The consequences of living your life online 02May08
Examples of people not thinking clearly about the consequences of their online life continue to surface in the media. A recent article in the Washington Post looks at a number of teachers who maintain websites, or have other online presences (i.e. Facebook/MySpace), and how they have no clue about the visibility of such sites, or give much thought to who might see it and how that might affect their professional life. People are learning to use the Internet in positive ways to further their professional ambitions, but it seems far to many are still oblivious.
I’ve previously posted briefly about ‘Helping children create a positive online presence‘ and continue to wonder how the current generation, who conducts a large amount of their social interactions online, and who do share questionable content with friendly strangers, will change the culture of acceptance of these forms of interaction in the next 5-10 years. Will they learn to conduct their lives within the set of rules the current generation suggests? or will they usher in a change in culture and understanding. I don’t think anyone is arguing that previous generations didn’t do the same things, they just didn’t have the misfortune of digital cameras and the Internet to document their activities. Their antics memories are stored safely in a dust covered shoebox on a long forgotten shelf in a closet.
Very thorny issue! I guess we need to ask ourselves by what standards teachers should be judged. We can’t dismiss the fact that we work with students and in the course of our duties hold those young people to behavioural standards set by our school districts in response to expectations of the community at large. What will students learn if we ourselves adhere to those standards from 8:30 to 4:00 on weekdays, but then publicly mock those same standards outside of school? Is integrity called into question? Does belonging to a group of professionals in a position of influence spill over into our private lives?
It’s not really clear to me where we even start to look for answers. I’m an Ontario teacher so I thought I’d call up the Standards of Practice for the Teaching Profession of Ontario, http://www.oct.ca/publications/PDF/standards_flyer_e.pdf. The document does little to clarify the boundaries of personal and professional behaviour, but there are key points worth noting.
Here’s the opening statement:
“Members of the Ontario College of Teachers, in their position of trust, demonstrate responsibility in their relationships with students, parents, guardians, colleagues, educational partners, other professionals, the environment and the public.”
For me, the key phrases are “position of trust” and “responsibility”. The document goes on to state that one of the purposes of developing professional standards is to: “to promote public trust and confidence in the teaching profession”. Personally, I’m not so sure that can be turned off at 4:00 p.m.
Thanks for the thought-provoking post!
I agree that as teachers we have a responsibility to act in a professional manner whenever we are in situations where we can interact with the community, students, parents, or fellow teachers. I am also an Ontario teacher and I’m glad you shared that excerpt from the Ontario College of Teachers document. As teachers we made a purposeful choice to enter the profession, and in doing so we (should) understand what is expected of us. If these expectations get in the way of the interactions we want to have, then perhaps a different employment stream should be examined.
Educating individuals on what things can be seen/found on the Internet is a necessary first step. I think part of the problem is just plain ignorance. Should we expect teachers to know how to conduct themselves if we don’t teach them? Do we expect students to perform well on an assessment without first helping them to understand the concepts? Can we honestly hold our students to one standard while holding our teachers to a completely contradictory standard? I certainly hope not.
Good point! We make huge assumptions that this first “net generation” is savvy in all things to do with the Internet. This is of course wrong. Having gone through that exercise today of reading the OCT Standards of Practice, it is obvious that there is much work to be done. I’ll have to look further to see what guidance the Federations are giving teachers, but it’s clear there is little from the College of Teachers.
Something else to keep in mind is that it is getting harder and harder to separate one’s private and professional lives as more and more people are using social networking for business and pleasure. What we need to be doing is teaching people, adults and kids, to be responsible, free thinkers.
This idea of how teaches should or shouldn’t act online seems to be a popular topic these days, and one that I am personally very familiar with. I was recently asked to resign from a private international school because of a parent complaint about material on my Flickr page. Unlike the teachers from the Washington Post article, I feel I have a good grasp of what is on my various sites. I keep a clean Facebook. I actually invited parents to view my personal blog because I wanted them to have a fuller picture of who was teaching their kids; this brings me to my point:
I am a language arts teacher who is very interested in using technology and Web 2.0 in my classroom as a tool for student self expression. I use these tools myself as an artist, a writer, a photographer, and amateur filmmaker, and as a human being, so what happens if I don’t do anything “stupid” online, but a parent still finds fault with my taste in books, my politics, or religious views. I am an atheist, should I hide this fact to the world, even while I teach my students to be open minded about people’s religious beliefs. What do teachers who do not use these tools tell their students when asked, “Do you have a Youtube page, or do you have a Flickr page?”
It is one thing to judge young teachers who are being flagrantly “inappropriate” online, but who decides where the line is to be drawn. I am a grown adult who loves teaching, loves kids, and loves what I do. I don’t want to have to hide who I am because some parents may think that I am inappropriate. My point is that there will always be someone who doesn’t like who you are and what you stand for, so how do teachers who feel are doing right by their online identities react to being told to be careful, or worse to not engage in online activity.
I have lost my job and have since been re-thinking my stance on all of these questions, but I know that the day of the teacher being a robot of professionalism is dying. Teachers like all professions are made up of eclectic people; we should celebrate this diversity, rather than forcing the educators of our children to be forced into some strange homogenous fake world of conservative expectations.
I teach my kids to use Web 2.0 to create, share, exchange, and build networks, how can I not be doing that myself…as myself?
[...] left the following comment on The Science Bench. For personal reasons, I am very passionate about the idea of professionalism and online [...]
I’ve found the solution to this! As a teacher who’s just been fired with no reason (I suspect my online identity is to blame but the school hasn’t had the decency to tell me) I mulled the problem over. Considering that I have been blogging for nearly 10 years, and only teaching for 5, I figured that my online identity was actually as strong or stronger than my real one. My pupils had only to type in my name on the net and voila! There I was.
So I figured that I’d have to start living my real life under a psuedonym instead. Surely that’s the only way to do it right?
mischief