UK Schools Will Fight Cyberbullying

Plutonite writes "The BBC is running a story on UK schools being told by the education minister to fight cyberbullying, by which they mean bullying with the aid of (network-based) technology. Schools have been told to confiscate mobile phones, and, more controversially, to investigate and get material removed from personal social-networking sites. Are schools supposed to be doing this as an extension of their duty to prevent physical bullying in school, or is this is yet another example of governmental intervention where it is not due? Should kids be brought up knowing that their life on the web is being documented and controlled by people other than their parents?"

Comments

E-bullies? Seriously??

[Loosifur]

Well, actually, their every e-move IS being documented, by Google, and people other than their parents DO control their lives, such as teachers, government officials, etc. I don't know how it is in the UK but in the US you don't really have much in the way of rights until you hit 18. But, that aside, how far do you take this? What about bullying outside of school? What about bullying when the kid's 20? IMO you do kids a great disservice by insulating them from the hard parts of life, such as the fact that some people are pricks. It's better to learn how to deal with that yourself at a young age than to learn to rely on your parents or the government to come to your rescue.

My take on disciplinary reactions

[Anonymous Coward]

There's two primary issues that I feel the educational system isn't dealing with very well:

1. Disciplinary reactions that are felt appropriate in many cases and according to child-friendly literature (at least many places in Europe) simply completely fails to faze a number of extreme bullies. Especially people used to a gang culture or violence in their daily lives. If someone headbutts the teacher (happened in my country) - what can you do about it? Send them to a social worker? What if they simply enjoy being abusive, and enjoy dominating others and causing pain to those that bore and seek to constrain them? What if they regularly bring knives to school? Traditional remedies like 'lowering their behaviour grade' are completely unsuited.

2. There are pupils who, in the extreme case of situation 1, are simply excessively violent and disturbing to other pupils. It is both hysterically funny and tragically sad (and wonderfully weird) that if any of us had someone at our workplace that we knew could at any moment grab a stapler and hurl it against our head, or punch us, it would reach the news, yet things like this would hardly get noticed in school "because it's just children" and they are somehow supposed to be violent. At one European school it was rather common for gangs of boys to print out pictures of women's genitalia and shove them in the faces of girls. I would rather say that someone who actively fears physical harm from several people at their school, beyond just a general sense of paranoia (reputation of the 'bad bully') but have actually several times seen people get kicked in the face and threatened, and feel a deep panic and fear at the very sight of other pupils, will get permanently scarred, that their daily lives should be compared to a torture chamber (how would you consider it if your workplace had knife carriers in it?), and that it's going to both hurt their confidence and trust in right and good to prevail and lead to behavioural problems later in their life.

How to fix this? Generally two approaches;

- Because children have different levels of sensitivity, use disciplinary measures that are likely to be felt quite strongly by that individual student. This places a lot of trust in teachers - but in e.g. the case of bullying, a teacher should literally have a long chat with and interview whoever does it, and if they persist, punish them in a way that feels negatively for the individual. I would estimate that in 95% of cases the 'punishment' for someone breaking a rule only needs to be (and even SHOULD be) as light as a feather (e.g. apologise to the principal, a person of authority, or help clean up the cantina after school), because for most children even such a symbolic act is felt very strongly.

- For children that display violent behaviour that would be considered torture if adults were subject to it, use a progressive system of separate classes or schools. As a last-instance resort, send them to a medium-disciplinary school that take into account that many of its student will be rather "expressive". If they even in this school are violent towards other students, send them to a high-disciplinary school that has guards in the classroom. It is utterly and completely unacceptable that children should have a real fear for their physical safety just because a small number of violent 'problem' children should be included together with them while they work their mental issues out. Anything that would be a breach of human rights if it was done to an adult should similarly be so for children.

This is written after seeing plenty of examples of students attacking teachers, bringing guns to schools, bringing knives, throwing chairs in the classrooms, forming gangs that demand "submission" and tribute from other students, habitually pin down and grope female students (no, not in the 'playful slap' way but in the 'hold while others touch' way) etc.