Yesterday my mom and older brother told me that they think I shouldn't talk about my students on facebook. They say that putting things in writing is dangerous and you never know who could find it. My rationale was that I never use names and only my friends can see my updates (on twitter too), and I am not friends with students. I actually am only friends with three people at New Paltz, and all are faculty members in other departments to whom I tell these stories in real life anyway. Of course I do also put stuff here on the blog, but this is in theory more anonymous since I purposely didn't put my last name anywhere here. However, there are no privacy protections, so someone out there could find it with the proper searches.
So the question out there is how much is too much to say? My brother says that you should never put anything about work in writing. In theory I agree with this, but in this day and age people send emails to their friends more than talk on the phone, so it is going to end up in writing. And more and more facebook is replacing emails to friends. Should I put nothing about work online? Not even jokes about wanting to take naps during office hours? I should say that everything I write is stuff that I would say to my department chair in person, so I'm not worried about that aspect of it. I suppose talking about my coworker hocking lugies wouldn't be nice for him/her to see, though. And there is the professionalism aspect of it. I guess faculty members at UT never would have put things about us students on their facebook (not that they actually use facebook).
Then there's the blog. In a sense, the whole point of this blog was to talk about my job, or at least the process of getting it. Now it's about lessons learned as a new faculty member. So should I be more careful about what I say? Perhaps I shouldn't talk about individual students (or their mothers) anymore. But really, they are some of the most fun stories related to being a faculty member. I even have a new one that I want to tell you about :) I think that generic notes about how I teach, like using the CAE lecture tutorials, is probably ok, but that would still violate my brother's put no work stuff in writing rule.
So, what say you guys? Do you think I share too much detail about my students, either here or on facebook/twitter? Where do you think the line should be?
I think that is a tough question. My "rule" has always been that I will assume anyone can and will find anything I write online, and that I'm OK with being pretty open and authentic about stuff. So I know that a lot of what I write isn't professional per se, but I feel like it is appropriate to the venue (Facebook is about friends anyway, the tone of my blog is pretty personal, etc) and I would be willing to stand behind the level of disclosure I go with to anybody from any sphere of my life (including the professional sphere). I do think you have to think about the situation and come to a decision about what you're going for and then stick with it.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Julia. I think as long as your comfortable with anyone being able to come across the blog (or your Facebook page), then say whatever you want. I tend to err on the side of caution and don't talk about specific things involving other people.
ReplyDelete(ugh, and the first "your" should be "you're" :P)
ReplyDeleteI think I agree: if you're willing for what you say to possibly be found a student and/or higher up, then you're ok. I think unfortunately there is a relatively high chance of someone coming across the blog (less so for seeing what you wrote on facebook). You've referenced yourself as "Dr. F", it's stated where you went to grad school, your user name is your first and middle, etc. If a student wanted to look hard enough, they could probably find this.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I don't think you've said anything bad; you've just told the situations exactly as is. None of us readers know real names, and there's no way for us to find that out unless you tell us. So as long as there's no way for a student to run to a higher up and possibly get you in trouble (and I really don't think there is), then you're probably ok. And if you can justify what you've written, and feel comfortable with it, that helps.
I think facebook lets you personalize pretty well who can see what, so I would count that as "safe". It would be silly to befriend your students, of course.
ReplyDeleteAs for the blog, I agree with the rest that if people want to find it, they will, so then it's more a matter of you being comfortable with the stuff you write here. I guess in the private sector your web life can really get you into trouble at work, but not in academics. A blog is a personal space after all, and as long as you don't use names, you are not causing people any harm. I have a widget in my blog that lets me see the geographical origin of people entering the blog. You could install it to raise alarms if anybody from your town comes in to read regularly.
I really want to agree with what your other friends have said, because I enjoy reading your blog and I think everyone should have the right to share their own stories.
ReplyDeleteBut personal experience has shown me that all's fair in academia. You have to be comfortable that whatever you post on your blog could potentially be used against you, since it's fairly easy to identify you. (I've even heard of RPT committees looking at "Rate My Professor" comments when clearly that's an unbiased sample.) On the other hand, a blog like "rateyourstudents" makes sure the author can't be identified. I like the option of raising alarms if you get hits from New Paltz -- but another option is to make it all a little more anonymous (which I think would mean sanitizing earlier entries by deleting school names, etc.). It sucks, but it would suck more if this caused you any trouble in the future.