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.