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Clicks, cliques & cyberbullying, Part 2: Whole-school response is key

February 18, 2010 By Anne 25 Comments

Cyberbullying is a serious problem that, according to research, is the most common online risk for young people, affecting about a quarter of US 13-to-17-year-olds. Schools and courts are struggling to figure out how to deal with student behavior that occurs off school grounds but can have such a disruptive, sometimes destructive, effect on school.

All the discussion about the legal and First Amendment issues seems to be missing a key factor that points to how to handle cyberbullying: the media environment with which all these incidents are directly associated. The Internet, especially to youth, is now a) collegial or social/behavioral in nature and b) mirrors “real world” life and conditions – it’s not something in addition to student or school life. Bullying online is not a whole new problem for schools and courts to deal with. It’s a reflection of student relationships, and the bullying’s context is largely the life of the school community, not the Internet (or cellphones or any other devices).

Cyberbullying prevention/intervention take a village too

“Because a bully’s success depends heavily on context” – write Yale psychology professor Alan Yazdin and his co-author Carlo Rotella at Boston College in “Bullies: They can be stopped, but it takes a village” at Slate.com – “attempts to prevent bullying should concentrate primarily on changing the context rather than directly addressing the victim’s or the bully’s behavior.” That, they add, involves “the entire school, including administration, teachers, and peers.”

Author and educator Rosalind Wiseman agrees. In a 55-min. podcast interview she gave fellow educator and author Annie Fox, Wiseman recently said that dealing with cyberbullying “really speaks to a school’s culture of dignity….

“Don’t do a 45-minute assembly on cyberbullying,” Wiseman said. “It’s a waste of time. Have a faculty meeting, and then have a parent meeting, and tell the students this is what you’re doing – not just a bullying assembly. Tell them ‘we understand that this is about the whole culture of the school, and as part of that culture, you have to participate in this as well.'” Slightly tongue in cheek, Wiseman adds that this will increase “the chance of students believing you’re not completely full of it.”

Quick fixes don’t exist

Schools will probably get plenty of eye-rolling and “whatever’s” from the more socially aggressive students, but gradually things can turn around – particularly if there’s disciplinary backup. [Note the word “backup”: discipline is not the goal, but rather restoration of order – more on this below.] For example, when talking with a student suspected of having been the bully in an incident, the end of the conversation could go something like:

“I know we’re on the same page, here: You’re a person of honor, so I’m taking you on your word that this won’t happen again. But you need to be clear that, if you walk out of here and, as a result of this meeting, the life of the target in any way becomes more difficult, then we are in a whole different situation – a whole different level of the problem. You need to be clear that, if that happens, you’re taking a very big chance.”

That conversation could also include the following. “I hope and expect that you’ll be talking with your parents about this, because I’m going to be calling them within 24 hours.” Wiseman tells teachers and administrators that of course the kids will talk to their parents, offering their own spin on the situation. “So it’s very important to say to the parent, ‘I wanted to include you from the beginning, that is why I talked with your child. I fully expected [him or her] to speak to you immediately and now I’m following up so we can work together and have this be a learning opportunity – a teachable moment – for your child.”

Turning incidents into ‘teachable moments’

Those words are crucial: “learning opportunity,” “teachable moment.” They are stepping stones on the way to building the school’s “culture of dignity,” as Wiseman put. Because it’s merely logical that a one-time, sage-on-the-stage assembly will accomplish very little. It’s also logical that involving all players and skill sets – students, parents, teachers, administrators, and counselors – creates the conditions for changing the school’s culture (see this). The school is, in fact, creating a new social norm – as Elizabeth Englander, director of the Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Center and an adviser to state legislators working on bullying-education legislation, told Emily Bazelon at Slate.com – where the whole school community looks down on dissing, flaming, mean gossiping, and other social cruelty, hopefully including students’ parents. The Slate piece links to some great resources for school strategizing. For example, here’s a sexting investigation protocol from the Center for Safe & Responsible Internet Use offering the spectrum of sexting causes and intentions enabling school staff to ask students intelligent questions.

When an interdisciplinary group of us were working on that protocol, authored by Nancy Willard, it occurred to me that, because it lays out the spectrum of sexting’s causes, it’ll help school officials see why it’s essential that schools not just reflexively hand off investigations to law enforcement (whose involvement some state laws require).

The goal of any incident investigation

“The immediate goal of the investigation is not discipline [and certainly not expediency] but rather support for the targeted student(s) [who may be experiencing psychological harm], and restoration of order. The ultimate goal is to create a learning opportunity for all involved. The learning opportunity should be on-the-spot, as well as school and community-wide, and focus on the areas of critical thinking, mindful decision-making, perspective-taking, and citizenship.” That’s a statement a couple of us worked up because we feel it’s so important for everybody to understand that, in the social-media age, we can only change behavior – in schools and online communities – together, as “a village.”

Here’s Part 1 of this 2-part series: “Clicks & cliques: Really meaty advice for parents on cyberbullying.”

Related links

  • In another Massachusetts incident, last week Boston-area police charged three students with identity theft reportedly for creating a fake Facebook profile and posting mean comments about a peer. In an editorial last Saturday (2/13), the Boston Globe applauded the police “for taking aggressive action against cyberbullying when so many others have failed to do so.” There’s the sad reality: that too often the “authority figure” taking over is the police. Law enforcement is only one piece of the multidisciplinary team that should be in place in schools and ready to step in when something comes up. The other essential roles are principal and counselor/psychologist.
  • “Cyberbullying better defined” – with links to two national studies showing that about one-third of teens
  • Finding of the Harvard Berkman Center’s 2008 Internet Safety & Technical Task Force: “Bullying and harassment, most often by peers, are the most frequent threats that minors face, both online and offline” (p. 4 of Executive Summary)
  • The Fox-Wiseman podcast
  • ConnectSafely.org’s Tips to Help Stop Cyberbullying
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Filed Under: bullying, cyberbullying, Risk & Safety, School & Tech, school policy, sexting Tagged With: Annie Fox, bullying, cliques, culture of dignity, cyberbullying, Rosalind Wiseman, whole-school

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Shawn Solis says

    April 12, 2020 at 1:02 am

    Thank you for posting

    Reply
  2. Bendscheibenvorfall says

    September 29, 2011 at 12:48 pm

    Next time I read a weblog, I hope that this doesnt disappoint me approximately this one. I mean, I know it was my choice to see, but I actually believed youd have something interesting to mention. All I hear is a bunch of whining about something you could fix if you werent too busy looking for attention.

    Reply
    • Anne says

      September 29, 2011 at 1:27 pm

      Thank you for commenting. I’m sorry my intention to pull together some ideas for solutions in this post didn’t work for you. I’d be interested in your thoughts on what would fix cyberbullying, if you have time.

      Reply
  3. Tia Fisher says

    February 22, 2010 at 12:16 pm

    Thanks very much for these two excellent posts Ann: some really sensitive advice. I've written about them on the eModeration blog here http://blog.emoderation.com/2010/02/when-your-teenager-says-theyre-being.html

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. What does 'safe' really look like in a digital age? | NetFamilyNews.org says:
    September 4, 2012 at 3:43 pm

    […] Community: fosters social norms and a sense of belonging, which are both protective. A community’s participants organically (in the process of participating) develop the social norms that enable productive interaction and collaboration, providing a sense of safety to members and protecting the learning process and community cohesiveness. When there’s a lack of community, such as on YouTube or huge news sites that are too vast and diverse to be communities, it’s much more common to see the cruel or moronic comments that are too often associated with social media (even though, in these sites, too, there are people who see themselves as stakeholders, YouTube has told its online-safety advisers, and communities develop around vertical interests and channels). A sense of belonging mitigates hurtful behavior. My friend and adviser Patricia Agatston, a risk prevention specialist for Atlanta-area schools, wrote me, “Bullying prevention that helps all students feel like they belong and are accepted really fits into” the work of psychologist Alfred Adler, one of whose central principles is that “all humans strive to belong,” Patti wrote. “When we feel like we belong and are accepted, behavior is usually productive. When we doubt our belonging and acceptance we may act in less helpful ways,” she added. This is also why so many psychologists and bullying-prevention experts talk about the need for a whole-school-community approach. […]

    Reply
  2. Larry Magid: Technology Doesn’t Cause Bullying and — Despite Claims — It Can’t Prevent It | Edhuru Annex says:
    October 26, 2011 at 1:00 pm

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    October 22, 2011 at 10:30 pm

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  4. Technology doesn’t cause bullying and –despite some claims — it can’t prevent it says:
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  5. Technology doesn’t cause bullying and –despite some claims — it can’t prevent it | National Cyber Security says:
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  6. Clicks & cliques: *Really* meaty advice for parents on cyberbullying | NetFamilyNews.org says:
    September 7, 2011 at 5:14 am

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  7. Shaping Youth » Survivor, The Lunch Table Edition: SEL to Prevent Bullying says:
    September 6, 2011 at 8:47 pm

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  8. Federal judge on bullying & schools’ responsibility | NetFamilyNews.org says:
    May 4, 2011 at 3:55 pm

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  9. Pink shirts in Canada: Ultimate social norms model | NetFamilyNews.org says:
    February 23, 2011 at 8:32 pm

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  10. The Trevor Romain Company » Blog Archive » Clique-Busting Strategies says:
    December 23, 2010 at 1:00 pm

    […] A two part article from NetFamilyNews.org – Kid-Tech News for Parents: Clicks & cliques: *Really* meaty advice for parents on cyberbullying:  http://nfn.wpengine.com/2010/02/clicks-cliques-really-meaty-advice-for.html Clicks, cliques & cyberbullying, Part 2: Whole-school response is key: http://nfn.wpengine.com/?p=28742 […]

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  11. The freedom to *not* fit in | NetFamilyNews.org says:
    October 24, 2010 at 4:17 am

    […] my ConnectSafely co-director’s article on this in the Huffington Post. [See also "Clicks, cliques & cyberbullying: Whole school response is needed" and "Students on bullying: Important study."] // Share| Permalink Post a comment — […]

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  12. Fresh takes on ‘cyberbullying’ & how to deal with it | NetFamilyNews.org says:
    September 10, 2010 at 3:58 pm

    […] A subhead to this post might be “The flaws of laws” – but also the flawed term “cyberbullying” itself. Every kid is very individual, so every case of bullying or cyberbullying is very individual. It’s therefore difficult and probably very unwise to make generalizations about the cases, the children involved, or bullying in general. And increasingly I’m hearing from risk-prevention experts, even as more and more states pass anti-bullying laws, that there is no one-size-fits-all solution or law that can effectively deal with all cases (except schools creating their own cultures of respect, but that’s another story – see this one). […]

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  13. Students on bullying: Important study | NetFamilyNews.org says:
    August 12, 2010 at 8:59 pm

    […] “Clicks, cliques & cyberbullying, Part 2: Whole-school response is key” […]

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    July 22, 2010 at 4:33 pm

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  15. Really sound cyberbullying advice for parents, schools | NetFamilyNews.org says:
    July 9, 2010 at 6:53 pm

    […] of a school culture of respect, or dignity, as author/educator Rosalind Wiseman puts it (see this blog post for more on that). What might be learned? Critical thinking about what is posted, uploaded, and […]

    Reply
  16. Facebook and National PTA team up | NetFamilyNews.org says:
    June 10, 2010 at 3:53 pm

    […] with cyberbullying, the most common online risk, requires a whole-school-community approach (see this), and 3) the partnership is symbolic of what we said in the OSTWG report last week, that […]

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  17. OSTWG report: Why a ‘living Internet’? | NetFamilyNews.org says:
    June 7, 2010 at 11:59 pm

    […] Risk spectrum matches real life. Because the Internet mirrors and serves as a platform for virtually all of human life, it mirrors the full spectrum of offline risks, not just the few featured in popular TV shows or covered in news reports focused on the most extreme outcomes. Consider cyberbullying, the risk identified by the 2009 Berkman Center report as the one that affects the most kids; cyberbullying isn’t a single identifiable behavior, and its range of causes requires a multidisciplinary, whole-school-community approach (see this). […]

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  18. Cartoon Network does anti-bullying *intelligently* | NetFamilyNews.org says:
    June 4, 2010 at 6:58 pm

    […] in contrast, surfaced as a problem children felt they could help combat.” [See also "Clicks, Cliques & cyberbullying: Whole school response is key."] // Share| Permalink Post a comment — Trackback URI RSS 2.0 feed for these comments […]

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  19. Why anti-bullying laws don’t work: School psychologist’s view | NetFamilyNews.org says:
    May 17, 2010 at 1:59 pm

    […] leery of school cyberbullying actions" and "Parenting & the digital drama overload," and "Clicks, cliques & cyberbullying."] // Share| Permalink Post a comment — Trackback URI RSS 2.0 feed for these comments […]

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  20. Principal’s anti-Facebook plan: Is banning Web sites the fix? | NetFamilyNews.org says:
    May 4, 2010 at 4:02 pm

    […] risk prevention practitioners are saying that the solution has to be a whole-school approach (see “Clicks, cliques & cyberbullying: Whole-school response is key”). Some good things that have come out of the New Jersey story: 1) kids and parents talking about […]

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  21. Reflection on filters, social media & school | NetFamilyNews.org says:
    May 2, 2010 at 10:00 pm

    […] school” and social-norming approach to bullying and cyberbullying. Absolutely (see this and this). But why do online/offline risk prevention only around the academic part of school? […]

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Let Grow Foundation
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Raising Digital Natives, author Devorah Heitner's site
Renee Hobbs at the Media Education Lab
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