I commend head teacher Andre Sohatski for not only standing up for himself and his reputation, but also for representing the downtrodden teachers and students victimised by scandalous bullying websites proliferating across the web.
Web sites like RateMyTeacher.com allow students to post salacious accusations and damaging insults. These sites, together with sites that allow students to slander other students such as Little Gossip have been allowed to remain unhindered under the guise of freedom of speech.
Until now …
Andre Sohatski, headteacher of Priory School in Dorking, Surrey, took action after being told by his pupils that children were being targeted on the website Little Gossip with homophobic, racist and sexist abuse.
The site contains abusive and explicit messages written by schoolchildren that can be rated “true” or “false” by their peers. It allows them to name their “targets” but the user remains anonymous.
Mr Sohatski called for the site to be shut down and said it could cause “really big problems,” for children.
“I think it’s irresponsible. It is a form of internet bullying. Any kind of comment posted anonymously about somebody is basically unfair and sometimes cruel,” he said.
Police said they would investigate the US-based website, which has previously faced heavy criticism, and said the consequences of online bullying were “worrying”.
I am a big believer in the freedom of speech. I can accept that people have the right to vent about any professional within certain boundaries. When a student slanders another student or a teacher with homophobic, racist, sexist or defamatory insults it is fair to say those boundaries have been well and truly crossed.
There is a simple reason why the video confessional of a bully victim goes viral overnight. The amount of children bullied around the world is horrifying. Clips like the one made by Jonah Mowry certainly cuts at a raw nerve.
A bullied 14-year-old has stood up for himself in an online video – and has become a national icon.
Jonah Mowry’s heart wrenching video was made at 4 a.m. It starts out simply as a teenage boy telling us his name, but it quickly turns into an emotional confession.
With tears in his eyes, Mowry tells people watching that he’s been bullied since the first grade because he is gay.
The video was made in August before Jonah started school and in the video he says he’s not ready to go back because he’s scared the bullying will continue.
The video might have remained buried on YouTube, but last week, Perez Hilton blogged about it and then it went viral.
The video has now been viewed more than 7.4 million times.
Jonah got tweets of support from celebrities like Nick Jonas, Rosie O’Donnell, Jane Lynch and anti-bullying crusader Lady Gaga.
On Friday, Jonah appeared on ABC’s “Good Morning America”. He told those watching that if you’re being bullied, don’t be afraid to tell someone.
“You need to tell your parents, even if it will make it worse maybe. You need to tell someone because keeping it in just makes it a lot harder. If you tell someone, it’s a big weight lifted off your shoulders,” said Mowry.
Jonah says once his story became a viral sensation, he was called into the principal’s office.
“He told me if anything happens, that he’ll do his best to make sure it doesn’t happen again. So, when I came back to school, everyone was very supportive and very welcoming and nice,” Mowry said.
His final message to other kids being bullied is that it will get better. You can be happy. You just have to try.
The positive ending to his message will prove extremely heartening to victims of bullying who can see no end to the constant persecution in sight.
The teacher who swapped the word “gay”with “bright” so that her class wouldn’t giggle during their rendition of “Deck the Halls” was always going to draw the ire of at least one parents. As much as she may have made the change with the best of intentions, I am sure if she had her time over, she wouldn’t have fiddled with the lyrics:
A Michigan teacher chose to censor the word ‘gay’ from the festive holiday tune ‘Deck the Halls’ and was met by a frosty response from parents.
Parents thought the Cherry Knoll teacher had been naughty and not so nice when the elementary instructor replaced ‘gay’ with ‘bright’ after her students wouldn’t stop laughing when they sang the word.
They took to the school’s Facebook page ranting about the teacher’s decision to change that word in the traditional holiday carol.
Cherry Knoll principal Chris Parker told 7&4 News in Traverse City that he was disappointed the music teacher decided to change the lyrics, saying she could have used the moment for a learning opportunity on tolerance.
‘This would have been a great opportunity to teach that “gay” has more than one meaning and is not a bad word,’ he said.
Enraged parents took to the school’s Facebook page, which has since been disabled, to voice their complaints over the word-swap.
A teacher’s poor choice is not the real story here. The real story is the way the parents handled the situation. Instead of confronting the school or teacher with their displeasure, they did what many parents are now choosing to do, and turned their disapproval into a large-scale Facebook campaign.
I have no doubt that a few quiet phone calls from concerned parents would have been sufficient to provoke this teacher to revert back to the original lyrics and make a profuse apology to all offended. Instead, this teacher had to contend with a barrage of negative comments on Facebook, and now, worldwide media coverage.
This sends a shocking message. It says that whenever parents are upset over the actions of a classroom teacher they can turn to Facebook for a fully fledged smear campaign. This amounts to bullying of the worse kind.
Teachers make mistakes. Some small, some huge. But no well-meaning teacher deserves to be pillaged on Facebook – ever!
I got this helpful and informative list from BullyingUK:
Signs to watch out for… You may be unsure if your child is being bullied. If you suspect that he or she is then look out for signs of bullying.
They may include the following:
bruises
broken or missing possessions
your child is withdrawn
changes in eating habits
sleeping badly
complaints of headaches or stomach aches
bedwetting
worrying about going to school.
But there could be other reasons for these symptoms, so try to avoid jumping to conclusions. Ask yourself the following questions:
Is there anything else bothering your child?
Have there been changes in your family like a new baby, or divorce or separation?
These are signs that both teachers and parents must learn to detect and follow-up on. A child can turn from open and honest about things that are bothering them, to closed and insular very quickly. The best course of action is to take an interest, be supportive and when the symptoms are there, be proactive.
YouTube, in my opinion, is the hidden gem of education. It’s hidden, not because people don’t know it exists or what it can do. On the contrary, everyone and their dog is aware of the diverse clips that YouTube contains. It’s hidden because many schools, including until recently my own, have chosen to block it. The reason for this is fairly understandable – YouTube contains clips which are clearly unsuitable for children.
Whilst this is true, there is too much to be gained by exposing children to the wealth of educational opportunities that exist on YouTube to justify blocking it.
The other day I wanted to buy a phone. I had a few in mind, but didn’t posses the technological nous to help me find something that would best give me value for money and fulfill my practical needs. So I did what many do when they can’t make their mind up about something – I asked YouTube. On YouTube I watched clips on the various phones, was given a run through of their features, advantages, design and reliability issues etc.
This helped me settle on a phone. But my education didn’t stop there. As I am a visual learner, I require more than just a booklet to follow. To set up my phone and navigate my way through the different functions I turned to my dear friend, YouTube, who again, didn’t let me down.
YouTube is the modern-day instructive tool. It clearly and carefully teaches people practical skills in language they can understand. It plays the part of teacher.
At the moment I am teaching my 5th Graders about finding the lowest common denominator before adding and subtracting fractions. As a test, before writing this blog post, I typed some key words into a YouTube search and came up with many fine online tutorials on this very skill that kids can readily access. It shouldn’t replace the teacher, but it can certainly help a child pick up a concept.
And it’s not just academic skills that can be developed through YouTube. If my school hadn’t relaxed its position on YouTube, I wouldn’t have had the chance to show my students the best anti-bullying film going around. I have come across so many lame and unconvincing films about bullying in my time. So to first find Mike Feurstein’s masterful film, and then get the chance to show the movie to my appreciative class, was a major coup for my ongoing efforts in trying to keep my classroom bully free. The film, posted below is as good a reason as any to allow teachers to use YouTube in the classroom.
Sure teachers have to be on the lookout for students who may exploit this privilege, but ultimately that is our job. If we banned everything that has possible risks or negative outcomes, we wouldn’t have much to work with at all.
Even though I am not in favour of children bringing mobile phones inside the classroom, I am not in the least bit sympathetic when teachers get caught out as a result of being covertly filmed by students.
With a phone camera, a special-needs student in New Jersey managed to turn the tables on a teacher who had been bullying him.
US-based ABCNews.com quoted the school district superintendent as saying teacher Steven Roth now faces disciplinary action for his actions.
The ABCNews.com report said Roth was heard on the recording calling the 15-year-old student a “tard” and saying, “I will kick your a** from here to kingdom come.”
The ABCNews.com report said that when the boy, who has ADHD and emotional issues, first told his parents about Roth’s bullying, they were skeptical.
But eventually, his father gave him permission to take his cell phone to school and record the bullying – and the boy did that last Oct. 24.
On the video, which lasted nearly 10 minutes, the boy had asked the teacher several times to stop calling him “special,” provoking an outburst from Roth.
The ABCNews.com story said the video also showed Roth to appear to use physical intimidation, walking up to the boy and standing directly in front of him.
The boy’s mother said she was appalled after watching the video. “I’m just appalled. I’m sickened and appalled,” she said.
Roth has been at the school for eight years, according to the boy’s mother.
“Teachers are supposed to build students up and build their self esteem, not rip it down. You don’t scream at them … degrade and threaten,” she added.
Mr. Roth may feel set-up or unlucky that he was undone by a child contravening school rules. I think, by the sound of it, he’s lucky it took so long for him to be exposed in the first place.
There have been a lot of studies recently where the findings were so obvious you wondered how they managed to get a research grant for it in the first place.But every so often you stumble upon a study where the findings were not as you might have predicted.
Intelligent girls and boys are much more likely than average to take illegal drugs like cocaine, cannabis and ecstasy when they grow up, a study has found.
Scientists think they do so in part as a “coping strategy” to avoid bullying from their peers, and partially because they find life boring.
The effect is more pronounced in girls than boys, with those exhibiting high IQs as children more than twice as likely to have tried cocaine or cannabis by the age of 30, as those of lower intelligence.
The effect in boys with high IQs is also marked, with them being around 50 per cent more likely to have done so by that age as their less intelligent former classmates.
A team at Cardiff University analysed data from almost 8,000 people born in one week in April 1970, who were enrolled at birth in the ongoing British Cohort Study, which follows participants through life. All these children had their IQs tested between the age of five and 10.
Drug use, as reported by the participants themselves, was then recorded at 16 and 30 years of age.
At 16, 7.0 per cent of boys and 6.3 per cent of girls had used cannabis. This minority had “statistically significant higher mean childhood IQ scores” than non-users, according to the authors of the report, published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.
The authors noted: “Across most drugs (except amphetamine in men), men and women who reported using in the past 12 months had a significantly higher childhood IQ score than those who reported no use.”
They concluded: “High childhood IQ may increase the risk of substance abuse in early adulthood.”
Well that explains it – no wonder why I’ve never taken drugs!
A recent study into bullying may have fond that online bullying isn’t as prevalent as regular bullying, but it is still early days.
A new study entitled Teens, Kindness and Cruelty on Social Networks confirms much of what we already know about cyberbullying. Most kids aren’t bullied and most kids don’t bully either online or off.
In fact, the study–conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project for the Family Online Safety Institute and Cable in the Classroom–concluded that “[m]ost American teens who use social media say that in their experience, people their age are mostly kind to one another on social network sites.” Nearly seven in ten (69 percent) of teens said that peers are mostly kind while 20 percent said peers are mostly unkind with 11 percent saying, “it depends.”
Fifteen percent of teens say they have been the “target of online meanness.” When you include in-person encounters, 19 percent say they’ve been “bullied” in the past year.
These numbers track very closely with previous scientific surveys on bullying and cyberbullying. The largest source of bullying (12 percent) was in person, followed by text messaging (9 percent). Eight percent said they had been bullied via email, a social networking site or instant messaging and 7 percent were bullied via voice calls on the phone. Girls are more likely to have experienced what we typically call “cyberbullying,” while boys and girls are roughly equal when it comes to in person bullying.
Online bullying may be less prevalent but it is arguably more damaging. It is generally accepted that since online bullying invades the victim’s home (traditionally a place of comfort and safety), it has a much more powerful effect. Another reason that online bullying is potentially more oppressive is that there can be many more bystanders and participants online. Facebook bullying can be shared between hundreds rather than just handful of kids in the schoolyard.
And let’s not kid ourselves. Bullies don’t discriminate between mediums. A bully doesn’t throw their weight around in person and then become an angel online. Bullying is bullying, no matter what the medium. The experts are telling us online bullying is not the major form of bullying that some believe it to be.
You know you’ve messed up completely when the father of the child you’ve named your legislation after publicly denounces it.
The legislation, called “Matt’s Safe School Law,” was named after Matt Epling, an honor-roll student who killed himself at the age of 14 in 2002 after being assaulted by anti-gay bullies at his school.
The draft law, which passed the state Senate with 26 Republican votes against 11 Democratic votes and now advances to the lower house, includes language inserted before the vote that says the bill “does not prohibit a statement of a sincerely held belief or moral conviction” of a student or school worker.
Activists say that the provision gives bullies license to prey on other students — especially those who are gay, lesbian or transgender — and, at least as important, gives bystanders who should be trying to stop bullying an excuse not to intervene.
The real story here is not the amendment which undermines the whole essence of the legislation, but it is the value of the legislation to begin with. The essence of this legislation is to “push each school district in the state to write their own anti-bullying policy.” Australian schools have been mandated for some time to have their own anti-bullying policies. These policies are wonderful at preventing schools from being targets of litigation. They can simply point to their vague and fickle policy and ward off most lawsuits. But when it comes to its ability to prevent bullying behaviours it has been completely useless.
Bullying legislation has never and will never have a marked impact on bullies and bullying behaviour.
In the name of Matt Epling and all others who have been subjected to malicious bouts of bullying, stop pretending to do something and actually devise something that actually works!
A BULLYING school head has been banned from the job for life – but can still teach.
Debbie Collinson intimidated and swore at teachers and even gave pupils “Coke and doughnuts” in exchange for information about staff.
She also told teachers to falsely improve attendance records and test scores.
Collinson, head at Harrow Gate Primary School, in Stockton-on-Tees, Co Durham, was found guilty of professional misconduct.
Tribunal chairwoman Dr Barbara Hibbert told the Birmingham hearing: “It is simply unacceptable to manage a school in the manner in which she did, whatever the motivation.”
Collinson, who is in her late 40s, is no longer at Harrow Gate. It is it not known if she teaches elsewhere.
If your boss can match or better Ms. Collinson, I’d love it if you could share it.
Topical Teaching 
