Sunday, April 28, 2013

The Time is Now

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="188"] Photo Credit: MrSchuRe [/caption]

Everyday at school I have to remind both my own students, and those in other grades, what to do when they get into a disagreement with another student. I remind them of some steps I picked up from another teacher to help students remember what to do in those situations.
  1. Say stop
  2. Walk away
  3. Tell a friend
  4. Tell a teacher
I think that it is very similar to what kids should do if they think they are being bullied online.
  1. Say stop
  2. If it continues, tell an adult
Let's talk about it
Cyberbullying, as defined by Wikipedia is as follows:
  • actions that use information and communication technologies to support deliberate, repeated, and hostile behavior by an individual or group, that is intended to harm another or others.
  • use of communication technologies for the intention of harming another person
  • use of internet service and mobile technologies such as web pages and discussion groups as well as instant messaging or SMS text messaging with the intention of harming another person.
Examples of what constitutes cyberbullying include communications that seek to intimidate, control, manipulate, put down, falsely discredit, or humiliate the recipient. The actions are deliberate, repeated, and hostile behavior intended to harm another. Cyberbullying has been defined by The National Crime Prevention Council: “When the Internet, cell phones or other devices are used to send or post text or images intended to hurt or embarrass another person."[1][2]

A cyberbully may be a person whom the target knows or an online stranger. A cyberbully may be anonymous and may solicit involvement of other people online who do not even know the target. This is known as a 'digital pile-on.'[3]

I think that cyberbullying should be taught in schools, as "offline" bullying is, in conjunction with it being talked about at home. I am a little disconnected from the issue teaching in early primary. I mostly deal with the offline kind.

The problems we have at the school I am working at seem rather trivial compared to some of the problems I have heard about at other places. I can see some of these problems beginning to sneak into our bubble of a school. While I do not think that we have had any cases of cyberbullying in our school, I think it is only a matter of time.

I think that now is the time to talk to kids about it so they are prepared and are able to handle it when/if it happens to them.

Students might also not know that what they are doing is not OK. They might think that what they are doing is only a joke and not realize that it is harmful.

When discussing Internet etiquette in class, I poured a glass of water on the ground and I had them try to figure out how to put it back in. This brought up some great questions and led us to conclude that Internet etiquette is (or should be) the same as offline etiquette. You should even be more careful online since your actions can be tracked and recorded.

I think that schools should be safe places for kids. They should not have to worry about being harassed by other kids.

I think schools should take action when students attack other students online. There is a fine line here, and it is where judgement calls need to be made.

What does an attack look like?
How do you know it is not a joke?
When does a joke go too far?
Would it be OK for a student or teacher to share disagreements about the school online?


I am going to evade these questions for now and say that judgement calls should be made on a case by case basis. It is interesting that a few months ago I thought there was no way that a school should have that kind of power.

Isn't it OK to wield that kind of power to protect the good of all?

When should we talk with students about cyberbullying then? I have been trying to do a class search lesson a week where we take a question the students have about what we are studying and see what answers we can find. I would like to extend this to talk more about staying safe online.

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