If a student came to you and said they were being harassed by another student at school on MSN, a popular instant messaging program that many of our students use to keep in touch outside of school hours, what do you advise them?
a) to block the student and delete the offensive messages
b) to stop using MSN, because it exposes them to this harmful content
c) to print out the offensive messages so they can be used as evidence
I have to be honest and admit that my initial response was b). That is until I listened to Donna Dalling speak at Mordialloc College last week. She made the point clear, that to tell the student that they should stop using MSN (or the mobile phone or whatever other technology is being used to bully the student), only really punishes the student who is being bullied. Essentially this revictimises the person being bullied, because they are the ones that are deprived of the technology that helps them maintain connections with their peers.
The answer Donna gave us is actually c). Once the bullying has occurred, you should keep advise the student to keep the offensive communications as evidence and take appropriate action, and sometimes this action may need to involve police.
Donna also shared a great deal of information about the research being done on cyber-bulling at the moment, both in Australia and globally. Interestingly, the findings have been consistent. How prevalent is it? Very! What’s more, bullies are no longer the big kid that uses stand-over tactics to steal lunch money at the canteen, but they can be your nerd who sits up the front of the class, who is now free to use their online persona to inflict just as much damage – emotionally. I was also surprised by the research findings that cyber-bullying was not just confined to secondary colleges, but it was prevalent among primary school aged children as well.
Importantly, schools need to take a proactive approach to bullying, as well as having effective systems in place to respond to it. Of course most schools already have responsible computer use policies, but because the bullying also occurs outside of school hours, schools need to work with, and educate, parents about these issues as well. We should also explicitly address cyberbullying in our curriculum and there are a number of professionally produced, thought provoking videos and resources that schools can use to approach this issue.
The Australian Communications and Media Authority provides a free DVD: Wise up to IT, for schools and teachers. In the five-minute video segments on this DVD, young people share a number of stories on issues that include cyberbullying, online stalking and internet security. For teaching notes and a copy of the DVD, visit www.wiseuptoit.com.au
The Ad Council in the US, have professionally produced two videos available on both YouTube and TeacherTube, related to cyber bullying and they have other videos related to internet safety.
Digizen (UK) have also created some great resources for teachers on cyberbullying. Check out the powerful video, “Lets Fight It Together: Cyberbullying“.
If you know about more great teaching resources, please add links and thoughts in your comments on this post.
Written by Callie Whelan.Melbourne Beyond Chalk Facilitator
