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Schools Act to Short-Circuit 'Cyberbullying'
Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "So-called cyberbullying is a growing problem for school administrators, the Wall Street Journal reports. What may once have been snickers in the hallway can now be an excruciatingly public humiliation spread via email, text messaging and online teen forums. From the article: '"There's always the legal discussion of 'if it doesn't happen at school, can a district take action?'" says Joe Wehrli, policy-services director for the Oregon School Boards Association. "If a student is harassed for three hours at night on the Web and they come to school and have to sit in the same classroom with the student that's the bully, there is an effect on education, and in that way, there is a direct link to schools," he argues.'"
Bullying is a mindset, and has nothing to do with how big and strong one is. At the point someone is willing to get personal satisfaction and validation by causing another emotional or physical pain, they have crossed the line from healthy to sadistic. It would be intellectually dishonest to say that cyber-bullying is justified because "geeks were picked on first." In the real world, two wrongs do not make a right.
Maybe this reflects one of the differences between the US and the UK. A significant portion of my education, back in the 60's, and of my son's education (ongoing) was/is related to social skills. I'm not saying that it's the schools responsibility to deal with episodes which happen at MacD's but that behviour will, inevitably, be part of a pattern which is repeated in school which is their responsibility, both social, and, in the UK, legal.
So, back in the real world, when my son was being bullied, both in and out of school, it was the school which dealt with it, in co-ordination with all the students and parents involved. It wasn't a witch hunt, it wasn't trial of the century, it was simply the forum where issues like that can be resolved in a non-confruntational manner.
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
And one of the major problems with schools today. No longer learning institutions, it's a place where your kid goes to learn math and letters for the first few years, and then spend all of high school trying to become a big name in the sport of their choice. And the parents and schools encourage this.
Sport programs are fine, but when education (and funding as such) and fair treatement take a back seat to it, it becomes an issue. Too often students in any kind of sport get preferntial treatement because they can throw a ball really far (which is a fairly useless skill, except for the sport itself).
I recall a story from late last year. Two high school kids were pushing a fake deer in front of cars or something as "a practical joke". Well, their practical joke made a fellow student wind up in the hospital for months. In court, the judge deferred their punishment SO THEY COULD PLAY HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL. Said some bullshit about town pride or something.
Town pride is respecting other citizens and the town, which means you don't steal a fake deer and throw it in front of cars. Not letting potential criminals play fucking football.
1. Tune them out
A. Don't bring your mobile phone/pager/blackberry to school, so you aren't checking IMs at school.
B. Don't post a MySpace site, or totally ignore other MySpace sites that are critical of you.
C. Set up blocks in your IM and e-mail so you don't get messages/mail from people who harass you.
2. Tell them to fuck off
A. If you have friends who keep telling you stuff like "do you know what so-and-so is saying about you?" and "did you see what they posted about you", you tell them "I don't give a fuck about what so-and-so says or posts, they're nothing but a sad loser."
3. Realize that once you get out of high school, no one gives a damn about high school. It is so not important. No one wears the letter jacket or the school ring beyond about the summer after they graduate. The opinions of those high school kids are less than worthless. Those people do not matter at all.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
harassment isn't protected under free speach, neither is libel and defamation. allowing students to bully other students psychologically has a negative impact on their social/psychological development (for both parties). this creates sociopathic tendencies which can have very negative consequences on society later on.
Or heck, this from Columbine, site of the infamous shooting:
e /Columbine.html
"Here is more of what the [Washington] Post found was going on at Columbine:
Bullying was rampant and unchecked. For instance, a father told Post reporters about two athletes mercilessly bullying his son, a Jew, in gym class. They sang songs about Hitler, pinned the youngster to the ground, did "body twisters" on him until he was black-and- blue, and even threatened to set him on fire. The father reported the bullying to the gym teacher, but it continued. When the father took his complaint to the guidance counselor, he said, he was told, "This stuff can happen." The outraged father had to complain to the school board to get relief for his son.
Athletes convicted of crimes were neither suspended from games nor expelled from school. The homecoming king, a star football player, was on parole for burglary yet still permitted to play. Columbine's state wrestling champ was allowed to compete despite being on court-ordered probation, and school officials did nothing when he regularly parked his $100,000 Hummer all day in a fifteen-minute parking space.
Sexual harassment by athletes was common and ignored. For example, when a girl complained to her teacher that a football player was making lewd comments about her breasts in class, the teacher, also a football and wrestling coach, suggested she change her seat. When an athlete loudly made similar comments at a Columbine wrestling match, the girl complained to the coach. He suggested she move to the other side of the gym. Finally, the girl complained to a woman working at a concession stand, who called police. The next day a school administrator tried to per suade the girl's mother to drop the charges, telling her that press ing them would prevent the boy from playing football. When the youngster was found guilty, he still was permitted to play."
http://www.newfoundations.com/Clabaugh/CuttingEdg
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.