Online Safety – A Shared Responsibility
In order to appropriately address the challenges of protecting students and children from bullying that takes place online, all members of the school community: teachers, parents and students need to come to some common understandings and some common agreements. We need to understand the 5 W’s of cyber-bullying: Who is a cyberbully?; What is cyberbullying?; Where does it take place?; When can it happen?; How can we prevent it? From this shared vision, we need to develop programs, educational materials and support plans for those who are victims or perpetrators of cyber-bullying.
Because so much of the harm comes from the power one gets from anonymity; and because the scars run deeper and longer; and because the bystanders are no longer a small group of people, but possibly a network of individuals who may or may not have chosen to participate (simply through their being on a social network, at the wrong time), I don’t think merely consequencing bullies that use the internet as their playground will ever solve the issue. Educating our students can go a long way to helping prevent harassment that takes place on-line. This is a shared responsibility. I think teachers can and must take the lead at school, and parents must do their part at home. I think students need to do their part on-online. They need to be speak up for themselves and for each other. Empowering students to teach others about the harm cyber-bullying can wreck on a someones school and personal life can make an important difference. Especially with youth who would rather hear from their peers than from any teacher or parent, they can start to learn a lot from each other. The challenge of course is how to make this relevant and important enough for them to want to do this.
