebook, but there was a much more personal relationship there than with any teachers.

And that is you. I pre-date facebook but I had a chemistry teacher that I would go to coffee with. I valued her opinion and I just liked talking to her. I didn't have a minister who I would share "boo" with.

I originally joined facebook for my cub scouts. Scouts and parents all shared pictures, ideas, etc. Every situation is different.

What gets me is as soon as someone says something is "for the children" all logic goes out the window.

 

[rambone]

Again, not a free speech issue. They have the legal right to talk with the kids. Nowhere does it say in the constitution that you get to keep your job. They are different.

We're not talking about keeping jobs. The headline says this act is now illegal. Which I consider to be a 1st Amendment issue.

 

[beararms1776]

+1 I have no issues with this at all, in fact I would find it kind of disturbing if my child was on facebook with their teacher, at least while they are their teacher.

I know plenty of people my age (30) who are friends with their old teachers, no issues with that. But there is an professional relations with a teacher/student, not a friendly one.

It should work this way with any professional position while on the clock.

 

[slackerisme]

We're not talking about keeping jobs. The headline says this act is now illegal. Which I consider to be a 1st Amendment issue.

I see your point. I do have an issue with it being a law. Personally, if my kids use these sights under my roof, I will police who they can contact on it, period. However, my employer has a rule stating that I cannot post company information on certain message boards. I follow the rule because I like my job. Maybe this is MO's way of setting rules for state employees.

I do not want my children to be buddies with their teachers. I want them to be students. Until they make it legal for me to kick the crap out of the coach that hits on my daughter, this will do.

 

[04DarkShadowGT]

So do you also believe that it would be OK for your employer to tell you you can not be a Christian or own a weapon? This follows the same logic

No I don't think that an employer should be able to tell an employee what they should believe or do with their spare time. Just the same as I don't think a teacher should tell a student what faith they should follow or what hobby they should have.

But that has nothing to do with a personal relationship outside of the classroom. It does not follow the same logic. A boss/employee relationship is not the same as a teacher/student. A Teacher/Boss may be in a position of power over another person, but that is where the similarities end. A boss/employee is two adults, a teacher/student is not. A teacher is not dealing with an adult who is capable of thinking everything through and taking the consequences into consideration.

I am not even saying that I think the teachers are trying to perv out on the kids. But they are in a unique position when it comes to children and frankly I am not sure its any of their business what their students are doing on off time. It just opens up too many questions, hell to use your example back at you, what it the teacher saw a student was muslim and tried to lead them to Christianity. Not saying its likely, but why take the risk of anything going down.

We're not talking about keeping jobs. The headline says this act is now illegal. Which I consider to be a 1st Amendment issue.

If that is the case, then I agree they should not be in legal jeopardy, however I am fine with them getting dismissed from their job.

Then again freedom of speech is not absolute. You cannot yell fire in a theater, you cannot tell Obama you are going to shoot him, among other things. There are appropriate and inappropriate ways to handle yourself. The fact that this is happening enough to warranty a law being passed should be enough for something to be done.

 

[snowrs]

Why take the risk of walking out your front door in the morning? You may be hit by a bus, you may fall down a well, you may be involved in an armed robbery. We can not infringe on the rights of people because of what may happen. We constantly walk a slippery slope. If we restrict the right to peaceably assemble which I believe this is because some one might act inappropriate, what is to say they then will not attempt to ban guns because someone may rob a bank. I agree with you it may become a problem but this should be handled at the parent level not at the state level.

 

[ArmedProgrammer]

So do you also believe that it would be OK for your employer to tell you you can not be a Christian or own a weapon? This follows the same logic

Oddly - yes I believe that this is true. They can employ whom they will. If they don't want a Christian or a gun owner as an employee, then I don't particularly wish to work for them. They are free to discriminate - and so am I. I am picky when hiring my bosses.

And if they don't hire Christians or gun owners or XXXX, how long do you think it would take before no Christians or gun owners or XXXXX would buy their goods or services. Capitalism, in a word, WORKS...

So IF the school, as an employer in this case, decided that it was in their best interests to bar teachers from friending students on Facebook - then fine! If parents disagreed with the policy - less students would be there! If teachers disagreed with the policy then the school would have a hard time getting teachers. The free market has a way of solving these issues.

See how slick it works when you get government intervention out of the way?

<Edit>

I would add that I would be just as quick to boycott a business that discriminated against OTHER races or religions or XXXXX . Why? Because MY race or religion or gun ownership might be next...

 

[snowrs]

As long as you are consistent then I have no problem. I do agree with you on the free market aspect. .Gov usually complicates these issues greatly.

 

[rambone]

Student-Teacher relationships should stay hidden in the broom closet where they belong.

 

[rambone]

Then again freedom of speech is not absolute. You cannot yell fire in a theater, you cannot tell Obama you are going to shoot him, among other things. There are appropriate and inappropriate ways to handle yourself.

That's why rights that are not absolute are actually rights that don't last very long. We started off with free speech and 200 years later the government arrests you if you become friends with someone they don't approve of.

 

[level.eleven]

Fresh on the heels of banning Slaughter House Five. Keep up the good work Missouristan.

Mo. high school bans "Slaughterhouse-Five" - CBS News

The "sexual predator" social movement will eventually backfire like other fabricated boogeymen throughout history.

 

[88GT]

This is an explicit violation of the freedom of speech AND of association.

While I UNDERSTAND why they are doing this (far too many teachers having sex with students), you can't trample the constitution to achieve it.

Employment has never been protected by the Constitution.

And relationships arising out of direct consequences of that employment are fair game for the employer to regulate.

I believe that it's FINE for the school to set a policy (i.e. don't do this or we'll fire you...) They after all, are the employer. That said, it's wrong for the .gov to do it.

I understand what you're saying, but given that the .gov IS the school, how can you draw an imaginary line between private schools and government schools when it comes to regulating the terms of the relationships between students and educators?

Guys.. there are more amendments in the constitution besides the 2nd.

This isn't a rights issue. I know of no employer that employs people without any regulations or restrictions at all. This is simply a term of employment. You're not being forced to be a teacher. Don't like the terms of employment, go somewhere else.

 

[Kitty]

Fahrenheit 451 anybody?!?

Let's keep the kiddies in a bubble - It's for the children!!!!

 

[rambone]

This isn't a rights issue. I know of no employer that employs people without any regulations or restrictions at all. This is simply a term of employment. You're not being forced to be a teacher. Don't like the terms of employment, go somewhere else.

This isn't about firing teachers. They are going to arrest them. For having an unapproved friends-list.

 

[ArmedProgrammer]

Yup agreed Rambone. This is an unconstitutional law - and a dumb one to boot.

An employer should be able to handle this without a law needed, IF they feel the need.

This is what happens when the government gets its nose under the tent - in this case the education tent.

 

[eric001]

Yup agreed Rambone. This is an unconstitutional law - and a dumb one to boot.
Entering Zone!
Absolutely! Proof of wrongdoing is not the same as "being friends" on a social network site. Two completely different issues there. Though I can't imagine supporting the idea of "being friends" on Facebook or anything else with CURRENT students, I also can't see where the government gets off declaring it to be a crime without any proof of harm to a victim. [STRIKE]And the phrase "with current or former students" irks me no end. By the letter of that phrase, that means a teacher cannot be friends with a person who is in their FIFTIES if that person was ONCE a student of that teacher. Ridiculous. [/STRIKE] Actual text of the law clarifies this: Former student is defined as any person who was at one time a student at the school at which the teacher is employed and who is eighteen years of age or less and who has not graduated.
SB54 - Creates the Amy Hestir Student Protection Act and establishes the Task Force on the Prevention of Sexual Abuse of Children

An employer should be able to handle this without a law needed, IF they feel the need.
Again, absolutely agreed. And if the parents are involved in their kids' lives, THEY will know if something wrong or fishy is going on, and then can take it to the employer. I just watched a great episode of "Suits" in which the head of a company got berated by his own lawyer with the analogy of that lawyer as a kid going to the father of a kid who was picking on his little brother, telling the parent what was going on--to which the father said he didn't know anything about it--and then stating quite plainly that it was his ##$%%#$# JOB to know what was going on. Seems to me that "parent" should be more of a verb than a noun, and that "parenting" means keeping tabs on appropriate and inappropriate things your kids are up to.

This is what happens when the government gets its nose under the tent - in this case the education tent.
Yep, you guessed it, absolutely agree. This is yet another case where the government thinks it knows WAY more about "protecting children" than those whose task it is to raise them--namely their own PARENTS. Heaven forbid we have a society in which we don't have to rely on the government to tell us every single thing we can and cannot do in our daily lives. Land of the free, my a$$.

Now exiting Zone.

Edited after digging through text of actual bill.

 

[hornadylnl]

Easy fix. Nuke facebook from orbit.

 

[ArmedProgrammer]

Easy fix. Nuke facebook from orbit.

I LIKE this.... oh wait...

 

[hornadylnl]

I actually blocked the word facebook from incoming emails on my desktop. Now if I could find out a way to do it on my iPhone. I got sick and tired of my nosy sil sending us constant updates of peoples facebook pages. People I don't know or could care less about.

 

[bingley]

I do not want my children to be buddies with their teachers. I want them to be students.

You may find that many of the teachers who "friend" students on Facebook have a separate account for their real friends. I know some teachers who use Facebook to assign homework, supervise group projects, keep a channel of communication open, etc. They have no intention of actually socializing with students. They would probably be horrified with that idea! Many people are assuming that teachers use Facebook the same way we use it. That's not a good assumption to make.

Now, there may be teachers who actually treat their students like friends. I think that's a bad idea pedagogically, but I'm not going to tell them how to do their job. Very few of these teachers are sexual predators. Parents should just monitor their kids if they are so worried about that.

Let's not get all paranoid when we hear about a social relationship (I don't mean sexual) between a teacher and a student. Some of us have kept in touch with our teachers. They like hearing about how our lives have turned out once every few years. We like catching up and reliving old times. Heck, we can even do all this without having sex!

... I agree they should not be in legal jeopardy, however I am fine with them getting dismissed from their job.

This isn't about firing teachers. They are going to arrest them. For having an unapproved friends-list.

I agree with both of you: this law is unconstitutional. Government, state or federal, should keep its nose out of pedagogy. Individual schools should set their own policy on professional relationships between teachers and students.

At the end of my post, I started thinking: what led Missouri to pass this absurd law? Did anything happen? Or is that state full of paranoid parents? Or is it a case of politicians trying put a feather in their cap as "education statesmen" before the next election? Stupid law, stupid law, stupid law.

Da Bing