Cyberbullying

Cyberbullying, as defined by Kelley Taylor, is “the use of Internet technology to inflict emotional harm through repeated and deliberate harassment, threats, and intimidation.” It can include not only the intent to cause emotional harm but might also seek to harm one’s reputation or even one’s computer system (p.60). Over the course of the last two decades as the internet has become a part of our daily lives, and even more so a part of the lives of the current generation of teenagers, harassment has grown into a problem that can threaten students any time, any place—even in the comfort of their own bedrooms, and schools are dealing with the results in the classroom every day.

Unfortunately, just as traditional bullying has always disrupted school life, so cyberbullying has become a problem in schools as well, often affecting student attention, performance and attitude. Victims of cyberbullying might show some of the same signs that would a student suffering from depression: decreased interest in normal activities, frequent absence from class or decreased academic performance. If a teacher suspects that a student might be the victim of cyberbullying she ought to pay particularly close attention to the timing of “episodes” when the student seems most upset. If these moments seem to generally follow cell phone or email use, this is a sign that the problem could be cyberbullying. As this is something students are dealing with more and more often in our schools teachers and parents both need to be aware of it and how it disrupts the learning of those involved.

Precedents set by court cases such as Tinker vs. Des Moines Community School District, Layshock vs. Hermitage School District (2007) and Hazelwood School District vs. Kuhlmeier have complicated the efforts of school authorities’ to curb cyberbullying. These cases challenge the rights of school officials to get involved with anything that goes on between students outside of the boundaries of the school yard and protect students’ rights to free speech, no matter how offensive that speech may be (Taylor, 2008, p.61). In other words, school authorities’ hands have been tied when it comes to punishing the majority of cyberbullying, as the bulk of it happens after school hours, away from campus. Taylor (2008) cites that the good news in all of this is that in recent years many states have adopted “legislation [requiring] schools to add cyberbullying to their antiharassment policies” (p.62). With the addition of specific laws that prohibit any sort of speech that disrupts the educational environment and which outline specific disciplinary actions for such cases, punishing offenders could become much easier. I believe that it’s appropriate for schools to act in these cases as it is the school’s duty to create the best possible learning environment for all students, where students aren’t afraid to come to school and face their peers. This may occasionally involve giving attention and disciplining what happens outside the school walls when necessary. Especially with the increased emphasis in education being put on connecting the school with the local community and an effort to increase parent involvement, I don’t believe this is a radical idea.

In my classroom I hope to make prevention a key factor in dealing with cyberbullying. It is very important to me that my classroom be a safe learning environment, so I plan to dedicate a considerable amount of time at the beginning of the school year to creating a feeling of community among the members of each class. My desire is that the respect they learn to show each other will be effective in preventing the majority of cyberbullying problems that might have otherwise arisen. Given that it is so prevalent and harmful among teenagers I would like to go even further and include cyberbullying in the formal class discussion of expectations that I have of my students at the beginning of the year. Students should know that their interactions with each other outside of the classroom affect the atmosphere of the learning environment inside the classroom and that I expect them to make decisions that positively affect that environment. Ideally I will be working in a school that supports the idea of a school-wide effort to eliminate it and in this way all teachers would be preaching the same expectations of students in all classes.

Fortunately I have never personally been the victim of cyberbullying and to my memory I don’t believe that I was ever on the victimizing side either. In fact, I can only recall one situation in which I have been aware of cyberbullying going on and until that time I didn’t even know it was ever a real problem. That being the case, this issue is very new to me and will likely require me to seek out advice from colleagues in the event that I discover a problem with cyberbullying with both the victim and the victimizer in my class. Hopefully I’ll be in a district that has a set, well defined policy for deal with it.

Taylor, K.R. (2008 May). Cyberbullying: Is There Anything Schools Can Do? Principal Leadership, 8(9).