Blog Post #7 - Cyberbullying

 

Illustration by Hiroko Oshima

Cyberbullying is defined as, "willful and repeated harm inflicted through the use of computers, cell phones, and other electronic devices" in the article Cyberbullying:  Identification, Prevention, and Response.   Over the last five years, at least, I have read many news stories about teenagers committing suicide because of cyberbullying.  I remember, very clearly, the case of Tyler Clementi several years ago.  He was a young college student whose roommate videotaped him having sex with another young man.  It went viral and Tyler was devastated enough to commit suicide.  There was another case where a teenage girl, still in high school, convinced a friend to commit suicide through her text messages.  The thing that stands out to me the most is how scary this is for all of us who are grandparents and parents and teachers.  This is such a new phenomenon and although we have great ways to address it, I feel we are still lacking in our response as educators.  In the article, Teacher's Guide to Digital Citizenship, Hicks notes that "in a recent Rasmussen study on digital literacy, 37% of millennials aged 18-34 said they consider the internet scary, which is more than any other demographic".  (Hicks, 2015)

One of the things that research has shown us is a huge deterrent to cyberbullying is the "culture and climate within the school, to the connection students feel towards one another and towards school personnel and to the role played by bystanders".  (Faucher, Cassidy, Jackson, 2015).  I am proud of my school and district and the work we do to deter bullying in all forms.  Last week and this coming week, my school is focusing on No Place for Hate.  This program is a year-long program but we especially push it during this week before Halloween.  My school is a No Place for Hate school.  No Place for Hate is a program funded by the ADL company which began in the 1910s because of the persecution of American Jews.  No Place for Hate is a school program that grew from the original.  Combined with our No Place for Hate week is our digital citizenship week.  We teach Common Sense Media Lessons in both the computer lab and in the media center.  I love that Common Sense Media teaches lessons from PreK and up.  It is imperative, in my opinion, to teach even our youngest learners about being good and respectful Digital Citizens.   The sign we have posted in classrooms, the computer labs and the media center really helps children remember their responsibility in all of this.

Image provided by Technology Pursuits.

Research has also shown us that signage also matters so why not put up as many anti-cyberbullying posters that we can in all of our classrooms and all over our schools.  Cyberbullying is scary at the very least and fatal at its very worst.  We, as educators, need to work as hard as we can to eradicate cyberbullying from our children's lives.



References

Cassidy, W., Faucher, C., & Jackson, M. (2015, November). From the sandbox to the inbox: Comparing the acts, impacts, and solutions of bullying in K-12, higher education, and the workplace. Journal of Education and Training Studies, 3(6), 111-125.

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1078204.pdf

Hicks, K. (2015). Teacher’s Guide to Digital Citizenship. Edudemic. Published.









Comments

  1. Robyn,

    Thanks for sharing the poster used in your school! I have heard of something to this effect regarding what we say in person in the past but it is completely relevant to what we say online as well. It is a great mnemonic device that asks all the right questions when we are trying to decide what we should post online.

    Thanks for sharing,

    Taylor Pineiro

    ReplyDelete

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