Teachers on social media?

[bakedbeantin]

At a wedding yesterday and was sat next to a lady I'd not met before, very nice to chat to and we soon found out that we had a mutual friend/ acquaintance who is a teacher at DSC school.
Chatting about DSS and I get my phone out to show lady a picture of him, lady says 'ah yes, friend teaches him, I've seen that picture before'
I diddnt think too much of it at the time but not I reflect on it why did this stranger know what DSS looked like?
AIBU worried that teacher is looking at the social media accounts of her pupils? And is she showing these to her friends? Or is this very normal? All my teacher friends teach first school age so no social media to look at.

[e1y1]

No, not normal at all.

My DM is a biologist at a school/college (11-18yrs) and is advised not to have social media at all preferably, and if she does (and she does), ABSOLUTE NO CONTACT WITH PUPILS - even the ones who are 18 or over.

[booloobalooloo]

How old is Dss? I think it's blurring the boundaries a bit, but some of my 6th form tutors would have been 'friends' with people on fb. She may not be specifically looking on fb but a picture of him popped up on her feed. If she 'liked ' it her friend might have then seen it on her feed. Nothing dodgy.

[somanylovelyearrings]

I think you are over thinking it.
I've seen pictures l didn't need to - primarily as people share stuff and it ends up around.
Especially in a small area.
Kids these days are all over Facebook/ selling sites etc...

[bakedbeantin]

DSS is 12.

Good point about the the liking of things on Facebook, I always forget that!

This was on Instagram, DSS doesn't have a Facebook so you only see the posts of the people you follow I think.

[elisa2502]

I'm a teacher, why should we not use Social Media? We do however have rules that it must be secure and we shouldn't accept friend requests from pupils....not as though you would!

[bakedbeantin]

No way saying teachers shouldn't use social media. I

[Riversleep]

I have social media but it's set to private, and I teach teenagers using my maiden name, while my social media is in my married name. Im very strict about not 'friending' anyone I teach. I see pictures of other people's kids though, but that is because their social media is not set to private.

[Bloke1976]

I've got twitter and facebook accounts. None of them in my real name. Facebook is rarely used. Twitter is used to vent, mostly about politics.

As a teacher you need to be careful on social media. My wife has changed her name so kids can't find me through her. It's the safest way, aside from staying off the Internet.

[chocolatesa]

Did you ask in what context this person had seen that photo? She said she had seen it before, did she say it was the teacher who showed it to her?

It is very strange if it was, I'm a teacher and can't think of any reason to search for any pupil on social media.

[bakedbeantin]

No I diddnt think anything of it at the time, we were just chatting as you do. It's only now that I've thought of it it seemed odd.

She diddnt say the teacher showed her the pic.

I don't think there's much I can do about it now

[Anasnake]

Does the school itself have social media accounts and the teacher might have shared one of the school's posts ?

[Jedimum1]

Was it a very distinctive photo? She might have confused your child with any other. She might have just meant "oh, yes, I recognise him" if she's seen school pictures on the schools website? Teacher might have just liked that pic and it appeared in teacher's friends feed as "see what Ms Teacher has liked this week".

[bakedbeantin]

No quite a generic photo really.

There were lots of pics of DSD on the school website and social media a while back (she won a competition and was in local papers etc) they do look alike so maybe it was that.