How to handle Cyber Bullyies.

School Bullies and Safe Schools

Just remember . . . "If I Were King Of the Forest"

He was about 12 or 13 when he discovered the Internet, and couldn’t really remember what life was like before that. "I wasn't anything," he wrote. "I was just a nerd who never really spoke up." The Internet gave him balls. And a mouth. In the chat rooms where he hung out he learned how to mock people and later found he could use this skill "irl", where he went from "never talking in school to making fun of everyone who picked on me for being nerdy." And he learned how to "troll." At the time, if you didn't troll you weren't really an anon. Trolling is the art of deliberately irritating people until they flip out or otherwise react in a way that generates laughs, or "lulz." It is the bedrock of Anonymous culture, and in the early 2000s there were dozens of "trolling gangs" roaming the back alleys of the Internet.
Sometimes the jokes went to harsh extremes, and that hasn't changed. In 2010, an 11-year-old girl nicknamed Jessi Slaughter issued a YouTube threat against "haters" who had started an Internet rumor about her. In 2010, the 4chan hive relentlessly picks on an 11-year-old girl and the episode gives rise to many "memes". At its most basic level, trolling is about humiliating people who seem to take themselves too seriously or pretend to be something they're not: 11-year-old girls, corporate executives, whoever. The troll jabs at them until they jab back, exposing their vulnerabilities, then jabs at those weak spots until they do something rash and truly embarrass themselves.

OnGuardOnline.gov The FTC's newest online safety publication is Free:

 

Net Cetera: Chatting with Kids About Being Online is an excellent guide for parents with practical tips to help kids navigate the online world. You can order copies for free and in bulk at http://bulkorder.ftc.gov Net Cetera is also available in Spanish. This material is very excellent. The FTC is really taking a leadership role in providing excellent - non-fear-based guidance.

England Reports:
Teachers suffer cyberbullying by pupils and parents. More than one in seven teachers has been a victim, the Association of Teachers and Lecturers' annual conference hears.

 

 AMERICA: cyberbullying, cyberthreats, and sexting

K12 Sexting: 14-year old child pornographers?
Sexting lawsuits get serious If a middle-aged man meets a 14-year-old girl, coerces her to film a 10-second clip of herself masturbating, then intentionally releases that clip on the Internet, the man could clearly be charged under US federal law against the “sexual exploitation of children.” But what happens when the “man” is a 14-year-old boy who the 14-year old girl likes? And what if the "coercion" to make the film is the boy's threat not to befriend the girl in their new high school without the video?

 

There are two excellent circuit court cases where the issue of school response to student verbal aggression was considered. In Saxe v. State College, then Judge, but now Supreme Court Justice, Alito stated: "The primary function of a public school is to educate its students; conduct that substantially interferes with the mission (including speech that substantially interferes with a student's educational performance) is, almost by definition, disruptive to the school environment." n Sypniewski v. Warren Hills, the Circuit Court ruled: "Intimidation of one student by another, including intimidation by name calling, is the kind of behavior school authorities are expected to prevent. There is no constitutional right to be a bully."

Does Your School District have a policy about Bullies?

HIGH v. PASCO SCHOOL DISTRICT
PLAINTIFFS' TRIAL BRIEF & FACTUAL BACKGROUND
The Complaint for Damages
THE SETTLEMENT
The Rest of the Story
The Assault
Suicide - The Forseeable Consequences of Bullying

• Synopsis: 2002 New Jersey Laws, AB 1874, Requires each school district to adopt a policy prohibiting harassment, intimidation or bullying on school property, at a school-sponsored function or on a school bus.  The policy must include a definition of bullying behavior, consequences for engaging in such behavior, a procedure for investigation of reports of such behavior, a statement prohibiting retaliation or reprisal against persons reporting bullying behavior and consequences for making a false accusation.  Requires school employees, students or volunteers to report any incidents of bullying, intimidation and harassment to appropriate school officials.  Grants immunity from any cause of action for damages arising from a failure to remedy the reported incident to persons reporting these incidents.
• N.J. STATE  DEPT. OF ED MODEL POLICY AND GUIDANCE FOR PROHIBITING HARASSMENT, INTIMIDATION AND BULLYING ON SCHOOL PROPERTY, AT SCHOOL-SPONSORED FUNCTIONS  AND ON SCHOOL BUSES (Revised April 2007)
• All Pennsylvania school districts were required to pass a bullying policy by summer of 2007.

CHARACTER EDUCATION
CYBER CITIZENSHIP

 

 

What is CyberBullying? Educational CyberPlayGround Ringleader Art Wolinsky

One of the best ways to prevent cyberbullying is to empower the bystanders. Teens really do have the ability to make a difference. You can use this story in your class Another 1,400 sympathetic notes for bullied girl for a discussion about how your students can respond proactively to address this concern. More than 1,000 new supportive e-mails and letters have flooded in for bullying victim Olivia Gardner, a middle school student in Novato, since The Chronicle published a story last week about a letter-writing campaign started by two Mill Valley sisters. Emily and Sarah Buder first read about Olivia's ordeal in March and decided to ask fellow students at Tamalpais High to help cheer up the 14-year-old with letters. Olivia said the letters, many of them from adults who remember being bullied as children, help her feel less alone. She also is beginning to look forward to using her experiences to help other children. Still, she wishes that old school friends who turned against her would apologize.

Books:

• The Cyberbullying Toolkit from CommonSense.org is excellent.
• "Bullies in Children's Literature" provides a brief description of each book.
  
  

 

PRIVACY RIGHTS

 

 

• HOW TO HONOR STUDENTS FREE SPEECH RIGHTS

• Privacy Rights for Children - Schools fail to punish students' online activities when done from the home.
• Privacy Rights for Adults
• Rules for Government Employment.
  GWU law professor (and former Supreme Court clerk) Orin Kerr wrote about the important differences between public and private sector employers here in a piece critical of a 9th circuit ruling.  Unfortunately, as Professor Kerr's article title suggests, private sector employees generally have little to no 4th Amendment protection in their emails.
  It probably also bears reminding that the 4th Amendment only protects against government invasions of privacy, and doesn't protect against similar invasions by bosses, co-workers, or anyone else.

RESEARCH

 

1. SOCIAL NETWORKS AND THE WAY THEY ARE USED TO BULLY.
2. The Pew Internet & American Life Project report looks at online harassment and cyberbullying among online teens ages 12-17. The report finds that about one third (32%) of all teenagers who use the internet say they have been targets of a range of annoying and potentially menacing online activities - such as receiving threatening messages; having their private emails or text messages forwarded without consent; having an embarrassing picture posted without permission; or having rumors about them spread online.
3. THE LAW LOTS OF REAL EXAMPLES LIKE
   Find Blogs used to Bully Kids and 11/28/05, - Here's kind of a funny, kind of spooky off-topic myspace.com anecdote.
4. Bullies upload abusive tactics online - A ban on electronic harassment is being studied by the state
5. States Pushing for Laws to Curb Cyberbullying 2007
6. Classroom Management - Ottawa-area school, after two 13-year old students posted classroom video taken with a cellphone of their teacher yelling at a fellow student . News reports indicate that the video may have been staged, with students inducing the teacher into the shouting match specifically so that it could be captured on video. The teacher is currently on stress leave, the two students have been suspended, and the school has banned personal electronic devices from the classroom.
7. UK's cyberbullied teachers Teachers left blubbing by cyber abuse. Cyber bullying has been perceived for some time as a growing problem in British classrooms. In British classrooms, it's the teachers who are getting bullied reports on its investigation into what was really being said in RateMyTeachers.com.
8. "Adina's Deck" is for girls 9-14. It's "a 30-minute interactive 'choose your own adventure' television pilot series" starring four tech-literate girls who have either been cyberbullies or victims and who "use their experiences to help solve their peers' Internet mysteries." It's also a parent/teachers guide to educating middle-school students about cyberbullying. It was created by Stanford University graduate student Debbie Heimowitz and based on her research this year at two Bay Area middle schools.
9. Women - Acknowledgment that MISOGYNY IS NOT A MYTH with regards to the world of technology.
10. CMO Crusades to Repair Her Digital Reputation Oct 12, 2007 good avice here for anyone else dealing with the downside of web 2.0, or actually anyone who wants to build up their online reputation and credibility even if they haven't been attacked.

WiredSafety's Teenangels Cyberbullying: Angels and Warriors

The following are Web sites offering information on school violence:

Blogs Used
to Bully Kids

http://www.bullying.co.uk/
www.kathynoll.com
http://hcd2.bupa.co.uk/fact_sheets/html/child_bullying2.htm
http://www.safechild.org/bullies.htm
http://www.bullyonline.org/schoolbully/school.htm

• Toblin, R. (2005). Social-cognitive and behavioral attributes of aggressive victims of bullying. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology: An International Lifespan Journal, 26(3), 329.
  Children that range from passive victims to bullies and to other children to determine the social-cognitive and behavioral attributes of these children.
• Monchy, M. (2004). Discrepancies in judging social inclusion and bullying of pupils with behaviour problems.. European Journal of Special Needs Education, 19(3), 317.
  How students with behavior problems are included less socially, and how this factor can lead them to bullying.