For teachers, life on MySpace can be a lesson unto itself

Sindya N. BhanooCORRESPONDENT

BERKELEY -- In the online world of MySpace, teenage life can seem like one big party, but what happens when teachers drop in?

"Students post stuff and pictures on MySpace of them doing things that under-21-year-old people shouldn't be doing," said Berkeley High Media Studies teacher Philip Halpern, who created an account to reach out to students.

The 14-year teaching veteran quickly became uncomfortable with what he was seeing and decided to return to handouts and e-mail.

"People definitely have things on their MySpace that they don't want adults to see," Berkeley High senior Megan Covey said. "Like pictures at parties with alcohol and smoking. And there was the Dare Night."

The pictures from that night -- students jumping into the Cal Fountain naked and walking into restaurants in underwear -- ended up on MySpace, Covey said.

She agreed, however, MySpace is the place to find her and her friends. E-mail, she joked, is obsolete.

Most teachers are at least that clued in. MySpace has more than 100 million users. Many are teenagers who spend an average of 15 hours a week on the site, according to a study done by California State University Dominguez Hills psychology professor Larry Rosen.

Berkeley schools spokesperson Mark Coplan said no official policy addresses teacher/student MySpace interaction.

"For some teachers, MySpace has been really effective, but they have to be careful," he said.

Christopher Guerra has an English teacher at Berkeley High with a MySpace account. "If you don't have a printer, you can send her your paper through MySpace and she'll print it for you, or you can get help with homework."

Guerra thinks it's "OK for teachers to be on MySpace," but others aren't so sure.

One female student, who asked not to be identified, said she stays in touch with a summer theater camp teacher through MySpace. "We flirt a lot," she said. "I guess it might border on inappropriate. ... He's young, like 22."

She said teachers in the public school system should not be contacting their students outside of school, especially through MySpace.

"MySpace is purely social" and has no place for academics, she said. "It's about seeing what's going on over the weekend. ... Teachers talking to students (on MySpace) takes the relationship to an unprofessional level."

Some parents fear teachers on MySpace may just give students another excuse to waste time.

Berkeley High parent Diane Tsuji said many parents struggle with restricting the time their children spend on MySpace. Teachers offering help through the site just complicates matters.

Parent Rosa Luvenl said, "It's another way to lure kids into MySpace. A lot of them don't realize what they are getting into."

Sometimes, it can pull teachers into the high school gossip ring, student Michael Rosenthal said.

Last year two Berkeley High teachers took students to a Junior Statesman of America conference. There, one male teacher accused another male teacher, who was openly gay, of assault.

Word spread quickly among students, and soon, they found out the accuser's MySpace profile contained very homophobic information.

District spokesperson Coplan said he had no comment on the matter, and that it was a personal issue between two teachers who failed to return a reporter's inquiries.

Dharini Rasiah, another Berkeley High teacher, said MySpace could be a useful tool for teachers. "Kids don't check their e-mail often, if teachers can and are willing to use MySpace, it can be a great way to reach out. ... The vast majority of students are on it."

Although she has a casual, congenial relationship with her students, she is wary of using MySpace.

"The minute I became a teacher I had to started defining myself," she said. "In order to get kids to listen to you, you have to separate yourself."

Rasiah's student, Covey, disagreed and said "cool teachers" like Rasiah would be best suited for MySpace. "I would MySpace them all the time with [homework-- questions," she said. "But there are some teachers who are total squares, and with them it would be uncomfortable."

Rick Ayers, a recently retired Berkeley High School English teacher, was so popular among his students that some created a MySpace account for the 60-year-old, now in graduate school.

He logs on twice a week and has 303 mostly teenage friends and no qualms about using MySpace to communicate. He has helped students with their homework through it and now they use it to stay in touch with him. But he admitted that sometimes, "It is information you don't want to see ... like photos of them [students-- drinking."

And sometimes, it is information he cannot believe he's seeing. He shook his head and laughed as he told the story of one student. "This guy posted a bulletin, which means it's public and everyone can see it, titled 'Grapes,' which is slang for marijuana." The message read, "For real, hit me up."

When it comes to situations like this, Ayers said, "I just leave it alone. ... It's not my business to get into it."

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