Updated 3/16/12

How well do your students know you?

Have you let them into your life?

How much do they really know about you?

What’s appropriate?

Do you manage what they know about you in order to shape the way/s they view you?

Is that right?

If you’re anything like me, questions like these seem to be ever-present.

I am, by nature, a pretty private person… and I think that’s OK, but I also think there are ways in which being too private [or too public, as the case may be for others of us] can be damaging to our work with students [and/or our relationships at home].

There are, I believe, important boundaries that are appropriate to maintain between staff/faculty and students, ministers and those they serve, home life and work… but where are those lines? And how do you know when you’re too far away from a healthy middle-ground?

If we open the door wide to our lives, we risk losing some of the intended intimacy and privacy that we all need… and is due a family and marriage (if we have those things). Healthy boundaries are important for those of us who are single as well. It’s OK — even healthy — to have some separation between home and work life.

If we open the door to narrow, however, we risk conveying the message that others (our students in particular) are not welcome… and relationships and ministry with students become much more of a struggle.

Traveling with students, and serving alongside them for an extended time, can make this much more of a challenge. We can find ourselves in conversations where we have to decide how much of ourselves — and our life — we are willing to share with our students…

We can feel tempted to share about those things that are positive, that make us look good, or that are likely to create unity and harmony amidst the group.

But what happens when the questions that are being asked… or the comment/s you’re feeling led to share, have the potential to create awkwardness, tension, or unease amidst the group… especially when you’re traveling, serving and living together.

This could easily be the source of a lot of internal tension and/or anxiety…

But I’ve come to believe that trips like this can be some of the best places to take a chance on opening the door a bit wider — because students have the chance to watch us, sit with us, ask more questions… and really experience our true self.

As we create space for our students to ask questions and get to know us, and as we are willing to be appropriately open and honest with them, we might be surprised by how quickly we see new bonds forming — or strengthening — between us.

What do you think?

• How have you experienced this tension, this dance, in deciding what you share or don’t share with students?
• Do you attempt to ‘manage’ how students view you?
• How do you attempt to be ‘appropriately’ private and open at the same time?

Take a moment to share your thoughts in the comment section below.