Published: November 12, 2007

A Facebook Education

Last year, a student I’ll call Phillip came to my senior English class every day and never said a word. I knew from his previous teachers that he was a gifted writer. I knew from his classmates that he was a slam poet of some notoriety, having won school and local competitions. And I knew from his mother that the pressure to get college applications together was making him anxious. But in class, he was an enigma. He would smile, listen, and never offer anything more than a “hello” or “goodbye.”

Until, that is, I met him again on Facebook.

All year I had resisted my students’ cheerful pleas for me to get onto Facebook, the increasingly popular social networking Web site that was originally intended for kids in school. I wasn't in school. I was only at school, teaching, sharing a little of what I knew about literature and a lot of what I knew about life. I was perfectly content to be among the millions of Americans who didn't...