From one of my students- Page 3

[adamgreer]

Posted: 4/17/06 at 11:33am

JasonF, I don't know you and I am sure your intentions are good.

However, as an educator myself, I can say that I would not give out my AIM screen name. I do have a special email for school purposes, and my students do email me there frequently with school questions. And they are welcome to come talk to me about ANYTHING before or after school in my classroom. The reason I don't give out other personal information is because we have been told time and time again not to. I can't tell you how many workshops I've sat through where we've been told specifically to avoid this sort of thing. It's not about your motives, which as I've said I'm sure are good. It's about avoiding even the impression that you have ulterior motives. Its a sad commentary on the world we live in, but we're told to avoid even the impression that there is something "strange" going on. Do I like it? No. However, I value my job deeply, and as a young male teacher, I know that all it takes is one accusation, however unfounded, and my career is over. And I love what I do too much to lose it all.

[erikaamato]

Posted: 4/17/06 at 11:35am

Oh, and more on topic: YAY, for Sondheim! I got into Sondheim when I was 16, after being asked to sing "The Miller's Son" in a benefit performance of all Sondheim music. I was instantly hooked. Then, I was lucky enough to get cast in Company my freshman year of college - at 17 - which made me love Sondheim's work even more. So, I'm one of the few who didn't find him inaccessible, I guess...

[singingwendy]

Posted: 4/17/06 at 11:43am

If it was after she graduated, there was no problem with her hanging out with them socially. Now, if she was still a student, I'd feel differently. When you are in that student/teacher relationship, you need to be mindful of your behavior, and in most ways, it's the teacher who has to do most of the "minding". Heck, consider my discomfort level when I was in a show this past summer with two of my elementary students and several of my voice students and we all had to share the same general dressing room!

Jason, I believe that as long as the kids and parents and you have guidelines, and the parents are aware that the kids are IMing you, there is not a problem. Plus, the teachers who have gotten in trouble lately with using the internet to communicate with students have not been having appropriate conversations or discussing school relevant subject matter. We recently had a teacher in one of our middle schools removed from his classroom and arrested for inappropriate behavior. Yes, he was using the internet to contact these girls, but he was asking them to run away with him. And he was also videotaping his classes for no apparent reason....and they had a string of girls ready to stand up and admit that he'd harrassed them and made inappropriate sexual remarks. So.....there was a lot more to it than asking him what tomorrow's homework was.

Unfortunately, in this current society, it does seem that the whole idea of having an adult mentor or someone you look up to tend to get skewed to "why would an adult want to spend their time with a kid? There must be something fishy going on."

[jasonf]

Posted: 4/17/06 at 11:55am

adam -- I understand where you're coming from. Like I said, I'm VERY open about the fact that I make myself available to the kids online. Believe me, most of the kids would rather NOT talk to their teacher online. Those that do, their parents always know about it. I also never initiate an IM, unless it's SPECIFICALLY a school thing (like giving my asst. director the stuff she needs to do). Honestly, IMing isn't all that different from providing an email address. Records can be kept of either. Either CAN be faked if that's the intention of someone. If I ever even came CLOSE to a situation (either via IM OR email) that could potentially cause a problem (and I haven't in four years), I would absolutely have a record of it on my computer myself. If a kid should choose to create a fake conversation, well, either way there's not much that you can do about that, whether you give out your IM or not. Anyone can have any IM name - for a student to fake that (espcecially if they have any form of an email name for you) is VERY easy. It's really a matter of how YOU handle yourself. I only deal with the kids in a professional manner, online and in school. You're honestly just as likely to have a kid "report" you for something you did in school, as they are for making something up you said online.

I can't tell you how many times a kid has IMed me with a question about an assignment or an upcoming quiz or something and ended up helping their grade because they were able to ask. The way I see it, the internet is not going away. It's a tool that we as educators SHOULD be using. Yes, there are creeps out there who would abuse it, but hopefully the schools would have enough sense to not hire these people. Had my supervisor told me "don't do this any more" I would have stopped. She knows how I use it, and she knows WHY I use it. Same with the parents of the kids.

While I understand where this is coming from, I think our society has become so sensitive and so guarded, that we can't even trust people who we SHOULD be trusting - our teachers. It's sad that this has gotten the reaction it has, while there are thousands of kids in homes being abused every day, and because those abusers are parents, nothing is done/said about it - but a teacher with nothing but good intentions to help his students is automatically a target of suspicion for the simple reason that he chooses to communicate with them.

[catsuit]

Posted: 4/17/06 at 12:01pm

I personally love both Schwartz and Sondheim. Very different styles, but both great!

[Hawker]

Posted: 4/17/06 at 12:40pm

I would suggest that anyone, no matter how innocent or well-intended his or her mentoring (via e-mail, IM, or any other personal correspondence with a minor student that cannot be addressed publicly or in the classroom)) read "Hands", the first vingnette in Sherwood Anderson's "Winesburg, Ohio".

The disturbing truth is that we now live in a time where some individuals see malfeasance in the most benevolent gestures.
There are some REALLY paranoid parents out there that are obsessed by unfounded fears that menacing figures lurk around every corner.

It is not uncommon fo school authorities, to protect themselves from litigation, to trample on the due process of accused individuals and to terminate such individuals after reckless investigations--based solely on the suspicions of a parent.

It sickens me because the wrongfully accused is often left psychologically scarred and without any real legal redress of the matter.

It also saddens me that such rampant paranoia exists. It diminishes the ability of the exceptional teacher (i.e., Anderson's Wing Biddlebaum) to change lives for the better.

I knew one such man very well in real life. His story of persecution and false accusation is one of the saddest stories I know.

[Dollypop]

Posted: 4/17/06 at 12:48pm

Let me just explain to etoile that many schools ENCOURAGE their students to e-mail their teachers. The New York City Department of Education has set up e-mail addresses for all of their teachers, paras and aides on the NYC Website. The idea is for students to be able to contact the teacher off-hours for help on homework, or for parents to contact teachers about their childrens' progress in class. Mayor Bloomburg feels that we are teachers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. However, he practices what he preaches. He is the only mayor of NYC in recent history who has his private phone number listed in the phone book.

[LightDesign]

Posted: 4/17/06 at 12:53pm

Hawker, I understand that truly, sometimes paranoia is misplaced. However, when I was young, I was in a situation where one of my friends ended up being abused by a teacher. It started very innocently - that teacher's door was open during lunch and this student (among others) would stop by during lunch to talk about music and theatre. But this teacher gradually found more and more ways to be close to this student, and nobody said anything, so the situations ended with the student being asked for sexual favors by the teacher. There has to be distance, I'm sorry, but that's how those things start.

[Hawker]

Posted: 4/17/06 at 1:18pm

There's no doubt that these crimes happen.

There's little doubt that some individuals are found guilty when such crimes did not occur.

All the more reason to err on the side of an almost neurotic caution and limit one's contact with minors to those situations which are public (to the degree it is professionally possible)and where there exists the possibility that a witness could impeach the false accusation of another.

Again, this necessity is very distasteful to me but it is becoming more necessary in the times in which we live to protect the careers, good name, and peace of mind of the innocent man or woman who can so easily stand accused.

What does it say about our society when a gynecologist has to have a female staffer in the examing room with him when he examines a female patient?