Cyberbullying
Cyberbullying!
October is national bullying prevention month! As an educator and parent of two preteen daughters, bully prevention is a topic we often discuss in my house, but only because of my career. As an educator I have been afforded the opportunity to become trained on many topics, and I use my knowledge of these trainings with my children daily, but out of all the trainings bully awareness has given me the dialog most needed as a parent. With that being said, what stands out the most regarding cyberbullying, is that even with all the resources out there about it, I only knew of them because of my trainings and grad school classes. As a busy working parent I would not have looked on my own for information regarding cyberbullying as a preventative.
According to Faucher, Cassidy, and Jackson a lack of awareness of bullying is due to underreporting (2015). Many suffer in silence. Shocking? Students are afraid to report bullying, but why? According to Orech's article "every state except Montana has a law in place to prevent bullying" (2012). Some students would rather suffer then lose access to their devises (Faucher, Cassidy, & Jackson 2015).
As an inspiring media specialist, I plan to address cyberbullying with my student with prevention awareness. I would also give mini workshops for the staff, parents, and community. Some of the resources I would use include, but are not limited to digital citizenship, Cyberbullying: Identification, Prevention, & Response, K-12 Digital Citizenship Curriculum, 10 Actions to Prevent and Stop Cyberbullying, Stopbullying.gov, Top Ten Tips for Teens, Digital Curation: Cyberbullying.
Parents want to be proactive, but it is our job to equip them with the tools they need. It may be tough but this means bringing their attention to the topic of bullying before it is too late.
References:
Faucher, C., Cassidy, W., & Jackson, M. (2015). From sandbox to the inbox: Comparing the acts, impacts, and solutions of bullying in K-12, higher education, and the workplace. Journal of Education and Training Studies. 3(6), 111-125.
Orech, J. (2012). How it's done: Incorperating digital citizenship into your everyday curriculum. Tech & Learning. 33(1), 16-18.
Hi,
ReplyDeleteI love the idea of giving a mini-workshop to teachers and parents about cyberbullying!!!!! I am going to do this. My students leave me this year and go on to middle school, where most parents allow their kids to have cell phones. I think this would be a great pro-active way to get everyone ready for social media.
Thanks for the idea and for sharing,
Jeri
Zoan, I love this idea about cyber-bullying workshops. Making parents proactive in preventing cyber-bullying means equipping parents with the tools they need. Very pragmatic approach.
ReplyDeleteHi Zoe,
ReplyDeleteI love the resources you provided that went along with your mini-workshops for teachers and parents. I know such information can be overwhelming especially when our students/ children don't communicate with us about what is going on in their lives. It's a unique juggling act, and I think as librarians we're in that sweet spot of being able to provide the safe space and the information for our communities to help engage those students in conversations that will (hopefully) enable us to be able to provide for our students the support they need.
I love that you are thinking about parents and you are right. I was thinking that during conference times, open house, or other school-wide events would be a great time to reach out to parents by having a presentation available. You would definitely would get them if the students created something about cyberbullying to share.
ReplyDeleteHi Zoe- The video you included would be a great way to discuss cyberbullying with your students. The first step is to tell someone, which I think is not only the most important, but the hardest for kids to do. They think they are "tattling" when in reality they are protecting themselves from continually being bullied. Thanks for the video! I think I will show it to my students!
ReplyDeleteI am not surprised at all that there is underreporting of bullying. When one of my own kids was bullied in middle school, and then in high school, she was told to toughen up. This was not a crybaby kid, either, and I was certainly not a hovering parent. But when things got out of hand, and my ace student began to hate school, I went to speak to the teacher and was told: the girls were just jealous of my kid, the boys had a crush on her so tease her about her looks, and ironically, the "boys will be boys excuse". In high school, the other teacher told me she needed to toughen up, and that I needed to teach her how Americans interact. When it got physical, it went to admin. But my kid learned that she shouldn't have complained because her parents got involved and then she was targeted more. It is too often a no-win situation. I secretly prayed the two male teachers would have female children when they spawned so that they could experience the anger and outrage I did when jerks like them responded to their concerns about their daughters being bullied. So far, they have indeed had only female children. I wish them luck.
ReplyDelete