Teachers and Social Networking
Coach Lawson was one of the students’ favorite teachers at Polk High School. His students felt welcomed in his classroom and appreciated his “no-nonsense” approach to teaching literature. Students respected Coach Lawson and always said they learned more in his class than from most teachers. Coach Lawson also tried very hard to keep up with the current trends of his students because he wanted his instruction to be relevant. One way he felt he could do that was to communicate with his students like they communicate with each other, so he was active on Twitter and had “friended” several students on Facebook.
After losing a basketball game, Coach Lawson tweeted, “We should have won that one but the referees must have been watching a different game.” In defense of Coach Lawson, his students started a social media blitz where they criticized the referees and made derogatory comments about the opposing team. The students’ tweets and posts spread across the community with many students upset about the “unfair” game. The students’ revolution carried on into the school building with students talking about the game in the hallways and placing “Coach Lawson was robbed” signs in the hallways. Very soon, Coach Lawson was in the principal’s office answering the question, “What did you do?”
1) What did Coach Lawson do wrong?
2) What should the coach have done differently?
