Sometimes a problem like cyber bullying can seem so large it is almost overwhelming. Let’s take a “solutions” focus, after reviewing the above websites, and based on your experience - what do you think the ideal cyber bullying strategy should be in your context. What is the balance between laws policies and instruction?
I learned a long time ago that having students involved in the developmental stage of any kind of “project” helps them be engaged; self-motivated. My first experience with this was when I had a difficult grade 12 class in Late Immersion for Global Geography. We had not had a great year together in grade 10 and I had to teach them again. Someone from the Department of Education, the day before school started that year, had presented a way of developing rubrics with the class. She came back the next week to help me get this started and it worked so well! The students felt a sense of ownership of the evaluation process, and set their goals to meet the targets that they helped set up.
I think the same kind of process could happen with cyber-bullying. I could ask students to set up a set of standards that would help to ensure social wellness among the students in our class, school, and community with online activities. It would be great if a safe, anonymous protocol could be established for the reporting of any incidents of bullying or cyber-bullying, and for the dealing of each incident in a proactive, timely manner.
Here is a first draft (each year it may be adapted to the kind of students I get, or to incorporate the latest research, or to just try and improve on what was done before) of how I would go about introducing it to the students.
Step 1:
- Begin by having students generate class rules, facilitated by the teacher.
- Make sure that these rules also include standards for outside our classroom, but in the school building and surrounding grounds.
- Discuss the necessity of having rules regarding student-to-student relationships beyond the school environment (into the community).
- Generate rules for a positive climate in the community.
- Compare with rules that previous classes came up with (I would do this yearly).
- Discuss any changes or adoptions of rules they would like.
- Finalize your class, school and community rules.
- Discuss the kinds of information they feel would be beneficial to have on posters throughout the school to promote a positive climate.
- Have groups come up with slogans, images, and design for such posters.
- Produce posters to have around the school (a kind of campaign to help ensure a positive, social environment). A good example is a poster shown in the article, Social Media Bullying Has Become a Serious Problem, in NOBullying.com, entitled, What Can Children Do About Bullying On Social Media – included in below after the references.
Have a kind of in-service day for the students where they become more informed on various aspects of bullying, in a kind of workshop-style class, where students could travel from one grade 6 teacher’s class to another. Each grade 6 teacher could be responsible to present one or a combination of the workshops available, for example:
- all forms of bullying, as they may not know how some actions can be considered bullying.
- Initiatives taken by other schools, or students (for example, show them the video of the app developed by Trisha Prahbu that warns a person that what they are posting may be deemed offensive).
- Eye-opening, educational video presentations, like the video by Trisha Prahbu, Rethink Before You Type or 5 Crazy Ways Social Media Is Changing Your Brain Right Now (posted on YouTube.com by AsapSCIENCE), that help students realise important aspects such as the impact of having a brain that is not fully developed.
- Have older students (like grade 9 students) come to speak to our students (grade 6) and share experiences that may warn students on the pitfalls of freely posting photos, videos or comments on social media – could be someone who did not get a job due to the potential employer finding something on social media.
- Learn about privacy settings and the importance of really reading the terms and conditions to know exactly what can, and very well may be done with your data.
- The channels available that allow for anonymous, private reporting of any issues they may be causing stress for them – for both the victim or a witness.
- Guest speakers from the community, for example, the guidance counsellor at your school, a health professional who helps youth in your community, etc.
- A presentation from students invited from another school to share what they are doing to decrease the incidents of bullying and cyberbullying.
- Establish a resolution process that would be available for the reporting or the sharing of issues (a sharing/healing circle, reporting system where the victim types out their version of the incident and this is immediately given to guidance, etc.). This would hopefully be a process that would allow a quick ending to the bullying before it gets too rooted, or even a complete resolution. It would be great if this could be done within the class; however, due to potentially sensitive issues, it may not be feasible (some details may be too sensitive or private). This would be the most challenging step; however, you never know what students may come up with. Perhaps having respected, older students invited to be group leaders to help facilitate the process (or students who have learned from their mistakes).
- Reassess, periodically, how they feel this initiative is going, i.e.: the rules for the classroom, school and community; the posters around the school; the resolution process.
- Reach out to other schools (for example, my grade 6 class could reach out to another grade 6 class) to learn of what their school is doing, share ideas, and try to work on this together. Perhaps a school trip or two between schools would help, to have students from different schools work together for the same purpose. Maybe a positive, continuous wave of hope could emerge from this).
- Students should feel a sense of trust and comfort with their homeroom teacher, and their guidance counsellor, so that they have an adult that they can approach when necessary.
Social Media Bullying Has Become a Serious Problem. NoBullying.com, in Cyber Safety, Social Media (October 13, 2016). Retrieved from: https://nobullying.com/social-media-bullying-has-become-a-serious-problem/
Tedx Talks. (2014, October 23). Rethink before you type: Trisha Prabhu.[video file]. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkzwHuf6C2U