Sometimes, I fear schools may have other problems they need to deal with before or alongside cyberbullying. One of the teachers at my high school was known for his disrespect for women - a close friend who was in his class has stories of him calling his (15-year old) female students up to his desk simply to stare at their breasts. Another teacher hit a kid in class, yet when he and his classmates ran to the main office to report the situation to administrators, they were told simply to drop it.
Advice to administrators: learn how to give a shit, and stop hiring teachers who hate kids. Bullying won't stop until your students feel safe and protected enough to report their problems to you.
I'm sure the law means well, and stopping bullying is great, but I find myself concerned that the public education system is being used here to mete out punishment rather than the juvenile justice system. It seems to me that, unless you're only targeting cyberbullying that occurs from school computers, the justice system is already set up to handle punishments for juvenile lawbreakers, and conflating the school system with the penal system has some pretty disconcerting ramifications.
First, mechanisms of punishment within schools don't have the same kind of oversight and due process that the judicial system mandates. Increasingly, school administrators are implementing zero-tolerance policies, which deny accused rule breakers grounds to argue their case or provide defenses. This is fine in the context of school rules, wherein the in loco parentis policy grants schools wide leniency in order to ensure a functioning educational environment. Attaching punishment for infractions which occur outside the school system extends beyond the reach of this and merely functions to circumvent due process for minors.
Further, there's the somewhat more ambiguous concern that, if schools become the primary means of law-enforcement for minors, then their purpose, at least perceptively if not actually, shifts away from education, a shift which is likely to cause students, and to a lesser degree their parents, to view school administrators with greater hostility and combativeness than they otherwise would. This could, for obvious reasons, cause a substantial damper on the ability of said administrators to educate effectively.
In short. Stopping cyberbullying is great, but it should be done through the court system, not the education system.
I must say this: while I applaud the idea, if you want to stop cyber-bullying, how about cracking down on actual bullying first? I think it's misguided to believe that this is some "nail-in-the-coffin" to bullying, by closing some loophole. Bullies will still feel free to terrorize kids the old-fashioned ways. This has to be part of a concerted effort, not some one-off, flash-in-the-pan kind of thing. Personally, I want to see school administrators cracking down on miscreants and bullies.
@NefariousNewt: Indeed. I get the sense that this is less of a "nail-in-the-coffin" to bullying, as you said, but rather a desperate attempt to stop losing even more ground in the fight against bullies.
To be fair, though, to a certain extent isn't high school about learning how to deal with social pressures? Kids need to learn that they will be judged by how they present themselves both on and offline - not only by their fellow students, but also by future employers and the like. Bullying should absolutely be cracked down upon, but the idea of completely removing it strikes me as doing kids a disservice. Better to learn how to fight back before any real damage can be done (extreme cases like Megan Meier aside).
I apologize if this sounds harsh or offensive. I grew up in a small town, and it was so tough to watch some of the overly sheltered kids around me get into sad, difficult, or dangerous situations because their parents were too busy protecting them to prepare them for the real world.
@NakedGills: Well, there's dealing with social pressure, and then there's being lambasted and shoved around and made to feel like your worthless. When it is constant and unremitting, you have a learned helplessness situation, whereby the child cannot no longer fight back and is resigned to their fate. Do we really want a generation of kids stripped of their will by a bunch of a malfeasant asses? We have to teach kids that a) that kind of behavior is unacceptable to begin with and b) you do not have to stand there and take abuse liek that from anyone. I think those are the lessons schools should be trying to get across by cracking down on bullying. I don't see being bullied as a "rite of passage."
@NefariousNewt: I agree with you completely. I suspect I'm thinking more of my small town's elementary school, which has locked down so hard that everyone's starting to call it [Town Name] Prison. There's cracking down on dangerous situations, and then there's not letting kids learn how to protect themselves. The whole situation scares the shit out of me, really.
I'm curious about something, and I want you to know I ask this with a tone of respectful curiosity rather than accusation: if we have schools crack down completely on bullying (as you suggest), how does that allow kids to learn to fight back (as you also suggest)? I think one of schools' biggest problems might be finding a happy medium between those two.
@NakedGills: I don't think it's a question of "fighting back" but more like "fighting smart." I think there's a difference between name calling and physical contact; if a bully decides to punch you, you have a right to retaliate. But if a bully is calling you names, denigrating you, spilling stuff on you, or any of that other "precocious" behavior, I think kids have to be taught that they do not need to stand for it, and to take it to other authorities, namely teachers, principal, and the like.
Defending yourself is an instinct. Very few of us will allow ourselves to become a punching bag unless other forces are brought to bear (such as psychological manipulation). Bullies wear down other kids psychologically in order to be able to use the threat of physical violence to intimidate. Take away that psychological component, and a child's natural tendency to fight back will not be dulled by abuse. Plus, the easiest way to "fight back" is to not fight back. I learned that lesson in school after being bullied constantly. If the bullies cannot get a rise out of you, if you ignore them, they will find something else to do with their time.
@NefariousNewt: All well said, but your second paragraph in particular hit home. Excellent points, all.
However, I just posted below about how the administrators in my high school were not up to the challenge of protecting kids - not even the kids who were brave enough to report problems. Cracking down on bullying is a wonderful idea, but if administrators can't hold up their end of the bargain, the whole system seems doomed to fail.
@NakedGills: Harsh, offensive and stupid. Sorry. Real life is not like high school. Permitting bullying doesn't "do kids a disservice"; what it teaches them is that the adults are not in charge and the rules don't really apply unless you get caught.
In adult life, we'd be outraged if the police refused to do anything about a crime because they like the victim better than you, or if they gently suggest that you need to "toughen up" instead of running to them to say that so-and-so tried to rape you.
@mythago: Excellent points, thank you for writing them. Your second paragraph in particular accomplishes two things for me. First of all, you make an excellent analogy. Second of all, it shows me I'm not expressing myself nearly as well as I should today.
I'm not calling for anything less than a crackdown on bullying. When teachers physically and sexually abused kids in my high school, despite these kids reporting it, nothing was done. We had Freshman Friday, we had gang wars, we had arson, we had bomb threats. I never felt safe in that school. The administrators failed in their responsibility and duty to protect their students. I have seen a world where bullying is permitted and safety is not a priority, and it's not pretty.
However, my great fear is that the backlash, the response to all this, will bring us into an opposite but equally dangerous extreme. I've seen too many kids from my town become fucked up young adults because they were extremely sheltered. One of my closest high school friends was very nearly raped by a stranger at 16 or 17 years old because she simply didn't know that his invitation for her to find him in the streets after dark was a bad idea. Had she been raped, I would never have thought of it as a way to "toughen her up." And you're right, I would have been outraged had she been raped and had the police not stepped in to help her. But am I not also allowed to be outraged at the parents who never taught her how to keep herself safe?
Yes, let's crack down on bullying. High school is a pressure cooker, and not at all like real life. But it does provide an opportunity to learn some essential lessons about how to deal with emotional problems, how to report your problems to people who can help, and how to avoid some difficult situations. I guess my main point was this: let us crack down on bullying, but let us not overcompensate. Let us protect kids from harm, but let us also allow them to learn while the mistakes are less permanent and they don't have so far to fall.
@mythago: Now that I've already talked your ear off, I have one more thing to say: please try to avoid the word "stupid" unless you really mean it. For someone who values intelligence and education as much as I do, it can be a harsh accusation. I don't think there's anything stupid about basing a purely theoretical discussion on my own experiences and observations of what works and what doesn't.
@NakedGills: Teaching kids 'street smarts' and self-awareness has nothing to do with bullying, though. By pairing them, you're suggesting (perhaps without meaning to) that we need to allow some bullying in order to let kids toughen up. I think a course based on The Gift of Fear would be a much better option.
The issue isn't about sheltering; it's about the message we are sending to all the kids, including the bullies. Focusing on sheltering kids vs. protecting them treats bullying as a natural and inescapable problem, like the rain.
@mythago: "Teaching kids 'street smarts' and self-awareness has nothing to do with bullying, though."
The two can relate. They're about learning how to stick up for yourself, how to minimize your exposure to bad situations, and how to accept and deal with the unavoidable problems. Teaching your kids how to stick up for themselves, how to love themselves for who they are, and how to protect themselves will both help them avoid being bullied and help prevent them turning into bullies themselves, I suspect.
"By pairing them, you're suggesting (perhaps without meaning to) that we need to allow some bullying in order to let kids toughen up."
You're right about this, as I see now. Thank you for pointing this out. I do apologize for the implications and I see why your response was as strong as it was.
"...treats bullying as a natural and inescapable problem, like the rain."
Isn't it, though? There will always be people who try to gain power over you or otherwise take advantage of you, be they coworkers, fellow students, or strangers.
"The issue isn't about sheltering; it's about the message we are sending to all the kids, including the bullies."
This is an excellent point. You're right, it's important for schools to send the message that such behavior is unacceptable.
@NefariousNewt: I'm w/ you - real bullying is the problem here. Before cell phones and emails, there were nasty notes and drawings. There were pranks done in others' names.
The issue is not new. And although students in school do not have a "reasonable expectation of privacy" the way that adults do, I can imagine this law possibly impinging on personal freedoms, as others have noted.
What frightens me is that there are so many laws on the books and so few of them have actually been tested in prosecution. I don't believe that we need more laws, we need effective interpretations of what we have, first - so few school boards, police, judges, prosecutors truly understand technology - they're only beginning to address the laws that exist.
Oh, god. My sister is being cyber bullied by the brother of an ex boyfriend who is IMPERSONATING HER (took pictures from her profile and made a profile saying that he was her) and randomly soliciting strangers for sex and verbally harassing her. She's appealed to MySpace more than 20 times but they haven't done anything, haven't reprimanded the person or made him take down the false profile.
I'm seeing how terrified it is for her and how stressful, and how little the website itself is doing to stop it. So frustrating, the cyber bullying. I have half a mind to find that punk's house and actual-bully him.
@morninggloria: I take it MySpace has learned nothing from the Megan Meier saga, have they? I would see if there's some legal action that can be taken against MySpace; I believe the Communication's Decency Act is supposed to have provisions for this, but IANAL. Anyone?
@morninggloria: what a dick. Well, you could always post his personal information, like phone number and address, on your local craigslist hookups and say something along the lines of "I love to play hard to get. persistence pays off!"
I've certainly never done this to asshole ex-roomates, or private-picture leaking ex-boyfriends or anything.
While this is a great idea, I'm seeing problems with prosecutors being able to prove who the instigators are. How are you going to find out who HannahMontanaLover19 is?
Hmmm it's been awhile since I was in middle school. Does actual, fisticuffs bullying get you expelled in mot schools? Because if it doesn't, why should cyber-bullying? And how early can something like this start? I remember the worst years, bully-wise, being second and third grade. Are they going to expel little 9 year old brats for cyber-bullying? Are 9 year olds even online? So many questions.
Hopefully, this only applies if it is done from a school computer.
I do have to say, while I came of age in a time sans MySpace or Facebook, I haved watched my little sister (9 years younger) grow up with it and it SUCKS. If you had a difficult time keeping up with the pressures of the school social scene when I was a kid, you could at least escape it when you went home. With social networking sites, the schoolday lasts ALL DAY. There's no break from it, which includes bullying, keeping up with "The Debbies" and all that jazz...
@LaComtesse: I deleted my facebook about 6 months ago and none of my college classmates understand. I deleted it mainly for these reasons - it added more exhaustion to my life than enjoyment.
And it's really bizarre, but we have all become totally entrenched in it. We've only had these things for 2 years but already can't imagine life without it?
@LaComtesse: I have a sister 9 years younger as well and she just got a cell phone for Christmas, which is the only thing she really wanted. Two days later she was already complaining to me about people sending her stupid or pointless text messages at all hours and saying that people she never felt the need to be in contact with seemed to absolutely NEED to be in contact with her all the time. That's when I directed her to the "off" button.
I think the cell phone is going to make her out grow some of her friends faster than she would have otherwise. Constant contact doesn't always improve relationships.
@LaComtesse: Then kids have to learn to avoid the social networking sites. Really, it's along the same lines as parents encouraging kids to "turn off the tube." Look, if the social pressure is too much at school, why come home and deal with more of it?
@RustyHeadedGirl: Frankly, you don't have to answer every page, every text, every email. I don't understand Crackberry users; don't you want to have a life free of constant interference? Just because all this instant communication exists doesn't mean you have to communicate constantly.
@NefariousNewt: Hmm, I was thinking that you couldn't easily ban them--then your kid would be so NOT COOL--but timing them makes sense. Half hour of social networking a day, no more!
Okay, so maybe I wouldn't be able to put those limits on myself, but I'm a long way off from having kids... they'll never know.
@DangerMouse: It's all about parents taking control. If parents limit their kids computer and mobile phone time, and monitor it (which is relatively easy to do), then parents could certainly intercept and deal with a lot of these things. It seems the art of parents handling issues is dying slowly. Back in the day, you couldn't do something on the block without your parents finding out about before you even got home. It doesn't help that no one knows their neighbors anymore.
@VegetableServing: I'm relieved that none of the technology was around when I was in high school. It was bad enough to go there and face people as it was.
@TheFormerJuneBronson: Seriously, when I ponder some of the things people did to me in middle school, it boggles my mind to consider how bad it would have been if I'd been online back then...
@coodlebump: I'd probably be dead. I mean, I attempted suicide over what mean girls were able to do without the internet. With it? I wouldn't have made it to adulthood. It's as much as a weapon as far as I'm concerned. I haven't decided what to do about my own kids, but I know that the easier we make it for kids to keep their social activities secret from their parents, the meaner they'll be, because a middle school kid, even a good one, will be as mean as she can get away with. It's another one of those things that's perfectly obvious to me, but apparently to no one else. Lord of the Flies, people.
@TheFormerJuneBronson: I have two sisters with daughters in middle school and high school, and one lets her daughters keep their networking sites private while the other one doesn't(as in, she reads them daily). Even though I hated any invasion of privacy as a teenager, I can't help but think my sister who looks in on her kids' sites might have the right idea considering all this cyberbullying.
@VegetableServing: Agreed, your sister may be on to something. The embarrassment of having one's privacy invaded at that age will fade, but Megan Meier will be gone forever.
12/29/08
Advice to administrators: learn how to give a shit, and stop hiring teachers who hate kids. Bullying won't stop until your students feel safe and protected enough to report their problems to you.
12/29/08
First, mechanisms of punishment within schools don't have the same kind of oversight and due process that the judicial system mandates. Increasingly, school administrators are implementing zero-tolerance policies, which deny accused rule breakers grounds to argue their case or provide defenses. This is fine in the context of school rules, wherein the in loco parentis policy grants schools wide leniency in order to ensure a functioning educational environment. Attaching punishment for infractions which occur outside the school system extends beyond the reach of this and merely functions to circumvent due process for minors.
Further, there's the somewhat more ambiguous concern that, if schools become the primary means of law-enforcement for minors, then their purpose, at least perceptively if not actually, shifts away from education, a shift which is likely to cause students, and to a lesser degree their parents, to view school administrators with greater hostility and combativeness than they otherwise would. This could, for obvious reasons, cause a substantial damper on the ability of said administrators to educate effectively.
In short. Stopping cyberbullying is great, but it should be done through the court system, not the education system.
12/29/08
12/30/08
12/29/08
12/29/08
To be fair, though, to a certain extent isn't high school about learning how to deal with social pressures? Kids need to learn that they will be judged by how they present themselves both on and offline - not only by their fellow students, but also by future employers and the like. Bullying should absolutely be cracked down upon, but the idea of completely removing it strikes me as doing kids a disservice. Better to learn how to fight back before any real damage can be done (extreme cases like Megan Meier aside).
I apologize if this sounds harsh or offensive. I grew up in a small town, and it was so tough to watch some of the overly sheltered kids around me get into sad, difficult, or dangerous situations because their parents were too busy protecting them to prepare them for the real world.
12/29/08
12/29/08
I'm curious about something, and I want you to know I ask this with a tone of respectful curiosity rather than accusation: if we have schools crack down completely on bullying (as you suggest), how does that allow kids to learn to fight back (as you also suggest)? I think one of schools' biggest problems might be finding a happy medium between those two.
12/29/08
Defending yourself is an instinct. Very few of us will allow ourselves to become a punching bag unless other forces are brought to bear (such as psychological manipulation). Bullies wear down other kids psychologically in order to be able to use the threat of physical violence to intimidate. Take away that psychological component, and a child's natural tendency to fight back will not be dulled by abuse. Plus, the easiest way to "fight back" is to not fight back. I learned that lesson in school after being bullied constantly. If the bullies cannot get a rise out of you, if you ignore them, they will find something else to do with their time.
12/29/08
However, I just posted below about how the administrators in my high school were not up to the challenge of protecting kids - not even the kids who were brave enough to report problems. Cracking down on bullying is a wonderful idea, but if administrators can't hold up their end of the bargain, the whole system seems doomed to fail.
12/29/08
In adult life, we'd be outraged if the police refused to do anything about a crime because they like the victim better than you, or if they gently suggest that you need to "toughen up" instead of running to them to say that so-and-so tried to rape you.
12/29/08
I'm not calling for anything less than a crackdown on bullying. When teachers physically and sexually abused kids in my high school, despite these kids reporting it, nothing was done. We had Freshman Friday, we had gang wars, we had arson, we had bomb threats. I never felt safe in that school. The administrators failed in their responsibility and duty to protect their students. I have seen a world where bullying is permitted and safety is not a priority, and it's not pretty.
However, my great fear is that the backlash, the response to all this, will bring us into an opposite but equally dangerous extreme. I've seen too many kids from my town become fucked up young adults because they were extremely sheltered. One of my closest high school friends was very nearly raped by a stranger at 16 or 17 years old because she simply didn't know that his invitation for her to find him in the streets after dark was a bad idea. Had she been raped, I would never have thought of it as a way to "toughen her up." And you're right, I would have been outraged had she been raped and had the police not stepped in to help her. But am I not also allowed to be outraged at the parents who never taught her how to keep herself safe?
Yes, let's crack down on bullying. High school is a pressure cooker, and not at all like real life. But it does provide an opportunity to learn some essential lessons about how to deal with emotional problems, how to report your problems to people who can help, and how to avoid some difficult situations. I guess my main point was this: let us crack down on bullying, but let us not overcompensate. Let us protect kids from harm, but let us also allow them to learn while the mistakes are less permanent and they don't have so far to fall.
12/29/08
12/29/08
The issue isn't about sheltering; it's about the message we are sending to all the kids, including the bullies. Focusing on sheltering kids vs. protecting them treats bullying as a natural and inescapable problem, like the rain.
12/29/08
The two can relate. They're about learning how to stick up for yourself, how to minimize your exposure to bad situations, and how to accept and deal with the unavoidable problems. Teaching your kids how to stick up for themselves, how to love themselves for who they are, and how to protect themselves will both help them avoid being bullied and help prevent them turning into bullies themselves, I suspect.
"By pairing them, you're suggesting (perhaps without meaning to) that we need to allow some bullying in order to let kids toughen up."
You're right about this, as I see now. Thank you for pointing this out. I do apologize for the implications and I see why your response was as strong as it was.
"...treats bullying as a natural and inescapable problem, like the rain."
Isn't it, though? There will always be people who try to gain power over you or otherwise take advantage of you, be they coworkers, fellow students, or strangers.
"The issue isn't about sheltering; it's about the message we are sending to all the kids, including the bullies."
This is an excellent point. You're right, it's important for schools to send the message that such behavior is unacceptable.
12/29/08
The issue is not new. And although students in school do not have a "reasonable expectation of privacy" the way that adults do, I can imagine this law possibly impinging on personal freedoms, as others have noted.
What frightens me is that there are so many laws on the books and so few of them have actually been tested in prosecution. I don't believe that we need more laws, we need effective interpretations of what we have, first - so few school boards, police, judges, prosecutors truly understand technology - they're only beginning to address the laws that exist.
12/29/08
I'm seeing how terrified it is for her and how stressful, and how little the website itself is doing to stop it. So frustrating, the cyber bullying. I have half a mind to find that punk's house and actual-bully him.
12/29/08
12/29/08
I've certainly never done this to asshole ex-roomates, or private-picture leaking ex-boyfriends or anything.
12/29/08
12/29/08
12/29/08
12/29/08
12/29/08
And how early can something like this start? I remember the worst years, bully-wise, being second and third grade. Are they going to expel little 9 year old brats for cyber-bullying? Are 9 year olds even online? So many questions.
12/29/08
My worst years were 6-9th grade, personally. I got bullied before that, but those were the most harrowing years.
12/29/08
I do have to say, while I came of age in a time sans MySpace or Facebook, I haved watched my little sister (9 years younger) grow up with it and it SUCKS. If you had a difficult time keeping up with the pressures of the school social scene when I was a kid, you could at least escape it when you went home. With social networking sites, the schoolday lasts ALL DAY. There's no break from it, which includes bullying, keeping up with "The Debbies" and all that jazz...
12/29/08
And it's really bizarre, but we have all become totally entrenched in it. We've only had these things for 2 years but already can't imagine life without it?
12/29/08
I think the cell phone is going to make her out grow some of her friends faster than she would have otherwise. Constant contact doesn't always improve relationships.
12/29/08
12/29/08
12/29/08
Okay, so maybe I wouldn't be able to put those limits on myself, but I'm a long way off from having kids... they'll never know.
12/29/08
12/29/08
Having (usually incorrect) rumours and horrible things said about you on the internet would upset most people's egos at any age!
12/29/08
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