With the crazy new trend of Facebook, people throughout the nation are using it to keep in touch with friends and family. Similar to MySpace, Facebook gives anyone the opportunity to create a page for free, all in a couple of minutes free process.

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When a person  has an account, they can add “friends” and post whatever they want on their page for everyone else to view.

With the reliability of Facebooking and easy access, now more than just common people have pages. Stores, such as American Eagle and Victoria Secrets have what they call “fan pages” in which people can become a part of and see sales and events that the stores are having. Not only do well known stores and celebrities now have pages, but today schools are creating pages.

This becomes a big issue at some schools and many wonder if Facebook should be a part of school. The access for students to view homework assignments and so forth is indeed a lot easier, but with every good thing comes a bad reaction. Students as well as anyone who has a page can make any comment on their page and post on their page anything they want. This is why, here at Willow Springs High, Facebook is blocked on all computers for students.

An issue that schools have with Facebooking is what their students post about their fellow classmates, teachers, sports, and other school related events. Should a student be punished at school for what they say on their Facebook when they are at home?

“It is breaking the 1st Amendment if students get in trouble at school for what they post,” replied High School Librarian, Mrs. Pitts.

If a student was to get in a fight over the weekend, they would not be punished at school for what did not happen at school. So, in the same manner if a student posts on their Facebook something that others disagree with, they in fact, according to the law, can not do anything about it because it is the students’ right to freedom of speech.

Although Facebook does have some flaws, as does everything, it at times can be very useful.

“If it’s used in a professional way…”, replied Mrs. Pitts, “then I think it can be good way to inform students of school events and homework due dates.” This would allow the students easy access to view what homework assignments they may have forgotten and remind them of upcoming events. One thing for certain though is that “Students and teachers should not be friends on Facebook,” according to Mrs. Pitts and many other teachers.

So, if used in the correct manner, Facebook can be a good resource in order to help students succeed in school and allow them to stay in touch with their friends at the same time.