Why Can’t We Be (Digital) Friends?

While working on a project for class, a student of mine casually mentioned the names of some of my relatives. When I looked up in horror, he rattled off all of the towns in which I had ever lived. I was shaken. How did he get all this information about me? Simple. He had an app for that.

I felt unsettled the rest of the day. The only comfort I took was in knowing that I had a good relationship with the student. So when I asked him to please not violate my privacy any further, he said he wouldn’t.

Unlike most of my colleagues, I don’t use Facebook. However, googling my name, it’s easy to find my (embarrassing!) race times for all the 5Ks I’ve run over the years. There’s curriculum I’ve written, my standings on ratemyteacher.com, and a whole lot of information about a distant cousin with the same name. Imagine if, instead of her successful science career, my same-named cousin had far more nefarious accomplishments?

Some current and former students have expressed an interest in “friending” me on Facebook. I can’t recall having much interest in any of my teachers when I was in middle school. There were some I liked and some I didn’t, but when the school day ended, so did my thoughts of them. Today’s students have instant and easy access to everyone [2], and they’re using it.

So what are the boundaries between teacher and student in this digital age? Where does the personal end and the professional begin? Some would argue that teachers are simply not entitled to the same level of privacy as other citizens because we’re influencing youth all day and thus a higher standard of behavior is expected of us.

Nonetheless, we are private citizens who live private lives outside of school.

There is a boundary between a teacher’s personal and professional lives that is inappropriate for a student to cross. We just have to start teaching them that. There are also online boundaries that students should think long and hard about crossing. This can include everything from “friending” untrustworthy people to cyberbullying [3] to sexting [4].

Just as we teach students how to measure angles, construct a logical argument, and prove a hypothesis, we have an opportunity to make a critical impact on the way our students operate online. These lessons must extend beyond the current conversation about protecting their own reputations and personal information online. It must include the appropriateness of maintaining a digital boundary between themselves and others, including their teachers.

And it is important to remember that everybody’s personal information is accessible online. That means there are more opportunities to render unfair judgments about others based on incomplete data. Just as we teach our kids not to judge based on color, creed, or sexual orientation, we can teach them not to reduce themselves or others to just bytes and bits. After all, we are much more than our digital footprints.

Sofen is a middle school writing teacher in New Jersey.