Royce Kimmons, in his article about online professionalism for educators throughout the United States, describes the specific difficulties teachers (and other school faculty) face in their personal and professional lives online. He expounds his thesis through his list of teachers who have faced severe repercussions from their inappropriate use of technology, his list of ways educators can improve their virtual footprint, his five scenarios and analyses of educators making severe mistakes, and his commentary throughout the article. Most notably, Kimmons asserts that relationships between teachers, students, and parents must be kept professional at all times. Even the slightest question about how a teacher acts in what they say or do might make the student talk negatively about the teacher to others in an exaggerated way. Simple and seemingly harmless activities such as friending a student on facebook may have serious negative consequences, and teachers often lose their jobs and/or teaching licenses as a result.
In one of my math education classes at BYU, we had an insightful class discussion on the use of technology in both the personal and professional lives of educators. Most of the students in the class are preparing to be educators in the future, but all of us have different backgrounds and experiences with the use of social media. One student voiced a concern about students approaching her in inappropriate ways rather than the other way around. This concern sparked a fascinating conversation about different ways to handle it. As a class, we concluded the best way is to pretend to be oblivious, ignore it altogether if possible, or just brush it off in the moment. However, later it is best to contact the principal directly to see if he has any alternate accommodations for those particular students. We all agreed it would not be the best idea to react in the moment to the student(s), get angry or emotional in any way, or even contact their parents regarding the situation, but that contacting the principal would be in everyone’s best interest. In addition to discussing how to deal with specific cases when students might start making moves on the teacher, as a class we discussed how to behave online in general. This included making sure privacy settings were set according to how much we would want future employers, students, and/or their parents to see if they were to search our name. Many of my classmates decided to test out what kind of information they would find on themselves if they were to log off all of social media outlets and simply search their name on google. They shared the astounding results of finding links to silly videos they recorded or embarrassing pictures or statuses they wrote years ago. The discussion opened my eyes to the types of things I can be on the lookout for in my own personal virtual space.
Critique:
As a result of reading the article and participating in the discussion in my math education class, I was convinced that as a future teacher myself, I will be keenly aware of the posts, comments, and texts I send to everyone. Cyberspace is a vast, virtual space that carries a lot of my personal information. As a result, I will thoroughly analyze my privacy settings on all social media outlets to ensure the information available to the public is professional enough to where any future employers, students, and their parents would be able to find it and I would not be embarrassed or feel the need to explain myself. This will help me keep my job.
Connections:
When I am an educator, I will establish the kind of classroom environment that encourages respect for everyone in hopes that students will not approach me in a disrespectful manner. In high school, my math teacher and I established a very good relationship with the perfect balance between professional and personal conversation. As I approached her and asked her advice about my future education plans, she gave me great advice that I still hold dear to my heart. I have never been able to find her on facebook, and we only correspond if I reach out first. I hope to someday follow her example of the perfect balance she helped us both establish in our student-teacher relationship.
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