Cyberbullying

Cyberbullying can run the gamut from simple unkind remarks about someone's hairstyle to threats of physical harm, encompassing the myriad opportunities for racist, sexist, and homophobic content that fall between these two extremes. It can happen via emails, text messages, instant messages, websites, and blogs, which means any time someone logs on or checks their messages there is the opportunity for a negative interaction. With traditional bullying the victims were often able to feel safe at home, but bullying in the digital world takes place wherever the victim is logged on, be it in their bedroom, the computer lab, or an internet cafe. Cyberbullying is often anonymous and it is thought that this anonymity contributes to the viciousness of some online harassment: the harasser doesn't witness his or her victim's immediate reaction as might happen in real-time harassment, which makes it easy to take the abusive actions to higher levels. From the articles I read, cyberbullying seems pervasive.

I've had very little experience with cyberbullying. The closest I've come is having a guy I had met online but not yet in person get angry when it took me two days to answer an email from him. I immediately told him I was no longer interested in meeting him and suspended my account at the online dating site at which we had met. I never got more emails from him so perhaps I blocked his email as well--I can't remember. It was a small but angry interaction that really bothered me, and I can see how ongoing harassment any time one was online could really affect one's state of mind.

Unfortunately the law shackles schools from being able to do much about cyberbullying, especially since most of it happens off school grounds. The only time they can step in is if the bullying is disruptive enough to affect the functioning of the school. In fact, the only way schools could even know if a student is being bullied is if that student or a friend or family member comes forward to report it. I sincerely wish that schools had the authority to step in as soon as online bullying happened because I think it can do a lot of damage to teenagers who are psychologically vulnerable, but I also believe that our legal system is important in spite of its shortcomings. I think schools need to have resource information available to pass on to students and their parents as soon as it's known that cyberbullying is occurring, and I think they need to educate the student body about its effects and its consequences.

I think the best strategy is a proactive one that makes expectations clear. Part of my classroom management strategy is to create an environment of kindness and acceptance as well as a classroom identity that unifies students as a group. I plan to model positive interactions and I will not stand for bullying and harassment in the classroom. Even if my classroom expectations aren't enough to preclude cyberbullying outside of class, I hope that at least students will feel safe to come to me and let me know when they're being violated online, so that I can do whatever is within my power to remedy the situation. It's not a perfect answer, but it's better than nothing.