Maintaining Professionalism in Your Profession

              When I was a kid, my mom would do this thing where she’d pick out a random person in the mall or airport and then tell me his/her life story. At first, I was quite amazed. I would think, is my mom psychic? Eventually I grew up, and I realized she was just joking and making up some elaborate story. Despite her stories not being real, I learned to watch people and see if I could learn anything about them by noticing small things.

              Teaching is a career in which we never stop learning. We’re constantly changing (and hopefully improving) the way we go about instruction. I have been watching teachers my whole life, but I have really focused on watching them starting my sophomore year in high school when I decided I wanted to become a math teacher.

              I went to a nice high school, and I am very privileged to have received the education I did, however, I noticed a few things that really upset me—things that I can guarantee happen in almost all high schools. These things shared one commonality: professionalism.

              I think teachers too often forget that teaching is their job. I’m not saying that they should look at teaching with disgust and have a negative attitude about it. What I mean is teachers try to be the students’ friend, and thus forget that there are boundaries that need to be put in place. Not only does this happen in the classroom, but it happens with social media.

              It would be unrealistic to expect all teachers to not have any kind of social media. After all, being a teacher means you’re a human, and humans in today’s society tend to have quite a bit of social media like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, etc. But being a teacher in today’s society means you have to be even more careful than most people have to. One miss spoken phrase or action can land you in a lot of legal trouble along with possibly losing your job and reputation.

              That is why teacher’s need to set boundaries when it comes to social media and their students. The best thing some of my teachers did was tell us students that they would not add us on Facebook until we graduated. They didn’t mean graduated from their class—they meant from high school. Just because a student doesn’t have you for class, doesn’t mean it’s okay to have them on social media.

              Setting boundaries also allows for you as a teacher to maintain a work and private life. Keep social media to be for family and friends. There is no need to have a student as a friend on Instagram or Snapchat, let alone to post photos or videos of those students on your accounts. If you use social media for non-educational purposes, your students have no place in it.  

              Be their teacher and mentor, but remember that you are also hired to teach, not to be their friend. You can be a good teacher, even a fantastic teacher, without crossing these boundaries. This is your chosen profession, so remember to keep it professional.