Teachers woul you ever be friends with a former student after they're 18 and graduated from school or no?

Question

Teachers woul you ever be friends with a former student after they're 18 and graduated from school or no?

Answer 1

If everything was cool with the parents , then I would have no problems doing that . If the girl wanted to go out with me and I was single , no one should even have a say other than her and her parents.

Answer 2

I'm very close with one of my former students. He contacted me through Classmates.com and reminded me that he had been a student many many years before. At the time, I was very young, so there are only a few years between us. It would have been wrong then, but now I see no reason why we should not be friends.

Answer 3

I teach college and graduate students, so I have a number of friends who were former students, because they are around my own age.  I can't imagine that it would be the same if I were a high school teacher, because even slight age differences in the late teens and early 20s are prohibitive to equal relationships, and by the time we were past that, it seems likely we would have lost track of one another.

Answer 4

I see no issue whatsoever with being friends with a graduated student over the age of 18.  I drank beer with a teacher after graduating, completing basic training, and returning home on leave once.  No issue there for me or the teacher.  Getting emotionally attached, even that is beyond the scope of poor relationship ideas between student and teacher.  Both parties now of legal age and one no longer in a rolemodel state over the other, I see no issue at all with friendship between former student and former teacher, even if the teacher is still teaching.

Answer 5

I think it is OK to be friends with a student after they have left in a platonic way but to even consider dating a student that you have had continued contact with then I think it is morally wrong. You could be seen to have groomed the student even though you have waited until they have finished school. I understand the temptation for younger teachers, but really, there are plenty more fish in the sea! If you did not have feelings for them when they were a student, why now. If you did have feelings for them then I consider it as really wrong to act on them once they have left!

Answer 6

I'm friends on a ground level with plenty of my former high school teachers. As long as nothing happens while the teacher is administration it isn't illegal or immoral. My aunt has been teaching for 20+ years and has been general friends with former students only to have their kids in class and already know them. It's life, as long as nothing illegal  or immoral (like an improper sexual relationship or favoratism) happens it isn't a big deal.