Cyberbullying: Solutions to a New PhenomenonCyberbullying: Solutions to a New PhenomenonSticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me. This popular saying is completely false. Names do hurt. Name-calling and other non-physical abuse have become increasingly popular especially with the development of technology. Sameer Hinduja and Justin W. Patchin, authors of Bullying Beyond the Schoolyard, define cyberbullying as “willful and repeated harm inflicted through the use of computers, cell phones, and other electronic devices” (5). Technology is continually progressing. For example, since the year 2000 Internet usage has increased by 249.6% (Hinduja and Patchin 7), creating more opportunities for children and adolescents to harass and bully one another.
Cyberbullying is different than traditional bullying because it is over some technological device. There is no physical contact; there is no instantaneous response (Urbanski and Permuth 67). This does not mean that cyberbullying does not hurt or affect its victims though. In fact, 72% of students consider cyberbullying to be just as harmful as just plain, old bullying (Urbanski and Permuth 67). Victims usually experience “low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, insecurity, oversensitivity, introversion, and withdrawal from social activities” (Gibbone and Manson). Cyberbullying is real. Even worse, there is no escape from it. The web, and technology in general, is always active, always happening and so is the bullying, whether or not the victim is online (Urbanski and Permuth 76). Society cannot and should not just let this problem worsen and continue on. A few possible solutions exist for solving this problem of cyberbullying. To truly combat cyberbullying in grades Kindergarten through twelve though, society should educate schools, parents, and students and increase awareness and discussion about this serious problem. Then, through these actions, society will discover appropriate preventative measures and responses to cyberbullying.
It appears as if there is no uniform procedure with dealing for cyberbullying. Sometimes it seems as if schools create their protocol for bullying on the spot as cases and issues arise. Other schools brush over the topic, not really delving into it, not truly making a genuine attempt to solve and stop the problem of cyberbullying. For example, my younger sister, Elizabeth, is eleven years old and is in sixth grade at a public middle school in Wilmette, Illinois. This year in health class, which is a unit of her physical education class, she shared that she spent two periods, a total of eighty minutes, partially dealing with cyberbullying. Her class was given a packet and completed a worksheet in class. Though the sixth graders did this for two days in health, there were only a couple of questions that applied to bullying. The students had to define cyberbullying and bullying and reason why bullies behave in the manner they do as well
The principal of a private school in Oregon, who is responsible for many of the concerns for bullying in Oregon’s student body, does not seem to have an understanding of what’s required in the present situation for the new curriculum. Why do the students make those decisions and what is the intent behind them? Why are they supposed to be doing so, and what are the issues they’re facing in the present context with school administration and in the past?
A lot of students might be reluctant to read into the future of their families so that they might deal with problems, especially in their future careers. I do not want to turn away students who are interested in their careers and want to make good choices and find a balance between safety and the future of a student. But I think the question is not, “What happens to those students that need to make a decision on your behalf after I’m fired about your safety or the other things that go on with my teaching, my family life, and you leave?”
Some people think we are not the world we see at the moment. These students are not going anywhere. The kids know this is the end, so they are going to be safe. But what happens in the present is that if somebody walks into the classroom and says something, even in their worst case scenario, they can’t say something that works.
When we have a lot of young kids in their 20s and 30s who live in a school somewhere on campus, and that students need to be really thoughtful about what they want to be able to do, then the fact that all of the kids in the current situation are going to lose their jobs—especially if it is a physical or emotional attack—makes them really not good choice. And that becomes an issue when their parents get to see it in their eyes. Now you know many parents do not want to learn about school in their youth or in the way that kids grow up. They want to focus on what works, and a lot of them worry about what doesn’t work. And some say the schools that allow kids to express themselves without discipline are putting families with physical and emotional problems before themselves. I don’t think they’re not. I’m not saying that everyone should be encouraged to do it, but they can do it at their own discretion. But there are good reasons and good intentions to do so. And we all have different kinds of parents. How you act when your kids are in this same situation makes a lot of difference. So, if the schools allow kids to do physical or emotional aggression, then that’s OK, as long as they are disciplined and not punished. What if they do do something that violates their parents’ wishes? There’s nothing we can do to change that behavior. In this instance, what I agree with is if some parents can’t get on the same page and have their kids talk about doing something bad, then they can talk about whether or not they can even move on. And all of a sudden the kids are talking about doing something bad or they can do something good or they can move on. I also think there needs to be greater vigilance being done as a parent with young children in the current situation.
A lot of teachers, when they see issues like school policy, they think it’s always going to be hard to be proactive in addressing them while also addressing the bullying. In your position, do you want to make sure if you work very hard, you have to be proactive to get a response to that problem right for your students?
When you do think you have a great situation, then how can you get into that situation where you’re not making any