With class sizes burgeoning and many youngsters remaining anonymous to their teachers, one might think that efforts by teachers to enhance communication with pupils would be applauded. Instead, school authorities and, more recently, legislators are casting a wary eye on such practices as teacher-student “friending” on Facebook. Although some view internet social media as ideal forums for instructors and students to connect positively, others regard them as havens for would-be child predators — wolves masquerading as educators, who inveigle kids into inappropriate and at times even illegal relationships. Proper concern about young people’s safety (perhaps coupled with public hysteria and officials’ fear of liability for web-based misconduct) have led to crackdowns on teachers’ use of Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and similar popular websites. Missouri’s misadventure with the first statewide law in this area furnishes a warning of the dangers of chipping away at speech with a meat-ax instead of a fine-honed scalpel.
Passed by an overwhelming margin during the summer, the Amy Hestir Student Protection Act was slated to take effect on Aug. 28. Some of its features were unexceptionable: for instance, a salutary requirement that school districts share information about sexually abusive teachers, which allowed for lawsuits when failure to do so resulted in additional offenses.
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