The main focus of chapter ten is
cyber bulling. Different ways to prevent, deal, and hopefully stop it from
happening.
This is an interesting topic to me.
I think you can prevent students from seeing certain things at school by
blocking them, but if there is no parental involvement nothing can really be
done outside of school. In part of the chapter it talks about how we have to
take tests before we can drive. How before shop class you have to learn the
rules and procedures of the equipment. I think this idea is good if you can
start it in Kindergarten. It might help some, but it kind of boils down to the
fact that when the students go home and don’t have anybody monitoring what they
look at or do I’m not sure anything will change.
Cyber bulling is also a problem because almost
everyone has a cell phone. Even elementary students have cell phones. If the
students are not made to keep them off and put up they can access facebook or
any other social media site where they can continue bullying. This can happen
at lunchtime, recess, or while a student is sitting in class. Unless you can
ban cell phones at school and make sure to block social media websites on all
computers (which they do) how can you stop this?
The chapter keeps going on about
ways to prevent bullying. Most of the ways it talks about preventing it were
ways they had when I was in high school. The cheesy skits are not making an
impact. They are usually boring and don’t really do much. Having an older peer
might work, but they would have to be a very strong willed person to be able to
be a leader in high school. I still think parents make this biggest impact up
to a certain age. At that point parents have to hope they raised a child with
morals and compassion who will find like-minded friends.
My personal opinion on this topic is
to have cameras monitor the students with the teachers. Make sure no one is
ever hidden behind a computer. Maybe no cell phones at school. Period! If you
need to talk to your student call the office. I don’t really know of a way to
monitor this after school hours. I don’t know for a fact, but I would say most
cyber bulling happens outside of school hours.
I agree that parental involvement can be very important in preventing cyberbullying (or any kind of bullying for that matter). However, I think that the school - teachers, administrators, and peers - also have a very important role to play in preventing bullying.
ReplyDeleteWhen my husband was in school, he was constantly bullied for a number of reasons - he stuttered, he has an unusual name, and his mom was a single mom in an era where that was not common. That has left a lasting impact in his life, especially because teachers knew what was going on and did nothing to stop it. Even when his mom complained to the principal when another student broke my husband's glasses, excuses were made for the other student.
Even though those public service announcements are cheesy, they can still have a deep impact on students, especially those who haven't had these kinds of discussions with their parents. Personally, I think continuing these methods are better than playing "Big Brother" with cameras all over the school.
If we did implement a camera on every computer system, how do you think that would affect school culture. Would this stop bullying and inappropriate behavior on the internet? Would we communicate to students a lack of trust in them and so get a lack of trust in us?
I definitely agree the school needs to help too! I come from a school where we take it very seriously, but some of the parents don't give a crap. It makes it frustrating. Implementing cameras I don't believe would affect the school culture. Right now in the schools there are cameras everywhere for safety reasons. I think they can help keep everyone responsible. For example if one of my kids hits another in line. They will flat out deny it to me even if I saw them with my own eyes. If I make a comment about going to show it to them from the cameras in the office. They will finally admit it to me and apologize. I believe it would help with bullying because you could show the parents exactly what happened and why that student is being suspended. And if ever you needed the video for legality reasons you have it. To me it is just an extra protective element. I don't believe it creates a lack of trust. No one is sitting there stalking you during the day, but if you ever need to go back to protect a student/teacher you could. Just my view on it.
ReplyDeleteI think that having older peers serve as mentors for younger kids may really help. Middle school and high school students tend to idolize older kids. If you could find a group of several "cool" kids from the athletics teams, student government, etc, to serve as mentors- maybe it would help. Maybe these kids could be part of a group/club that is like a social action/community support/suicide prevention type of club. Maybe it would give the student who is being bullied somewhere to turn fo support other than the teacher and/or administrators who could fail to help.
ReplyDeleteI agree with that. If you could have middle school and high school mentors that might really help. I guess I was thinking about how my 1st graders are book buddies with 4th graders. Some of the 4th graders are not very good influences, which drives me nuts! I'm always saying 4th graders make sure you are being good examples for the 1st graders. The jump between middle school and high school could definitely be a benefit.
ReplyDelete