In one Utah school district, students must say adios to earning extra credit through Facebook gifts (yes, there are such things) for their Spanish teacher. Granite School District wants to be the first in Utah to formally ban student-teacher friendships on the popular social networking site. Students and teachers won’t even be allowed to follow each other on Twitter. District officials say the ban wasn’t prompted by a particular incident, but merely a response to the blurring of boundaries caused by social networking in general. And they hope this will be the first step in upping disciplinary oversight of “inappropriate” contact between teachers and students. Unaddressed is the issue of how many fragile teenage egos will be crushed by teachers de-friending them. But don’t worry, Gadfly is still on Facebook. Become his fan today!
“Utah school district crafts social network rules,” by Joseph Freeman, The Associated Press, April 9, 2010