For decades and centuries, bullying was simply done person to person or through notes or word of mouth. But now with the creation of computers, email, the Internet and all the new apps, bullying has become easier and more rampant in society. Unfortunately, it is also less personal when done on-line or via text leading to harsher treatment and worse bullying.
Other problems with bullying via technology include the larger audience potential, how to punish the bully when the bullying starts off school campus but continues onto campus and when does bullying cross over into harassment? Many administrators do not really know how to deal with the problems that all this new technology creates. Gone are the days of a teacher catching a note about someone or hearing girls picking on someone in the bathroom. Now it is a text message sent to 20 or 30 people with just a few clicks and then spread through the high school within a few minutes at lunch. What used to take hours or even overnight to spread can now be accomplished in just the few minutes between classes. For the target of the gossip and bullying, this lightning type spread can be so much more devastating than in days gone by.
Several school districts have had to deal with this issue in the last few years. Between suicides caused by cyber bullying, expulsions from school for off campus problems, trying to create fair but equatable rules regarding bullying, and dealing with modern versions of complaining about teachers, school boards and superintendents must figure out where the line is and how to make each case fit into a box even when it isn't necessarily a square problem.
This issue is especially important to me as I have watched children struggle with these problems in the last few years. To see young tweens deal with such hurtful things said and done in an impersonal matter, is frustrating and maddening all together. A solution needs to be found in the middle ground between free speech and anti-bullying.
Kim, V. (December 13, 2009). For students, a right to be mean online? Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from http://articles.latimes.com/2009/dec/13/local/la-me-youtube-schools13-2009dec13
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