Parents are right when they express a lack of confidence in the way bullying behaviour is being handled by schools. Schools just don’t seem to find dealing with the problem anywhere as near a priority as performing in standardised tests. Schools nowadays use simplistic and inept anti-bullying policies to point out to parents that they are proactive on the issue. In truth, all anti-bullying policies really does is protect a school from lawsuits. If policies worked the problem would’t be getting worse. But it is.
Detective Tim Toth, head of the youth services division of the City of Tonawanda Police Department is absolutely right:
“It’s great to tell the parents we have a bullying program in place, but until they take it serious and until the kids know there are consequences with what they do, the program is no good,” said Toth, who has also spent several years working at the high school as a resource officer.
I however disagree with Toth’s conclusions on cyberbullying:
“We don’t have the legal authority to intervene in a situation which exists between one child’s computer and another child’s computer when they are not being supervised when they are off school grounds,” noted Crawford. “But that doesn’t mean we don’t care…and it doesn’t mean we don’t make efforts to intervene when we can. But we need people, when we do attempt to intervene, to respond to us.”
That is a very poor response to an increasingly massive problem. Schools MUST intervene when it comes to cyberbullying. They MUST take more than a passing interest. Schools, police, parents and the wider school community must join forces to curb cyberbullying. It must be seen as a wider communal problem rather than something each and every stakeholder hides from.
Schools have got to ramp up their responses. Programs, procedures and policies is not enough. They will not work and never have. Appealing to kids to improve their communications wont work either.
Bullying hurts and sometimes kills. Surely schools have got that by now …
Parents are clearly worried about their children’s online activities. They are worried about the content they get access to and the people they befriend and chat with on social media sites such as Facebook.
In a nationwide survey conducted by legal information website FindLaw.com, it was revealed that 67 percent of 627 parents are extremely worried (10%), very worried (18%) or somewhat worried (39%) about their children’s safety online. About 20% said that they are not very worried while 14% are not worried at all. The study was done with a small sampling but FindLaw.com said that it was demographically representative.
Most parents are taking steps to restrict their children’s use of the Internet. Steps taken vary, including: monitoring which sites they visit (35%); using site-blocking software (21%); restricting their access to computers (19%); restricting the use of social networks (18%); reading their emails or social posts (17%); and not allowing any Internet use (8%).
I recently attended a Professional Development session on cyber culture. The survey conducted by AISV interviewed thousands of kids from Grade 4 to Year 8 and collected information about their internet habits. Some of the interesting findings included:
1 in 5 year 5/6′s don’t consult parents about their internet activity.
15% of year 5′s and 20% of year 6′s have internet access in their bedrooms.
Half the respondents claim they don’t have parent imposed internet rules.
30% of respondents know ways in which to circumvent parental controls such as bypassing net filters and minimising pages when parents approach.
40% of respondents name their school or city on social media sites such as Facebook.
84% use chat rooms on a daily basis.
Approx. 3/4 don’t use privacy function on their social media pages.
I have 2 tips for parents to help keep their children safe.
1. Don’t allow them to have a computer (or move the i-Pad or notebook) in their bedroom. Instead keep the computer in the living room or another room that is open to you and other adults.
2. Please watch the clip below with your children. It is a brilliant clip about cybersafety. I have posted it before and will continue to do so when discussing this issue.
Students have found new ways to demean and embarrass their classroom teacher. In a digital age where students invariably have mobile phones at their disposal, teachers are often filmed without their knowledge and broadcast world-wide without their permission.
Take this prank, that for reasons unknown to me has not been banned from YouTube. Not only is it allowed to remain, regardless of the hurt and embarrassment it must have caused the teacher, but children from all around the world have been given the opportunity to comment on it. Apparently they think this is hysterical. I most certainly do not:
It’s called being “YouTubed” and the Internet is full of hundreds of videos of students either badmouthing their teachers or provoking them to explode in class, then recording the fireworks and posting it to the Web.
And parents have also gotten in on the action, posting videos where they verbally attack their kids’ teachers or post allegations against them.
But teachers have begun to fight back. On Tuesday, 800 delegates at the annual meeting of the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario voted unanimously to urge boards and schools to establish clear policies around the unauthorized use of digital recordings and photos taken by students.
Teacher Dave Buddell told CTV News on Wednesday night that he occasionally Googles his name.
“I’ve been online and looked around,” he said. “You do see instances where teachers have been filmed obviously without their consent.”
To me, there is a gaping double standard when it comes to education and social media. Teachers are being told that it is not legal to conduct lessons and give support through mediums like Twitter, yet students are allowed to put horrendous videos like the one above without so much as a “please explain.”
I don’t understand why parents can’t be subject to the kinds of consequences their children are for bullying and harassment. Parents who set up internet groups and Facebook pages to spread untruths about their childs’ teacher should be punished for their actions. Anything from a warning to in the most serious offences expulsion of their child from school is appropriate.
Some may think this is a bit harsh and that children should not be penalised for the deeds of their parents, but bullying is a very serious offence and schools that take it seriously reap the rewards by maintaining a safe environment. Schools are too dismissive of parents who bully teachers. Teachers often feel marginalised and lacking of support. The statement that bullying of any kind will result in strong penalties is essential to delivering the best outcomes from an academic and social standpoint.
Teachers are the latest group found to be at risk of cyber-bullying, according to a recent report.
The study by Professor Andy Phippen found several instances where teachers had been targeted for abuse by social media users on websites such as Facebook and Twitter.
One head teacher interviewed for the study said she had a breakdown and was left feeling suicidal.
The headteacher suffered a year of abuse by a parent at her school who used a Google group to post libellous untruths about her and her school. “I eventually had a mini breakdown in the summer holiday, needing an emergency doctor to be called out as I had become suicidal,” she told researchers.
The message should ring loud and clear – Either play by our rules or find somewhere else to send your kids!
I am in favour of schools playing a far more proactive role in dealing with cyberbullying and advocating privacy settings to protect against cyber stalkers, but spying on their students’ Facebook pages is not appropriate.
SCHOOLS are using internet monitoring companies to read what students are saying on social networking sites.
The typical service used by schools such as Ascham looks at any publicly available material posted on sites such as Facebook, Formspring and Tumblr to monitor the sometimes ferocious use of the media by young people.
Whilst schools often go into their shells when it comes to cyberbullying, spying on their students is an invasion of privacy. Instead of concerning themselves with publicly available material they should work harder to ensure their students have their privacy settings on.
This measure will do precious little to stop bullying. Bullies are much smarter than we give them credit for. They find ways to harass away from the watchful eyes of anyone that might punish them for their crimes.
Yet whilst this will do little to prevent bullying it will make the students even more negative about school and authority in general.
Could there be anything worse for a teacher than to be falsely accused of pedophilia? To frame someone as a pedophile purely out of spite goes beyond all reason.
Police are hunting the creator of a fake Facebook profile that was used to impersonate a Sydney primary school teacher and frame him as a paedophile by targeting kids at his school.
The teacher, who cannot be named, is a long-time campaigner against racism online and with others he runs a blog that names and shames racists by publishing their hate-filled Facebook postings.
In a phone interview, he said he believed this is why he was targeted. He said he and his family had been harassed over the phone, received death threats and had threatening notes left in his mail box after his personal details – including his address, phone number, photos and work details – were posted on a white supremacist website.
“This Facebook profile opened up a couple of days ago with a picture of me and a friend with shirts off holding a beer … they were writing things on the wall such as ‘i’m gay and I like little boys’ and all sorts of things like that,” the teacher said in a phone interview.
“They were engaging with students – kids were commenting and they were writing back pretending to be me.”
I hope they catch the people responsible and give them prison time to reflect on their awful behaviour.
There is age rstrictions on Facebook for a reason. The potential outcomes when a pre-teen uses Facebook are severe enough to warrant it a 13+ age requirement.
But does that stop under age kids opening their own account? Of course not.
Washington: Some 7.5 million of the 20 million minors who used Facebook in the past year were younger than 13, and a million of them were bullied, harassed or threatened on the site, says a study released Tuesday. Even more troubling, more than five million Facebook users were 10 years old or younger, and they were allowed to use Facebook largely without parental supervision leaving them vulnerable to threats ranging from malware to sexual predators, the State of the Net survey by Consumer Reports found.” Read the rest, here.
And this is a trend we are seeing all over the world. As important as it is to have this age requirement, it seems too easy to sidestep it.
I believe that if Facebook really wanted to ban under 13’s from setting up accounts, they could.
After reading an article about how students hijacked a website in memory of a girl who committed suicide, I felt angry and deflated. What makes the story worse is she killed herself as a result of cyberbullying:
PRINCIPALS have condemned “heartless” school bullies who hijacked website pages set up in honour of a Sydney teen who committed suicide last week.
Dannii Sanders, from Castle Hill, took her life on Tuesday after she was allegedly tormented on Facebook.
But when Dannii’s devastated friends created a Facebook tribute page, the bullying continued as users flooded the page with derogatory remarks.
“Guys I can’t take all this internet bullying. I think I’ma kill myself,” mocked a user.
“Deserved it. I (laughed out loud) hard,” another wrote.
When Dannii’s friends spoke up against the bullies, posting “Let her be in peace”, one tormentor replied: “What is she gonna do though?
Read the comments and kill herself again?”
During the week at least three Facebook groups set up in Dannii’s honour were removed after pranksters posted abuse.
One group’s page called “Stop bullying NOW: In memory of Danni Sanders” was defaced with a disturbing image of the 14-year-old’s head in a noose containing the caption, “place head here”.
Sheree Vertigan, the Australian Secondary Principals Association Head, said the online onslaught was some of the most vicious she had encountered and “an example of 21st century bullying at its worst”.
She said those making inappropriate comments should face legal action as it was defamation.
Ms. Vertifan is absolutely right. Those responsible should be charged for their defamatory words. But we should demand that cyberbullies of all types are banned from all social media. Cyberbullies should not have Facebook and Twitter accounts.
I’ve got a message for cyberbullies:
Look at the consequences of being bullied! Don’t expect to get away without consequences of your own!
Father and computer expert, Bill Ramsey sets a good example for other parents concerned about what their children get up to online:
“The internet has really changed the way that children interact with the world and not always for good,” said Bill Ramsey. He’s owns The Bill Guy Technology Solutions and is a dad. He says you have to know who your kids are chatting with on places like Facebook. “There are so many parents that say I don’t care that they put that stuff up there and I tell them they should. You should care,” he said.
He cares so much, he requires his 15-year-old step daughter provide her passwords so he can access everything, including text messages. He says she doesn’t like it but knows if she breaks the rules she’ll lose her computer privileges. By checking her email recently, he found emails from a guy who asked she send pictures of herself. She didn’t do it, but he says she also didn’t understand why it was a big deal. “So what this is a person I’ll never see. But you don’t know this. You don’t know who this is,” he said.
Ramsey was able to find the boy who lived in Arkansas and called his parents. He says that also shows how easy it is to track people down with information posted on-line. The National Center for Exploited and Missing Children say one in seven youth between the ages of 10 and 17 have received a sexual solicitation on the internet. Ramsey says that’s enough to know what your kids are up to. “It’s not an invasion of their privacy,” he said.
Obviously Ramsey is good with computers and has an easier time keeping track on his child’s on-line activity. But he says it’s not difficult if you put in some effort. He says having passwords is the most helpful but it’s also good just to visit their Facebook page. If getting a password won’t work, he says there are several software programs that offer various amounts of protection and some at a cost.
A survey has revealed that fully 30 per cent of British parents’ Facebook “friend” requests to their children get rejected, and that many then resort to using other people’s login details in order to keep track of their offspring’s Web-2.0 activities.
This sad commentary on the number of parents who feel able to speak to their kids as opposed to interacting with them primarily online – it would seem normal to know in advance whether a friend request to one’s nipper would be rejected, for instance – came among the results of a survey of 2,000 online Brits.
The survey revealed that among today’s digital British some 5 per cent of parents would like to monitor their kids on Facebook but don’t know how, and 55 per cent do stalk their kids online. No less than 11 per cent reported that the only reason they had a Facebook account was to keep an eye on their nippers, suggesting that in some age groups, up to a fifth of Facebook users have no real interest in the service’s putative benefits and are only there because they worry about its effects on their kids.
Indeed in many cases a Facebook user who signed up for positive reasons is not actually that person – it is a friend of theirs borrowing their login to keep tabs on their kids. Some 13 per cent of digital parents reported having done this, presumably because they couldn’t be bothered creating an account just for this purpose.
Altogether then, it would appear that 24 per cent of online Brit parents consider that the only reason to use Facebook is worry about their children. Perhaps it’s just as well that the company’s founder Mark Zuckerberg says he no longer cares about new signups.
“These figures are initially quite surprising, but since certain malicious third parties have been known to prey on unsuspecting or over trusting individuals online, it does seem as though many could have legitimate concerns,” commented Claus Villumsen of security firm Bullguard, which commissioned the survey.
I wonder if Mark Zukerberg and his Facebook team can do more to help concerned parents.
Topical Teaching 