Cyberbullying

According to www.stopcyberbullying.org, “‘cyberbullying’ is when a child, preteen or teen is tormented, threatened, harassed, humiliated, embarrassed or otherwise targeted by another child, preteen or teen using the Internet, interactive and digital technologies or mobile phones.”  Cyberbullying only involves minors.  If an adult is involved, it is cyber-harassment or cyberstalking.  It is usually not a single occurrence and it is not uncommon for the roles of bully and victim to switch back and forth.

I do not think that I have ever been cyberbullied.  Well, no, I take that back.  In high school, my girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend sent me a lot of threatening messages on MySpace.  She asked me to not open the messages and read any of them, so I respected her wishes and did not read them.  I do not know if he figured out that I was not reading his messages or what, but he started leaving the threatening comments in the subject area of the message, which displayed on my inbox.  I was not intimidated, and that might have had a lot to do with the fact that I lived in Oregon, and he lived in Utah.  The comments were very annoying though.  I eventually blocked him on MySpace.

Unfortunately there is no way for teachers to regulate the behavior of students when they are online and off site.  Teachers do not even have the time for the work it would take, were it possible, to regulate cyberbullying.  “When schools try and get involved by disciplining the student for cyberbullying actions that took place off-campus and outside of school hours, they are often sued for exceeding their authority and violating the student's free speech right” (www.stopcyberbullying.org).  I guess a teacher can only really know if a student is being cyberbullied if the student informs the teacher.  There are plenty of signs to look for, similar to any type of bullying.  For instance, if the student exhibits repetitive tardiness or absences, then it is possible that he or she is a victim of cyberbullying.  Nothing more can be made than assumptions based on these inferences though.  However, there could be many other reasons for this behavior.

I will give whole-group pre-emptive lessons on netiquette.  I also think that it would be very important to talk about how to respond and react to cyberbullying.  Nancy E. Willard gave some great tips on her “yes” argument in the Should Schools Regulate Offsite Online Behavior? article.  As a teacher I will certainly react to my students’ problems, if they feel threatened by other students.  It is important to maintain a healthy, thriving environment for learning.  One of the best things that I could probably do in reaction to a student being bullied online is to involve the parents.  Really it is their responsibility in the end.