Cyberbullying

It's one thing to use social networking and other areas of internet and technological communication for its designed purpose but we all know that not everybody does that. The internet allows individuals to create alter-egos, avatars, and remain anonomous to the extent that people are using it to stalk, harass, and be malicious in what I believe a very cowardly fashion. This type of behavior has now become known as Cyberbullying and may be defined as anyone (child, teen, adult) who is tormented, threatened, harassed, humiliated, embarassed, or otherwise tageted by another individual through the use of interactive and digital technologies or mobile phones. If cyberbullying escalates into cyber-harassment or cyber-stalking than that is where adults come into play through this mode of non-personal communication.

Personally, I have never had an instance with cyberbullying, nor would I acknowledge it if it were posed against me. Unless it got to a point where my family, friend, or myself were in a life-threatening circumstance. However, I have seen cyberbullying at a very low level exist on social networking websites like facebook, where one individual discriminates towards another through written posts and pictures. More or less, a friendly black-mail type of bullying.

Most of our schools are more technologically advanced than ever before and many of the situations they are facing are due to the fact that students have plenty of access to the internet, email, and social networks while at school. Students are able to steal passwords and hack into profiles and emails for harassing purposes. Furthermore, schools walk the fine line between what they are legally allowed to regulate in terms of cyberbullying because the majority of it is done off-campus. In the article, "Cyberbullying, is there anything schools can do" we see that a number of schools are trying to punish students for "innappropriate" behavior that has taken place off school grounds on an internet platform. The fine line comes in because the cases that have favored the school district side have been deemed school related speech and behavior. It's the instances where a student is being harassed for personal reasons that the schools are having a hard time fighting. The only reason teachers or administrators would know if cyberbullying is occuring would be if the harassed individual brings it to their attention. Many times, because the attacker remains anonomous schools can't do much unless the feud becomes public and pours over from the internet to schools ground. I think the only reason schools should step in to combat this off-site behavior would be if it is disrupting classes or a number of students at the school. Otherwise, it is more of a personal problem that the school can't control unfortunately. With any type of bullying or discrimination, a student should feel comfortable to seek out trusted teachers and counselors to talk about the situation.

My plan as a teacher against cyberbulling would be both pre-emptive and reactionary to the circumstances. I will make it known to my students that my classroom is a safe one for any and all reasons, including but not limited to gender, race, religion, and cyberbullying. Any disregard to this amendement will not be tolerated especially if it disrupts the learning environment of the classroom and prohibits an individual(s) from performing in class. If I end up teaching more than one group of kids during the year, which is likely, than the rule will apply to them as well. Basically, anyone who steps foot into my class must leave their judgments of others at the door unless it pertains to an educational and high level conversation. As far as this involving more than just my classroom, I would hope students feel safe for whatever reason when they walk the halls of a school and enter any class. That may be a unreal assessment of people but I find that there is no room for discriminatory behavior towards anyone or group of people, and especially not on the grounds of an educational facility.