As attention on bullying – the old-fashioned playground kind, the new-fashioned cyber-kind or the equally insidious (and no doubt perennial) spousal, workplace, elderly, political and other varieties – seems to swirl around and around us like Fall leaves on a windy day, the calls to “end bullying” are reaching a frantic pitch. Naturally, some would argue, schools are the primary target. Bullying ground zero. With all those hours kids spend in our classrooms, surely our teachers and principals and administrators can be doing more to discourage, reduce or, what the heck, just end bullying.
Last week, some New Jersey lawmakers announced proposed new legislation that would become the toughest anti-bullying law in the nation. The “Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights” requires “training for nearly all school employees on how to spot, prevent and report acts of intimidation. Each district must form a ‘school safety team’ that reviews complaints, lead by a counselor designated as an ‘anti-bullying specialist.’…The measure (A3466) would also require school employees to report harassing actions they learn about that take place off school property — and those who don’t could face disciplinary action.”
It all sounds so sensible and sensitive and powerful. Tough talk designed to get results and whip this bullying monster once and for all.
The trouble is, as with most things in life, it’s not as easy, not as cut and dried and not as black and white as it seems. You see, on Monday you can be all about bullying, and the answers – in the form of laws and regulations and school polices – can seem so obvious. But then Tuesday rolls around and guess what Tuesday’s focus is – oh, a little concept our founding fathers called “freedom of speech.” Suddenly it’s hey, remember all those laws we came up with yesterday to solve the bullying “epidemic?” Did anybody run those through the freedom’o’speech detector? Yeah, didn’t think so. Houston, we have a problem.
Last week, not two hours after I read about New Jersey’s anti-bullying legislation, I read another article that was a stark counterpoint. A student In California had videotaped herself and some friends talking trash about another student, calling her a slut and other bullying-type things. They posted the video on YouTube. About 15 students watched the video, and it was brought to the attention of school officials, who suspended the “videographer” for two days. The suspended student claimed – successfully – that the suspension for out-of-school cyberbullying was a violation of her right to free speech. (Disclaimer: what this girl did was wrong, stupid, immature, mean and not nice. She deserved to be punished – by her parents, certainly. By her school, not sure.) The problem is: teenagers have freedom of speech, in school and out of school, and subsequent court decisions have set very clear reasons under which school officials can limit and/or punish that speech.
What are schools, teachers and administrators supposed to do, with all these conflicting laws and court cases? How are we going to decide (and who is going to decide), day to day, minute to minute, this speech is OK, that speech is mean, this speech is free, that speech is bullying? What is bullying's "yelling fire in a crowded theater" exemption from free speech?
And as distasteful as it is to bring money into the discussion, one has to ask: who's going to pay for all this? At the end of the day, every 15 minutes spent on anti-bullying activities, Open Circle, school safety team meetings and state bullying reports is 15 minutes not spent on math or reading, and it's 15 minutes that a teacher or administrator must be paid. I'm not saying any of these things, per se, isn't "worth it." But let's be realistic and understand what it is we're legislating.
This is all a roundabout way to get to my main point – I don’t think the laws and the courts are going to be able to fix this problem, folks, and we shouldn’t expect them to. Bullying, being “mean,” talking trash, whatever you want to call it...instead of focusing solely on controlling the behavior, or punishing the behavior, maybe we should focus more on where this behavior is coming from.
Which leads us to the Golden Rule. My question isn't “do they teach that in schools?” but rather, “doesn’t anybody teach that at home anymore?” We shouldn't need a law to enforce the Golden Rule.
Showing posts with label cyber-bullying. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cyber-bullying. Show all posts
Monday, November 1, 2010
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Should schools police cyberbullying?
Following are some letters to the editor in response to the recent New York Times story in which Ridgewood was featured. Do you have any comments to add from Ridgewood?
To the Editor:
As a public school teacher and parent of a 13-year-old boy, I had two visceral reactions to your June 28 front-page article “Online Bullies Pull Schools Into the Fray.”
The first was one of strong support for the sober-minded principal, Tony Orsini, who insisted that children’s behavior at home on a Saturday night is not his responsibility.
The second was horror at the abdication of parental responsibility. The parents of a targeted girl felt that it was “too awkward” to contact the parents of the boy sending offensive texts. I hope that they have reconsidered. If I received a call regarding similar behavior, my son would not have access to texting for a long time. I feel that the parents of the boy in question deserve to know what their child is up to.
Thomas Randall
Amherst, Mass., June 28, 2010
To the Editor:
The reluctance of the school administration to enforce anti-bullying rules, and of parents to confront the parents of the bullies, are factors that sustain and encourage these bad behaviors. In the worst cases, bullying has led to suicides and school shootings; in every case it creates additional misery for children who are already struggling with a difficult life transition.
In the early 1970s, when the Norwegian psychologist Dan Olweus created the anti-bullying program that remains the model for this kind of intervention, he made sure that it was used not only in the classroom, but also throughout the school, the community and the state.
Principals, parents and the police should not be worrying about whose responsibility it is to enforce anti-bullying programs; they should be working together consistently, in a coordinated fashion, enforcing the same rules with the same punishments.
When even one adult turns his back on bullying, in cyberspace or real space, he is giving this destructive behavior his covert approval.
Jonathan Fast
New York, June 28, 2010
The writer is an associate professor at the Wurzweiler School of Social Work, Yeshiva University.
To the Editor:
Unbelievable! First, we penalize our teachers for not guaranteeing that all students learn the material being taught. Of course, it is not the parents’ responsibility to see that these students actually do homework and study outside of school.
Now, we expect schools to be private investigators, police, counselors and mediators for activities going on outside of school. It’s time for parents to step up to the plate.
Sometimes it is hard to talk with other parents about their child’s behavior — or even harder to hear from other parents about your child’s behavior. Sometimes it is hard to enforce limits on technology use.
But that’s what we signed on for when we became parents. What we’re asking of our schools — taking responsibility for our children 24/7 — is not what teachers, counselors and administrators signed on for.
Parents, for the sake of our children let’s take responsibility here. Let’s work with our schools and not expect them to do it all.
Janice Lilly
Bloomington, Ind., June 29, 2010
To the Editor:
Your article brought back hard memories from my middle school years before cyberspace existed. There have always been bullies. You could deliver devastating social blows with a rotary-dial Princess phone just as easily as you can ruin someone’s life with your iPhone. Not inviting someone to a slumber party, then leaking it at recess, was just as powerful a tool as Facebook. Note-passing in math class could ruin someone’s reputation as quickly as texting.
Did schools interfere then? No. Could parents stop Cindy from calling you a “slut” or Joe from writing “Johnny’s a loser” on the bathroom wall? No.
Can parents ground their children, take away their cellphones, monitor their computers, instill a sense of kindness and respect for others, and give them assurance that life gets much better after junior high?
As far as I know, the answer is yes.
Virginia Ottley Craighill
Sewanee, Tenn., June 28, 2010
To the Editor:
What we have learned in our psychoanalytic treatment and research program is that school often becomes the only reliable place where our plague of bullying can be solved. More often than not the bully at school, either in person or online, is being bullied, abused or seriously neglected at home or on the street.
The bullying behavior has meaning, and is often an indirect communication that the student is trying to make others feel the way that he or she is feeling. Passive witnesses to such behavior — other students, teachers or parents — who do nothing are co-conspirators in the bullying behavior.
Whether anything can be done by the school legally is not as important as the school’s addressing the issue with students — the bully and the victim — and parents immediately as a significant first step.
Mark D. Smaller
Chicago, June 28, 2010
The writer, a psychoanalyst, is founding director of the Analytic Service to Adolescents Program, Morton Alternative School.
To the Editor:
Netiquette, just like etiquette, is learned behavior. Just as kids learn to control their offline bullying and to stand up to being bullied, they learn how to deal with the pitfalls of online social interactions. Schools can play an important role in this process by teaching kids how to interpret the new medium of text messaging, how to navigate social spaces, how to react to hurtful messages and whom to go to for advice and help.
But calling on schools to police student speech outside school dangerously undermines kids’ free speech rights. Young people sometimes say stupid and hurtful things to each other, online and offline. So do adults. The Constitution requires us to sort out these conflicts without undue government interference or control.
Svetlana Mintcheva
New York, June 28, 2010
The writer is director of programs for the National Coalition Against Censorship.
To the Editor:
As a public school teacher and parent of a 13-year-old boy, I had two visceral reactions to your June 28 front-page article “Online Bullies Pull Schools Into the Fray.”
The first was one of strong support for the sober-minded principal, Tony Orsini, who insisted that children’s behavior at home on a Saturday night is not his responsibility.
The second was horror at the abdication of parental responsibility. The parents of a targeted girl felt that it was “too awkward” to contact the parents of the boy sending offensive texts. I hope that they have reconsidered. If I received a call regarding similar behavior, my son would not have access to texting for a long time. I feel that the parents of the boy in question deserve to know what their child is up to.
Thomas Randall
Amherst, Mass., June 28, 2010
To the Editor:
The reluctance of the school administration to enforce anti-bullying rules, and of parents to confront the parents of the bullies, are factors that sustain and encourage these bad behaviors. In the worst cases, bullying has led to suicides and school shootings; in every case it creates additional misery for children who are already struggling with a difficult life transition.
In the early 1970s, when the Norwegian psychologist Dan Olweus created the anti-bullying program that remains the model for this kind of intervention, he made sure that it was used not only in the classroom, but also throughout the school, the community and the state.
Principals, parents and the police should not be worrying about whose responsibility it is to enforce anti-bullying programs; they should be working together consistently, in a coordinated fashion, enforcing the same rules with the same punishments.
When even one adult turns his back on bullying, in cyberspace or real space, he is giving this destructive behavior his covert approval.
Jonathan Fast
New York, June 28, 2010
The writer is an associate professor at the Wurzweiler School of Social Work, Yeshiva University.
To the Editor:
Unbelievable! First, we penalize our teachers for not guaranteeing that all students learn the material being taught. Of course, it is not the parents’ responsibility to see that these students actually do homework and study outside of school.
Now, we expect schools to be private investigators, police, counselors and mediators for activities going on outside of school. It’s time for parents to step up to the plate.
Sometimes it is hard to talk with other parents about their child’s behavior — or even harder to hear from other parents about your child’s behavior. Sometimes it is hard to enforce limits on technology use.
But that’s what we signed on for when we became parents. What we’re asking of our schools — taking responsibility for our children 24/7 — is not what teachers, counselors and administrators signed on for.
Parents, for the sake of our children let’s take responsibility here. Let’s work with our schools and not expect them to do it all.
Janice Lilly
Bloomington, Ind., June 29, 2010
To the Editor:
Your article brought back hard memories from my middle school years before cyberspace existed. There have always been bullies. You could deliver devastating social blows with a rotary-dial Princess phone just as easily as you can ruin someone’s life with your iPhone. Not inviting someone to a slumber party, then leaking it at recess, was just as powerful a tool as Facebook. Note-passing in math class could ruin someone’s reputation as quickly as texting.
Did schools interfere then? No. Could parents stop Cindy from calling you a “slut” or Joe from writing “Johnny’s a loser” on the bathroom wall? No.
Can parents ground their children, take away their cellphones, monitor their computers, instill a sense of kindness and respect for others, and give them assurance that life gets much better after junior high?
As far as I know, the answer is yes.
Virginia Ottley Craighill
Sewanee, Tenn., June 28, 2010
To the Editor:
What we have learned in our psychoanalytic treatment and research program is that school often becomes the only reliable place where our plague of bullying can be solved. More often than not the bully at school, either in person or online, is being bullied, abused or seriously neglected at home or on the street.
The bullying behavior has meaning, and is often an indirect communication that the student is trying to make others feel the way that he or she is feeling. Passive witnesses to such behavior — other students, teachers or parents — who do nothing are co-conspirators in the bullying behavior.
Whether anything can be done by the school legally is not as important as the school’s addressing the issue with students — the bully and the victim — and parents immediately as a significant first step.
Mark D. Smaller
Chicago, June 28, 2010
The writer, a psychoanalyst, is founding director of the Analytic Service to Adolescents Program, Morton Alternative School.
To the Editor:
Netiquette, just like etiquette, is learned behavior. Just as kids learn to control their offline bullying and to stand up to being bullied, they learn how to deal with the pitfalls of online social interactions. Schools can play an important role in this process by teaching kids how to interpret the new medium of text messaging, how to navigate social spaces, how to react to hurtful messages and whom to go to for advice and help.
But calling on schools to police student speech outside school dangerously undermines kids’ free speech rights. Young people sometimes say stupid and hurtful things to each other, online and offline. So do adults. The Constitution requires us to sort out these conflicts without undue government interference or control.
Svetlana Mintcheva
New York, June 28, 2010
The writer is director of programs for the National Coalition Against Censorship.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Ridgewood plays a prominent role in today's front-page NY Times story on cyberbullying
Today's New York Times features a huge, front-page story on cyberbullying and schools' responsibility/ability to react -- and Ridgewood's Benjamin Franklin Middle School is prominently featured.
I have to admit, when I saw the headline and saw "Ridgewood" in the first couple of lines, I cringed...a little worried about what I was about to read. I have to say, though, that by the end of the article, my overwhelming feeling was that of pride. The problem was well outlined, and our staff and students were portrayed as competent, caring and thoughtful, attempting to negotiate an uncharted legal, social, educational and moral landscape. The stories from other districts were fascinating as well, primarily for the way they illustrated the current state of flux for the laws and societal expectations in this area. When should schools get involved? How involved should schools be? These are not easy questions to answer and I thought Mr. Orsini, Mr. Wu and Ms. Wearley of BF very eloquently and capably communicated this.
I'm so glad we as a community are starting to talk about this more, so we can all move through this "wild west" period with a minimum of harm to students. I have no doubt we, as a society, will work it out. But this "in-between" time can be challenging.
Click here to read the entire NY Times story: Online Bullies Pull Schools Into the Fray.
I have to admit, when I saw the headline and saw "Ridgewood" in the first couple of lines, I cringed...a little worried about what I was about to read. I have to say, though, that by the end of the article, my overwhelming feeling was that of pride. The problem was well outlined, and our staff and students were portrayed as competent, caring and thoughtful, attempting to negotiate an uncharted legal, social, educational and moral landscape. The stories from other districts were fascinating as well, primarily for the way they illustrated the current state of flux for the laws and societal expectations in this area. When should schools get involved? How involved should schools be? These are not easy questions to answer and I thought Mr. Orsini, Mr. Wu and Ms. Wearley of BF very eloquently and capably communicated this.
I'm so glad we as a community are starting to talk about this more, so we can all move through this "wild west" period with a minimum of harm to students. I have no doubt we, as a society, will work it out. But this "in-between" time can be challenging.
Click here to read the entire NY Times story: Online Bullies Pull Schools Into the Fray.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
GW Students talk about Cyber-Bullying on CBS News
Some Ridgewood students were in the news this week, helping spread the word about cyber-bullying and how to prevent it. Click here to read the story, Schools step up efforts to stop cyber bullying. Thanks to GW technology teacher, Mary Lou Handy, for all the work she does with students and parents on this topic!
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