Cyber-Bullying

Dealing with cyberbullying in the school can be tough. A lot of cyberbullying can take place after school hours. But the effects can show during the school day. Anytime a student does not feel safe in the school environment action needs to be taken. When looking at online resources about cyberbullying, I found Internet Safety 101 the most helpful. It had really great definitions for adults and teachers. I thought the FBI Safe Online Surfing website had great tools for the classroom. There were games that may appeal to younger students. IN our school cyberbullying is treated as bullying. Whither it happens online or in school there is a zero-tolerance policy for bullying. I think the most important concern is that students are made to feel like they can and should come forward if they are being bullied or if they see someone else being bullied. I think that this is just as, and maybe more, important that trying to prevent it. This does not mean that we should not try to prevent cyberbullying, but we will not be able to prevent it all so we need to try to create safe place for those students to tell that they or someone they know is being bullied. I think that staff and students should be taught about cyberbullying in different ways. Staff should be shown real life examples of things that have gone terribly wrong as a result of cyberbullying. Some teachers may think that it’s not a big deal. If those staff members are confronted with the real ramifications of cyberbullying maybe they will be more likely to watch for and report it. Students on the other hand need to be told about cyberbullying in the same way they are taught about other forms of bullying. They need to know the school rules and policy on this and there should be no exceptions to the rule.