what do you think about banning teachers from contacting students over personal facebook pages or other?

[happygirl836]

Hard to say I am not even a school teacher but I teach a kids karate class and I don't friend teenage students. I feel that there does need to be some separation. I do have a private life and some of it is not appropriate to share with teenagers. Granted I am not posting naked pictures of me online or pictures of me totally waisted but there are some things that would be inappropriate to share + its my private life they don't need to know that my uncle died yesterday or whatnot. If I friended my students I would also feel obligated to "police" their accounts and that is responsibility I do not want. I am just a karate instructor I see these kids 2x a week for an hour (VS normal school hours) and I feel that I can establish positive meaningful relationships with them without the use of facebook.

However I do use Facebook to pass information: we have a group web page where I post important information and the students can post but the page is for discussing our karate program only. I personally think that is fine and tends to get information quickly.