Schools, Cyber Bullying, and Social Media
Before I get going here, I want to make sure that everyone reading this knows that I do not, in no way whatsoever, take cyber-bullying lightly. Its a serious issue that affects a lot of people, and I understand why the term has become so popular over the past years.
My issue lies with how schools are dealing with it.
In the very few years that I’ve been teaching, I have had to deal with shaped internet everywhere I’ve taught. Sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and even web-based email services such as Gmail are being blocked in our schools. The reason? Cyber-bullying.
Seriously?
People actually believe that preventing students to access these sites from their schools is the best way to prevent/control cyber-bullying? Do administrators understand the very nature of cyber-bullying? Blocking social media sites in your schools isn’t preventing it from happening, its just preventing it from happening during school hours. Not to mention the increase in accessibility of smartphones amongst young people. Now any kid with a blackberry could be bullying others, no matter the time of day.
I was helping facilitate a senior high-school cyber-bullying discussion today. Students were asked if they had ever been the victim of or had witnessed a cyber-bully attack on Facebook. Almost all the students raised their hands. When asked what they did about it, the most common answer was to try to write a witty reply to the bully to “out-troll” the bully. A few students said that they would unfriended the person harassing them, kicking them out of their online network.
I couldn’t bite my tongue anymore. I jumped into the conversation and asked if anyone had reported a bully to Facebook.
The kids just stared at me and blinked .
I then asked if they knew how to modify their privacy settings using the “Custom” setting so that only parts of their data would be shared with certain people.
More blinks.
I asked if they knew about blocking or unsubscribing to users.
Still nothing.
Students had no idea how to prepare themselves for a positive social media experience. They’ve never been taught how. Instead, they were told to ignore the sites and not use them. That’s like telling a child who is physically bullied everyday to just spend recess hiding in the bathroom: “They can’t bully you if you’re not there”.
We need educators that are savvy in social media to be able to teach our kids how to use it responsibly and how to set themselves up so that they are protected from cyber-bullying (side note: I hate that term. Can we please find a better term for it?) We need schools that don’t just block social media, but that encourage the frequent, proper, and safe use of it.
We need to get with the program, and we need to get with it now. The sooner we do, the sooner we actually start prevent cyber-bullying from occurring.
What do you think? How is your school/are you combating cyber-bullying? Please leave you opinions in the comments below
Project #PEPitch
Project #PEPitch
The idea behind #PEPitch is to create a structured conversation in which 10 teachers each get a one minute turn to share an idea they have for a PE program (think of it as an elevator pitch). Each "pitch" is followed by a 5 minute discussion period in which the teachers can try to develop the idea further. Once the discussion period is done, the group moves onto the next idea. If time constraints are respected, each #PEPitch session should last approximately 60 minutes. However, the conversation can be continued on either Google+ (through comments), on Twitter (using the #PEPitch hashtag) or pretty much anywhere you feel like continuing the discussion.
So there's my quick pitch on how I'd like to use Google+ Hangouts. Its not fully formed quite yet, but I feel as though its something that will improve though practice (which is another way of saying I'd like to have a #PEPitch soon). I have some more ideas for it (e.g. Having a moderator/secretary for each session, video capture that can be reposted later, themes, etc.), but first I'd like to hear what you all think. Feel free to leave any ideas/suggestions in the comments below.
Thanks for reading!
New Year's Resolutions
2. Read 12 new books
3. Learn basic Spanish
4. Visit the East Coast of Canada
5. Gain 15 pounds of mass
6. Attend 3 Tea workshops
7. Swim with sharks
8. Get 6 Universities involved with ThePhysicalEducator.com
9. Surf the Habitat wave for more than 12 seconds at a time
10. Have 500 Twitter followers
***UPDATE***
I’ve decided to add a few more to this list. Looks like I’m going to have to have a productive year.
11. Longboard the CDN Cemetery
12. Type at 80 words/minute