I consider myself pretty lucky that I haven’t ever really been involved in any cyber-bullying on either the receiving or the giving end. I think it must be due to my advanced age and the advanced age of my friends when we actually starting using social networking sites and the web in general.
While I have been immune to these problems, our nation’s children have not. Students are the victims of cyber-bullying via things like IM, email, social networking sites and chatrooms. Because of the somewhat anonymous nature of the internet, kids often think that they can say whatever they want to anyone else without any serious repercussions. This is hardly the case. As with the girl who hung herself after receiving a nasty email, many students who are the victims of cyber-bullying become depressed, unengaged, and often violent.
While it is easy to monitor the internet behavior of students when they are at school, it is not so easy when the students are at home on their privately owned computers. The question has repeatedly been asked, “What can and should schools legally be able to do.”
Currently, schools can only interfere or reprimand students for off campus internet behavior if it “creates or threatens to create a substantial and material disruption of the school or interference with the rights of students to be secure.” (cyberbully.org) This disruption if often extremely hard to prove.
So, what can we as educators do? I think that we should implement preventative techniques such as guidelines for proper internet behavior. We should be keenly aware of the warning signs of cyber-bullying and educate parents and students on how to handle this ever-growing phenomenon.
Knowledge is the key. If we make sure our parents know how to use the systems our kids use, then we may help to curb the problem. The anonymous nature of the net is so true when it comes to this issue. My friends even say that they would be more willing to email a bad thing, then talk to someone face to face, and they are professional adults!
ReplyDeleteI like the idea you have for guildlines for proper internet behavior. I think if students have some sort of guideline for the internet it will help them out.
ReplyDeleteIt also gives me the idea of talking about privacy with students and not using their real names for their handle and also not give out personal information about your computer, where your from and things like that.
In addition, a list of sites that are not a good idea to go to because they are known to have key logging sytems that will take your password is a good idea.
That is good that you have never been part of or had Cyber-bullying done to you. I agree that it is going to be a huge problem with the students we teaching. As technology continues to grow so does the chance of Cyber-bullying. I also like how parents should set examples for their children. If they can be good examples it might stop the problem of Cyber-bullying before it starts. I like you plan of attack to deal with Cyber-bullying, I think it could be used by many teacahers and solve the problems of Cyber-bullying.
ReplyDeleteLooks like you were the popular one to comment on. Nice job playing the age card about a possible reason why you didn't have to deal with it. But I agree that it is going to be a huge problem that will have to tackled somehow and quickly. And yes, knowledge is the key to preventing it and putting a stop to what is still going on. I just hope as we mature as teachers parents can help us out with this issue and be a willing line for help!
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