Teacher/Student friendships now illegal in Missouri

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/facebook/missouri-bans-students-and-teachers-from-being-facebook-friends/2260

1) I'd like to believe that this will be struck down as violating the first amendment right to freedom of assembly, but there have been too many court cases affirming that minors do not have the same rights as adults.

2) Banning social media based on a case from the era before personal computers existed, really has me glaring at the screen with a WTF face.

3) Why is it always, automatically, assumed that if a teacher is trying to befriend a student it is for nefarious purposes? I had several teachers, all the way through my career, who were as much friend as instructor, and that helped me become not just a better student but a better person.

So, your thoughts? Is it doomed to failure, or the first wave in new restrictions designed to help make school an even less fun place to be?

Like most laws regarding the internet, this is painfully clueless and even more pointless. If they want to waste money trying to enforce it when there are real problems going on, they'we welcome to try, but they won't get anywhere.

The 'former students' part is particularly interesting; so teachers aren't allowed to befriend people they USED to teach, ever? We need some more details on that sticking point, because it seems absurd on its face.

"This is the voice of the law! Put down the get well card, and step away from the child! Do not smile encouragingly, thats friendliness! You're adding to your sentence buddy!"

And this is why i HATE living in missouri.

I'd bet money on this being the logic of something along the lines of "teachers corrupt students into leaning liberal"

edited 2nd Aug '11 12:13:42 PM by Midgetsnowman

Uh, lets not get too paranoid here.

Psh, five bucks says it's Paedo Hunt.

paranoid? No no. Just I live in a rural area of Missouri and thats pretty much how the logic goes as it related to teachers, particularly college teachers. People in my area of the country truly do think that the majority of people leaving college are liberal becauyse teachers teach them to be liberals.

15 bucks says it both.

edited 2nd Aug '11 12:18:31 PM by Midgetsnowman

Here's what I am guessin they are trying to prevent Student/Teacher romances which can spin off from friendships made.

This was actually school policy (not sure if there was a law or not) where I grew up.

Those rarely happen. Theyre about as statistically significant as the chances of a teacher deciding to murder you .

at best this is a ridiculous attempt to get votes from paranoid idiots. at worst, its an attempt to legislate peoples behavior and friends for some idiotic purpose such as preventing pedophilia (lololol) or keeping teachers from "influencing students minds"

edited 2nd Aug '11 12:17:49 PM by Midgetsnowman

Trying to ensure that pedophiles don't have access to children isn't a bad nor foolish idea. Telling teachers, "Oh, you're fired for accepting that friend request" is both bad and foolish.

@Jazz: preventing it? No. But heres the problem. How many kids actually meet a pedophilic teacher?

Shit like this is more about satisfying media hysteria over a statistically insiginificant number of cases to make the public feel better. Wanna know who is statitically most likely to molest your poor, innocent little snot nosed brat? It aint their gym coach. Its your EXTENDED FAMILY.

But hey, teachers are FAR more publically visible and gratifying to persecute than listening to your child when she tells you uncle tom touched her in bad places.

edited 2nd Aug '11 12:28:15 PM by Midgetsnowman

Yeah,I can see your point.

I think this is more of a case of preventing pedophilia than anything political.

On a side note, I'm disappointed that I didn't see this article before posting, because I would have totally stolen their headline verbatim.

Its a case of tilting at windmills in the name of preventing pedophilia. You wanna prevent the statistically unlikely chance of Timmy being Molested by the gym coach? Then have better screening of teachers and easier places for kids to go and talk to when they need help from an authority figure,

edited 2nd Aug '11 12:31:39 PM by Midgetsnowman

snowman@ I don't know I have the feeling that pedophiles will learn to be trickier and more cunning.

Anyway,you have a point that a lot of kids need to be protected by relatives who sexually abuse them.However,you can't overule that school officials do cross that line but you do have a good point that we should be looking for pedophiles in the right places.And sadly they seem to be more often in family where children should be guaranted to be love and not violated.

Thats my pouint exactly. people seem to have this crazy idea in their heads every stranger is a pedophile. Which is bad considering 99% of pedophiles are NOT STRANGERS.

people are paranoid and stupid. I've been friends with a lot of my instructors. That doesnt mean they secretly wanted to rape me.

edited 2nd Aug '11 12:52:28 PM by Midgetsnowman

I can say that the teachers in my son's preschool are not allowed (by law or regulation, I'm not sure) to Facebook friend students or parents of students. I'm not sure exactly what the reasoning is for this but apparently it's felt that it keeps inappropriate relationships from forming. /shrug

Presumably these were the pre-Facebook years, then?

Ok — I agree that pupil/teacher relationships have to have a degree of formality about them and I would agree that a teacher friending a student on Facebook is inappropriate unless they were related or previous family friends etc.

But does it have to apply to FORMER students? Why? And does it really need a LAW?

Sometimes I think that lawmakers just pull stuff out of their ass just because it's easy.

edited 2nd Aug '11 1:03:16 PM by TheBatPencil

At my old school it was against regulation for a teacher to use their main Facebook account to friend other students. This is because teachers are adults and typically do adult things that have probably been photographed/discussed on their wall, and it wouldn't be classy to give the student the chance to see what they consider a role model in such situations.

Now, having an alt. account is fair game. I was friends with two of my band directors who had an alt. account and they always posted stuff about band. Once I graduated, I friended their real accounts, and their first post was "Time to get me one of those BIG beers from Pluckers!"

By the sounds of this, they're just exaggerating the "dangers" of teacher/student relationships online. It's not like it hasn't before. All this is doing is taking what was typically school regulated and turning it into a mandatory law that they need to obey. Like someone else said, it's really just a cheap way to get paranoid people to vote in their favor.

I don't think it said anything about former students not being allowed to friend teachers, at least once they get out of that school. At that point, you're likely never going to see those teachers again, they're technically not even your teachers, and most people have probably reached 18 at that point and they can make decisions on their own.

edited 2nd Aug '11 1:12:27 PM by HeavyDDR

In 1997, I waltzed into my old High School after graduating from Basic Training just to say hi to some of my favorite teachers and stuff. They appreciated the thought. No one cared, no one complained, no one called the cops about the wierd guy wearing BDU's walking on to campus, and that was that.

Yeah, good luck trying to do that today...

You were probably trying to kidnap some innocent 13 year old and rape her you evil evil person.

Does this extend to emailing students? I guess online courses are now illegal.