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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?"
I was bullied extensively in the early part of my school life. My parents reported it to the teacher and when that didn't work, we went to the Headmaster at the school. The abuse did not stop.
So I changed schools - and I got yet more abuse. We went through the same procedures again and again and again and it was no use. The teachers didn't want to know.
I finally made it to High School and then I decided this time, it wasn't going to happen again. Some kid tried it on and I opted to belt him one in the nose. His nose was thoroughly broken and he was out of school for a week.
After that, I was set for the rest of school. Nobody really tried anything on after that. You see the athaphy that I ran in to in my earlier episodes worked to my advantage now. Precisely nothing was done to me and my schooling carried on as normal.
It seems that these days we attach an "e-" or a "cyber-" on to a pre-existing social problem and suddenly everyone treats the issue as urgent . The problem with such initiatives is there fail to realise that this is a human problem first and a technological problem a distant second.
The way to deal with bulling in schools is in my view is very simple. The punishment should be swift, harsh and feared. They should be charged with assault or harassment in a full criminal court and ordered to do a suitable amount of community service. Failure to comply should immediately mean jail-time which should be served in school holidays.
It's a pity that the type of people who bully are the sorts who have violence all around them at home. As such, the only thing they understand is violence. A short, sharp shock may be enough to put them back on the straight and narrow coupled with some kind of therapy. I do not believe such people are beyond help but if left to there own devices, they will become the criminals of tomorrow.
Simon
Yes, they should know it's being documented.. Because it is. Whether it be by schools, peers, google, marketers, Homeland Security, etc., it will be monitored, and it's best they know that.
I'm not going to tell UK people how to raise their children and they're not going to tell me how to raise mine. You can go ahead and prepare your kid for what your government is going to force onto them anyways. I personally am going to teach my kids to question everything. Question me, question the government and question any institutions. I'm going to teach them how to do it objectively and how to improve themselves as well as the said institution. And you know what? Maybe my kids will be able to reverse what my generation has let slip out of control. Maybe not. Depends on how you raise your kids. So the question I'm really interested in is how are you going to raise your kids so I know whether I have to prepare mine to be monitored their entire life or prepare them for something we all used to enjoy.
My work here is dung.
Kids should know that the Internet is not a playground with safety bumpers on every sharp corner. It is for adults, and there are people out there that will monitor everything they can, people will take advantage of every opportunity. The sad fact is that not enough adults know this yet, so teaching kids about it is a good start at the education that should come with the purchase of Internet services.
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When there's insults to be dished out, you will only insult each other using the approved insults!
And when there's abuse to be documented, who'll be documenting the abuse? Who'll be watching the watchers? Not you, Citizen!
When we point the camera at you, it's for your safety. When you point the camera at us, it's an offensive weapon.
Don't bully. Your government hates the competition.
No matter what the intentions behind this decree, I don't think anything will change. If J. Random Memorial School sends Facebook a message demanding that they remove a person's comment about a student of theirs, and it does not violate Facebook's TOS, then why would they do it? Most social networking sites aren't based in the UK; frankly, its unenforcible.
Also, even if social networking sites were affected, wouldn't the "cyberbullies" just find another medium, i.e. AIM/YIM/MSN/IRC/Insert your own acronym? Or independent blogging? There's really no way to enforce this reliably.
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.
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Yes, they should, because it's true. Why lie to the poor tykes?
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
I was bullied in elementary school. By High school I was friends with the kid who bullied me, and yes we had fun with that one. We were talking about bullying in my humanities class, my friend (the ex-bully) raised his hand and said, "I used to bully people," the teacher asked how he thought that made the other kid feel. The bully said, "I dunno," he looked at me and asked, "how did you make it feel?" I said something about not remembering but that he owed me back for all the lunch money he took after he beat me up. The look on the teachers face was priceless. In a real response, it's the schools job (since parents don't seem to know) to help build some character into students. The school should help students to learn what the Internet is and what the future consequences are of action on the net. The school shouldn't play big punisher and use it's hand to punish kids for mean statement written at home. Maybe the school could help parents moniter online life if there are issues or warn parents of potential issues. They shoudl also let paretns know of problems that may be occuring. If a kid is being picked on at school he or she is probably seing the same issues online and hiding them all from parents.
Teachers realm the comments for signs of cyberbullying:
Teacher: "Now young Sebastian, while I admire your interest in communist era Russia, I'm not sure that image you linked to is really relevant to technology."
Student: "You must be new here, mod parent down, imagine a Beowulf cluster of those..."
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I dunno about an article that quotes a "Mr Balls" about "happy slapping".
It's not that easy. You can't just log off.
They're filling your inbox with spam.
They're spamming your blog.
They're making up websites with your picture and filling it with false "confessions."
They're making up IM accounts and messaging your friends with the same "confessions."
There's a dozen more ways kids can be cruel online. It doesn't have to be directed at you while you're logged in to harm you.
I have a problem with the modern vernacular using a single word, "bullying", to encompass everything from name calling to practical jokes to mild or even violent physical abuse. Doing so robs descriptions of the latter of the weight they deserve.
All 4 of your examples are illegal and carry both civil and criminal penalties. Why does that have anything to do with school?
Those carry penalties IN LAW. In practice, it takes an informed victim to exercise that legal protection. Does that sound like a middle-schooler to you? I don't expect every parent to understand that, but I think it's reasonable for teachers to be aware of the rules of the game and step in as defenders of kids they see getting attacked online.
What penalties they set is debatable, but the basic charge of the article: 'we're teaching kids that they're being supervised online' misses the point. They're teaching kids that online behavior has consequences, some of them unpleasant, just like the real world. Sounds like a useful lesson to me.
Schools have been told to confiscate mobile phones, and, more controversially, to investigate and get material removed from personal social-networking sites.
I've also heard there's this new fangled thing called paper that can be used to send nasty comments to people anonymously! Poo has also been known to be used in this manner, while sitting on a doorstep. So just remove paper, pens, hands, poo, and doors from the environment and our children can finally be safe!
As much as I applaud any attempt to improve the quality of a child's education, attacking the tools they use for bulling isn't going to do anything to the root causes of it. However, sending the kids to an island and having them fight to the death for our amusement....that could work.
Everything will be taken away from you.
... is this is yet another example of governmental intervention where it is not due?
When considering government interference with free speech and balancing this with libel and other criminal written speech, please remember that the schools and government in question are in the UK.
The UK government does NOT have a constitutional guarantee of a right to free speech and freedom of the press. Its libel laws are quite different from those of the US as well. (It's one of the major differences between the legal systems of the two - in the US truth is an absolute defense aganst claims of defamation, and "public figures" have an extra burden of proving deliberate malace when bringing a charge.)
Now the question was about whether such intervention was PROPER. IMHO that doesn't vary as you cross The Pond - though others may disagree. But what's LEGAL, what's standard governmental practice, and the theoretical underpinnings behind decisions and reasoning about them DO differ drastically. So what the courts will let the government get away with, and how to go about getting them to force the government to back off, will also differ greatly.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
My first point is simply that I am glad British school might be doing something about bullying. Although we can debate whether the solution is entirely legal or appropriate. But the problem is very real.
Now to cyberbullying...
My daughter was the very first victim of cyberbullying at her rather elite private school here in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. (Yes a personal detail.) Pretty bad, although could have been worse. Her teachers cared and tried to take action against the students involved. The administration did squat and hung us out to dry. She handled it well, but over the course of that year (because her parents took it very seriously) she was ostracized, and quickly students and administrators alike got into a "blame the victim" pattern. Her grades plummeted. Often talked about killing herself, yadda yadda yadda. Friendships (such as between us and other parents) ended over this because they would not hold their children accountable. (In a new school now, thriving, grades shot up to A's and 100's. Go figure.)
Again - my point is simply "cyberbullying is also a serious and real problem that causes real observable damage".
Whether such policies are legal, enforceable, and so on - that is quite debatable. The website provider (a kind of Facebook for kids) actually took the site down when we complained (we think). Good for them. Violation of policy. The school took the "well, not our network/computers, therefore we can't do anything" line. (Photos of my child were clearly taken at school. Uh...) Technically might be correct. I don't know. My final point is, "Even if schools cannot legally police and enforce every last dang website or IM or whatever... *something* needs to be done by *someone*". The problem is bloody real and so is the damage this kind of filth.
I appreciate and sympathize with concerns about privacy and excessive government intrusion and all that. I really do. But what then shall we do? Unless we want to deny the seriousness of this problem?
Kids that are effected from *virtual* bullies should get a grip. Its NOT REAL.
Stop being a baby. Geesh.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Politicians are old. Tony Blair was considered to be a 'youthful' PM coming to power in his 40s. The technology that shapes our lives is young, and constantly evolving. I'm only 26, grew up nuts about computers, and already I feel as if I'm starting to slip behind the curve, its frightening to me so its probably terrifying to them.
The country is run by technically illiterate near-pensioners who are slapping e- and cyber- prefixes on everything in a fit of desperation. The result is idiotic initiatives such as this, which aside from being a waste of time and money, present an opportunity for the more savvy political players lurking in the shadows to invade peoples privacy and crush their civil liberties.
From a techie point of view, Gordon Brown might as well be Leonid Brezhnev. A relic of a past era making crappy decisions based on the principles of his own time, without regard for the reality of the present. Young people in the UK need to kick out the gerontocracy and start making informed technology policy.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?