Bullying is a growing issue that most teachers and librarians have seen before. While the development of technology and its integration into the school setting has provided many benefits for our students, the concern of providing a tool for the cyberbully to do their dirty work is quite bothersome.
This topic affects me not just as a teacher or librarian but also as a mother of two 13 year old children who are at the heart of learning social media and yet still young enough to need help with this new world. While reading, Cyberbullying Internationally
Increasing:
New Challenges in the
Technology Generation, it was challenging to fight back my emotions in fear that my own child or student could someday be a victim of this form of bullying. Reading about young children committing suicide as a result of cyberbullying is an image that I just cannot stomach.
Cyberbullying frightens me because it can be silent. It may be hard to witness. It can often be deleted and hard to trace. It can be repeated and repeated without anyone knowing.
With this in mind, a couple of thoughts immediately come to mind. First, as leaders and parents, we need to ensure that the technology we provide can be monitored. We need to research the products to determine their ability to keep our children safe. We also need to look closely at the benefits of the tool and decide if it truly is a necessary component vital to our children's education and well being.
Once we determine that new technology is going to be introduced, it cannot simply be handed over to our eager and digital-loving children. As adults, we need to spend time learning all that we can about a new program or application. As we do, we need to think like a child, like a student, and even worse, we need to think like a bully. What would a bully want to do? How could they use this to hurt someone? Can we trace it? Can we stop it? Can we prevent it?
Education is key when using new technology. Sure, this will include the necessary lessons on use and benefits. But, we need to go further. Aside from our procedural lessons, we must teach life lessons. Our message that cyberbullying will not be tolerated and is not acceptable needs to be sent loud and clear. It may not stop the bully from attacking through the cyber world, but I would hope that this message would increase awareness while decreasing tolerance.
Within my current district, we offer well researched, standards based, curriculum aligned, safe programs. Yet, with the internet, is anything ever 100% safe? As adults, we know that we cannot answer that it is. So, it is more important now than ever to teach caution to our students. If something doesn't feel right, then it probably isn't. If something doesn't seem true, than it might not be.
While all of our technology has the capability to be monitored, I am not sure that anyone can actually watch over every keystroke from every single student. For that reason, our principals do unannounced device monitoring. They visit classrooms and simply take the students' devices. Sometimes they sit at the back table and just go through recent use. Other times, they may collect the device and return it later. Students see this happening regularly and I believe it helps. Students are not allowed to ever clear history. If they do, there are school consequences and can be at risk for losing their device. Last, we also provide an anonymous, online service for students to report any unsafe behaviors that are occurring both in and out of the classroom.
The internet has provided a new open forum for us all. We can explore and gain knowledge that was not conceivable before. But, to keep our children safe, we need to be aware of its equally disturbing opportunities. The more we learn, the better we can prepare and plan for this unfortunate downfall.
By preparing for all aspects, both positive and negative, we can hopefully continue to provide our children with the latest technology and all of its many wonderful opportunities.
References:
Cyberbullying Internationally Increasing: New Challenges in the Technology Generation. Aoyama, I., & Talbert, T. Cyberbullying Internationally Increasing: New Challenges in the Technology Generation [Electronic resource]. The University of Arizona [Official website]. URL: http://icbtt. arizona. edu/sites/default/files/Aoyama_2010_-_Adolescent_Online_Social_--_Zheng. pdf (accessed: 10.04. 2015).
Hi Christina!
ReplyDeleteI give credit to parents trying to raise children in 2016 because it cannot be easy. As a teacher I feel like I know too much of what adolescence students partake in, and therefore, never feel like I am in a hurry to start a family. You described cyberbullying as "silent" and I think that is the terrifying truth behind it. If we cannot trace it then how are adults suppose to protect children? There was a part in the article that discussed that victims of bullying used to be weaker or smaller students and perhaps social outcasts. Nowadays, the internet has made it easy for anyone to be the bully and anyone to be the target.
You presented great suggestions about monitoring technology. I would recommend that to parents and teachers alike. Both parties should be researching social media, available filters, and software that tracks usage. This connects back to last week's discussion about using social media in school. We want to select technology that is academically beneficial to our students in order to protect everyone. Teachers would not want to be supplying the avenue of technology that is promoting cyberbullying. Educating our students about what cyberbullying is is a great way to initiate the conversation with our students. I am on your side for schools putting their feet down and stressing a no tolerance policy for cyberbullying. That message should be loud and clear and should also be printed in the rules section of the student planners. Kudos to your district for taking time to do research in an effort to keep everyone safe. My district's policy is that we must seek approval of technology when offering a class website and modes of communication. I do not believe there are any rules that prohibit us from using common everyday Web 2.0 technologies. Much like your principal, I believe ours monitors teacher activity (as does the district) and I think the tech personnel track student activity. Sometimes as teacher we are faced with a generational gap that cannot dream up some of the ways that our students end up using technology. We must educate ourselves, the parents, the students, and the community.
Christina,
ReplyDeleteYou make a great point that as adults we need to think like a bully. After the reading this week, I didn’t think about the problem of cyberbullying from that perspective. “Walking in their shoes” can bring us a different outlook and maybe even alternative solutions. We get excited to share new technology with students, to show them a new application, but truly we have the responsibility to master many of the components before we hand it over. Teaching students how to handle uncomfortable or inappropriate situations is something that every student must know. Often, the solution will involve adult support and teachers need the knowledge and training to handle different types of problems. Many of the problems will need a team of teachers looking for the answer.
I like to hear about the proactive measures your principal is taking when it comes to checking student devices. It sounds like an effective method to do unplanned check ins. Students need to know that if the device is not used properly, then they will not have the ability to use it. As educator we need to keep student safety in the front of your minds at all times. Thanks for sharing!
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ReplyDeleteHi, Christina.
ReplyDeleteWhen you wrote "While reading, Cyberbullying Internationally Increasing: New Challenges in the Technology Generation, it was challenging to fight back my emotions in fear that my own child or student could someday be a victim of this form of bullying" it made me think about how I felt reading this. While I don't have kids, it makes me worry even more about when I do have kids how you can't protect them all the time. I also feel like it is difficult to always know what your kids are doing on the internet and social media sites. That is why I think that it is important that the school teach digital citizenship very early on! It amazes me because my parents never had to worry about cyberbullying and now, parents have to worry about that on top of everything else. It is really scary!
When you wrote about your principal taking measures, I thought that was great. You wrote that "For that reason, our principals do unannounced device monitoring. They visit classrooms and simply take the students' devices" which I think is very proactive of your principal. I know at our school since the chromebooks are on the school wi-fi, the technology people can watch and track what students are doing. I love both ideas. If kids know that at home AND school, what they are doing is monitored, I would hope this would deter cyberbullying.
Hi Christina,
ReplyDeleteAs teachers, students, and human beings, we have all been witness to or the victim of bullying. As exciting as it is to see the advancement in technology and all of the amazing opportunities it brings to education, it is so sad that we have to live in fear of cyberbullying at the same time. Unfortunately, cyberbullying is all too real no matter the grade you teach or age level. When we should be and are so excited about incorporating technology, it is unfortunate that at the same time we know we are "providing a tool for the cyberbully to do their dirty work." You couldn't have worded that more perfectly, but isn't that sad? Kids are targeted and bullied enough during the school day as it is. Now they go home to escape the torment, only to possibly be victim to more?
You say that cyberbullying frightens you because it can be silent. This is certainly terrifying, especially for those students who don't like to share their emotions or cause a stir. I think this makes our role that much more important. We need to teach students that cyberbullying is not something that should remain silent. It is our role to make students aware and comfortable with the idea that cyberbullying is something that they need to share with their parents, teachers, or responsible adults. All too often, students can keep the emotions and negative feelings created from bullying trapped within them, and that's when those suicidal cases take place. The individual can no longer deal with the pain and belittling, and eventually they snap. These are the scenarios we are obviously taking all measures to avoid. Hopefully, teaching students about digital citizenship and their digital footprint will help these cyberbullies to take a step back and realize the havoc they cause.