Social Networking and Cyber-Bullying

1)  I think that we should attempt to integrate technology into the classroom when it is beneficial, and as such, believe that the advantages outweigh the potential issues.  We all have heard that statistically, 16 year old boys are the worst drivers.  Just because we know this we don’t prevent them from driving.  In recent years states (Washington is the only one I know for sure) have started giving young drivers provisional licenses to ease them into being on the road.  This seems to me that this is what we need to do with social networking: by creating a more structured, controlled, and hopefully safe environment, we as teachers can hopefully help students develop into responsible users of social networking.

By denying the students access to social networking in class all together seems to be trying to gain control and turn back the clocks to a simpler time.  The way young people communicate today is much different than how I communicated in high school, and it sure as heck is different than when our parents were in school.  Prensky succinctly makes this point in Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants when he writes, “Our students have changed radically. Today’s students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach.”  I posed one of my questions in the group discussion today if we should deal with social networking issues proactively or use them as teaching moments once they develop.  Cassie gave a resounding, “proactive!” response and I would agree with her.  By proactively addressing issues that are sure to come up hopefully we can minimize some of the issues.  I did find today’s Twitter lesson very surprising: I had felt confident in labeling myself as a digital native but now find myself not so sure.  In Prensky’s Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants, he claims “today’s students think and process information fundamentally differently from their predecessors.”Before today’s lesson I thought I was able to process information in the “different” way.

2)  The first thing I did when I got home from school today was to change my Facebook settings to follow those specified in “Facebook and the Classroom.”  We touched on the thing that really makes me in our group discussion when we talked about students manipulating images or files to make other students or teachers appear as if they have done something wrong.  We really couldn’t come up with a solution to this problem besides hiring a technical forensics expert.  Besides changing my Facebook settings, I also plan on creating a new “Teacher Andy” profile that I will use to interact with students.  This will be a much blander and boiled down version of me.  I think asking for parents’ permission is also a must.  I think including parents as much as possible in the educational process is vital, so the possibility of including them in social networking should definitely be capitalized on.  The new Google+ social networking site has “circles” that allow you to easily share things with only specific users.  Facebook has a similar method of specifically identifying what and to whom information is shared, but up until now I have had little use for it.

        I don’t see that teachers are held to higher standard, engineers (my former profession) are held to higher standards.  One issue that I had with engineering was that not only was my company liable for design errors, but I could be found personally liable for errors.  The thought of having to pay huge amounts of money because of a miscalculation weighed heavily on me.  Doctors have a similar standard but they have insurance for it.  Lawyers don't have to pay their clients money if they are found to be guilty because they made a mistake during the trial.  Teachers aren’t fined or directly disciplined if one of their teaching strategies doesn’t work or if a student does not meet the state standards, so in my view I have been liberated going into teaching.  As far as discipline for items you post on social networking sites like Natalie Munroe did, I see no problem in her being fired.  The idea shifts more towards a gray area when the nude photos mentioned in “Have You Googled Your Teacher Lately,” by Heather Carter are brought up.  In our society we have to realize we have to be respectful of extreme desire to shelter children by some parents.  It is always better to error on the side of caution when deciding if you should post questionable material.  The one problem that social networking sites do is they provide us with a means to “say” things without filter: Anu Prabhakara saying, “"When the [expletive], did parents decide that their kids are not responsible for anything they do?," also in “Have You Googled Your Teacher Lately,”  This type of comment seems inappropriate for even bar room banter between your colleagues let alone to be broadcast on the internet.

3)       I think cyber-bullying is extremely important because it can go on undetected in the “back allies” of Facebook and other social networking sites and because the damage it causes can go unnoticed to outside observers (teachers).  The bullying and hazing I dealt with as a kid tended to be more physical than emotional and was therefore much more visible (both literally and figuratively).  Being dumped in a garbage can by a senor seems harmless when compared to stories of students creating Facebook pages for the sole purpose of belittling and demeaning a fellow student.  As Principal Orsini says in the same New York Times article, “How does a 13-year-old girl recover her sexual self-esteem after reading that garbage?” in a whisper.  Physical wounds typically heal rapidly but emotional issues can scare a student for life.

Examples such as the texts the 6th girl received from her ex-boyfriends phone described in the New York Times article “Online Bullies Pull Schools Into the Fray,” show just how mean spirited and vengeful kids can sometimes be and also how poor they are at properly communicating their feelings. In another part of the article a group of girls was talking in the hall, “We had so many fights in seventh grade,” one girl said. “None of them were face-to-face. We were too afraid. Besides, it’s easier to say ‘sorry’ over a text.”  Another concurred. “It’s easier to fight online, because you feel more brave and in control,” she said. “On Facebook, you can be as mean as you want.”  We need to proactively teach our students how to debate and disagree in a respectful manner.  We need to build a sense of community in our classrooms; the sense of community I felt during my education, and particularly my high school career, is the main reason I am in this program.  I loved being at school.  I loved my friends, my teachers, my classes and coaches.  We need to make every effort to promote this same warm feeling in our students. 

In the same article Elizabeth Englander does not believe that there should be automatic discipline for cyberbullies, “We tend to think that if there’s no discipline, there’s no reaction,” she said. “But discipline should never be the only thing we consider in these cases. There are many things we can do with children first to guide and teach them about behavior and expectations.”  Previous to readying the entire article I had thought that bullying and fights between students that take place outside of school should be punished outside of school.  I then started thinking about our responsibility as teachers to be mandatory reporters of abuse.  Doesn’t this force schools to become involved in the punishment cyber-bullying?  Examples of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse detailed in our Mandatory Reporter test all took place outside of school; how is off-campus bullying and cyber-bullying different?