Opinion
Education Opinion

It’s not you, it’s me.

By Katie Hanifin — June 04, 2009 1 min read
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I shared the last post “Can we be friends?” with the student in question. I was curious for his reaction. Even more curiously, he didn’t really have one. He said it was no big deal and went on to say that it was a strange thing to write about.

Because I over-analyze just about everything when it comes to education, I’ve been mulling over his reaction, or lack thereof. I have to say, I imagined a lot of responses, but apathy? What’s up with that?

When spotting me at Walmart my students positively freak out or run in the other direction. I’m either a movie star or a walking plague. So, it’s not my bruised ego playing into this interaction, I’m wondering how the modern friendship is viewed to children that have grown up online.

It’s a strange dichotomy to react so strongly when seeing me face-to-face anywhere other than the classroom, but not to consider seriously the access to my personal life that Facebook affords. Is the online friendship purely virtual?

Social networking provides a technology interface that could be enormously advantageous in keeping in touch with your students. That is, concerning their progress, upcoming assessments, missing assignments, and all that other “teacher” stuff. It’s a medium as comfortable to many teenagers as the telephone is to me. And in that way, I wouldn’t call a student to “talk”, but I might call them to conference on their success.

The opinions expressed in Teaching Generation Tech are strictly those of the author(s) and do not reflect the opinions or endorsement of Editorial Projects in Education, or any of its publications.