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Cyber-bullying is a growing problem and must be taken seriously

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Cyber-bullying is a growing problem and must be taken seriously

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Cyber-bullying is contagious, stand up against it to stop the spread!

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Cyber-bullying is contagious, stand up against it to stop the spread!

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Consequences to Cyber-Bullying in School

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Consequences to Cyber-Bullying in School

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A Project to "Break the System"

That's just what English teacher Rebecca Grodner did with her students at Quest to Learn in New York. When a student was in tears after being shunned by her girlfriends, Grodner decided to tackle bullying as a class project. She challenged her eighth-grade students to "break the system" of school bullying by educating their peers. The project put students in the role of problem-solver and connected naturally with the English language arts curriculum.

As Grodner explains in her blog post, Students Break the System of Bullying in English Class, she showed the powerful documentary film BULLY to launch the project. After giving students time to gather their reflections about the film in a free write, Grodner invited them to share their responses aloud:

Students who had barely said more than two words to each other consoled one another. Students who were silent victims found the courage to speak. Students who had been aggressors showed deep remorse. And in the whole conversation, I didn't say more than a few words.

From there, Grodner guided students on a project in which they created a toolkit to break the system of school bullying. As a critical thinking activity, students created causal maps that showed the interrelated factors of bullying. As they looked for leverage points where they could make a difference, they identified an opportunity to build empathy during the elementary years. They set out to produce an anti-bullying toolkit, created by students for students. To develop their kit, they first critiqued other materials that had been created by adults and considered how they could use their own insights to better engage their audience. In the process, they applied their skills as effective communicators and critical thinkers to become change agents.

The project was so effective that Grodner made it an annual event in her English language arts class. "The best thing about this project is that it doesn't simply fade away once completed," she reflected. "The students made a real commitment to bullying prevention."

From Film to Movement

Since director Lee Hirsch released BULLY in 2012, his award-winning film has been seen by four million students from around the world and sparked a global social action campaign called The BULLY Project.

To continue to grow this movement, Hirsch invites students and educators to participate in new initiative called The BULLY Project Mural. The mural is an online publishing site, developed in collaboration with Adobe, where students can share their anti-bullying messages via images, videos, and text.

As Hirsch explains, "The mural is an interactive destination where anyone, regardless of ability, can share their art, stories, and perspectives about bullying, its impact, and how we can help stop it." He envisions the digital mural expanding with powerful stories and messages from around the world, raising public awareness much as the AIDS Memorial Quilt has raised awareness through community art.

For teachers who are designing project-based learning experiences to address bullying, the mural offers a site for students to share their culminating products with a global audience. It's also a resource for inquiry. As Hirsch suggests, "We invite you to teach from the different stories presented by contributors of the mural."

Driving Toward Solutions

Where are the opportunities to combine project-based learning with anti-bullying education? Consider driving questions that ask students to apply what they are learning to generate their own solutions to this issue.

For content connections, you might incorporate statistics or data gathering to have students challenge misperceptions about bullying. Sample driving question: How can we use data analysis to understand where bullying happens in our community?

In literature study, students might explore how authors have explored the inner lives of bullies or portrayed upstanders who have spoken up for victims. Using Literature to Promote Cultural Competence: A Bullying Prevention Companion Bibliography is an annotated bibliography by Nancy L. Mullin that includes extensive suggestions for K-12 readers, as well as resources for adults looking for guidance on how to navigate difficult issues relating to bullying and intolerance. Sample driving question: How can we tell the stories of courageous upstanders in our community?

Projects that emphasize creative expression might have students make art, poetry, songs, or films that map the emotional terrain of this subject matter. Sample driving question: How can we use our creativity to help audiences imagine a world without bullying?

Social studies projects might compare today's anti-bullying campaigns with other social change movements in history. Sample driving question: How can we use our social media smarts to launch an effective movement against cyberbullying?

Challenging conversations are likely to arise when the subject is bullying. The BULLY Project has teamed with Facing History and Ourselves to produce a discussion guide for the film. More resources for educators are available from The Bully Project.

How have your students taken a stand against bullying? Please share your project ideas in the comments section below.

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Leverage Inquiry Projects to Combat Bullying

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That's just what English teacher Rebecca Grodner did with her students at Quest to Learn in New York. When a student was in tears after being shunned by her girlfriends, Grodner decided to tackle bullying as a class project. She challenged her eighth-grade students to "break the system" of school bullying by educating their peers.

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In this video, Mary Beth Uberti of Operation Parent describes what cyber bullying is and what parents and caregivers need to look for.

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Many parents and educators are now willing to protect our young people in cyberspace without also eliminating the platforms that allow students voices to be heard.

Bullying peaks in middle school, but students being cyberbullied are not likely to inform adults. We have known for ages that students do not want to "rat" out their peers, so:
How do we thoughtfully support the use of certain tools while protecting our students from cyberbullying?
As educators, we teach and encourage digital citizenship and many of us have a vision that one day cyberbullying will cease. In the meantime, we may want to consider a few key steps to protect our young people and ensure cybersafety:

1. Communicate with Parents:Send home (or post to your classroom website) the cybersafety material you go over with students in class. Include age limitations for creating social media sites as some parents may not even realize that their child(ren) should not yet have their own personal account(s), without parent permission. Discuss cybersafety with parents on back-to-school night, so they know where you stand on this issue from day one of school.

2. Be a Broken Record: Be ok with discussing cybersafety and reviewing your expectations for students whenever the opportunity presents itself. For me, no event is off limits. I am likely to discuss my expectations for students and cybersafety at back-to-school-night, during class, and at open house.

3. Set a Clear Structure: Social networks can be accessed from home and school, so if students will use them for class (or even for personal use) there should to be a clear structure of accountability. Possibly consider developing a plan between home and school where parents/guardians are also a part of this process.

4. Mock-it, Don't Block it: If an incident arises, deal with is on a case-by-case basis. Try your best to refrain from blocking the use or access to a tool for everyone, because of one mistake. I prefer to approach the hiccups as teachable moments. Depending on the sensitivity of the issue, I may talk to students privately or address the entire class. In either csae, I walk students through a mock cyber scenario in which we play out the positive responses to ficticious (no-name given) events that occur in cyberspace.

Ideally all bullying would cease with awareness and a thoughtful approach to developing digital citizenship or cybersafety classes - ok, maybe this is more than optimistic. As students grow older, they spend more time using digital devices and online networks. The use of these tools opens lines of communication globally, so now is the time more than ever to support our students. It is not only educators and parents who are concerned about cyberbullying, students desire a safe environment as well. Social media has given students a new platform and environment for communication. So, perhaps a better questions is:

How do we best protect our students without silencing their efforts to use their voice as a form of advocacy or in global collaborations?

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Many parents and educators are now willing to protect our young people in cyberspace without also eliminating the platforms that allow students voices to be heard. Bullying peaks in middle school, but students being cyberbullied are not likely to inform adults.

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Social and Emotional Learning

Editor's Note: Although Kevin Curwick graduated from Osseo Senior High, the Twitter project he started continues to be a source of inspiration from current students. In this post, written when Curwick was a senior, he highlights why he started sending positive tweets to fellow classmates. (Updated 11/2013)

Photo credit: homini via flickr (CC BY 2.0)

As simple as any introduction, my name is Kevin Curwick, and I am currently a senior at Osseo Senior High in Osseo, Minnesota -- a suburb of the Twin Cities. I have always been involved in my school and, just like many students, I strive to make a difference. I have recently been able to achieve a significant change that has already produced encouraging results.

Maintaining school spirit and a tradition of unity are at the top of every student's priorities at Osseo, and we protect these things at all costs. However, this past summer, Osseo's true social environment was challenged by multiple anonymous Twitter accounts created to destroy students' reputations and demoralize them on a daily basis. I felt that these accounts disrespected the positive spirit that defines Osseo, and I decided to combat this with a unique approach. Instead of fighting the bullying with verbal negativity and providing these faceless bullies with more attention, I decided to use what I saw at Osseo every day: positivity. I established my own anonymous Twitter account, @OsseoNiceThings, to highlight the positive side of the students who were being bullied.

Within a few weeks of starting my Twitter account and trying to get fellow students to follow and retweet my anonymous tweets, I received a direct message from someone who identified himself as a reporter for a local news station. He indicated that he was investigating the emergence of the anonymous Twitter accounts that were sending out nasty, hateful comments about high school students in the Twin Cities area when he came across my account. After I explained my motives, he asked if I would be willing to be interviewed on camera the following day. I told him that I really wanted to remain anonymous because I felt my efforts might work better that way, and I was a bit afraid of how my peers would react to what I was doing. He convinced me to come forward by explaining that he was already finding similar accounts cropping up in other nearby communities, and many indicated they had been inspired by the @OsseoNiceThings account.

I was interviewed during football practice the following day, which also happened to be the day I was named one of the team's captains. The story ran on the 6 o'clock news and then again at 10 PM and the following morning. Of course, the day after the story ran, I had the opportunity to enjoy a bit of celebrity, but I expected things to get back to normal after that. As it turned out, the story was picked up by the Huffington Post and USA Today, and it remained on the local news station's website as one of their most popular stories. I had four more interviews the next day, including one by Ryan Seacrest for his national radio program. The story quickly became one of the top 100 stories linked to on the Huffington Post, and the local news station came back for a follow-up interview on how this whole thing suddenly went viral on the Internet. My account was mentioned by Selena Gomez and SI Swimsuit model Brooklyn Decker on their Twitter accounts, and the hashtags #NiceThings and #NiceItForward began to trend worldwide on Twitter. I started receiving calls to appear on the NBC Today Show, CNN and even a few calls from producers of the Ellen Show. My Twitter followers went from around 120 to well over 4,000. I've received tweets about @OsseoNiceThings from places such as Greece, Australia, Argentina, Croatia and many more. One of the more encouraging responses has been through the continuation of "Nice Things" on Twitter. There are now over 50 "Nice" accounts on Twitter, and that number is growing every week. From junior highs to high schools to colleges, these accounts have been effective in spreading the positivity.

Fortunately, @OsseoNiceThings became an outlet for others to value the importance of being positive not just online, but also at school. I have noticed that people are becoming more positive towards one another in person. This trend is evident in the student activity I see on the @OsseoNiceThings account. Originally, I was the only one composing the compliments, but eventually I would get up to five direct messages a day requesting a post about anyone from one of their best friends to a complete stranger. For instance, one tweet states, "He may have a small body, but the man's got a huge heart. You can always find the guy making someone's day better. Charlie Pundzus." This post was sent in by a senior who had noticed a junior making a difference in people's days. Another tweet praised a student's love for Harry Potter, and another for being a great brother. However simple, being kind and positive is a goal we should strive to attain in our daily lives. @OsseoNiceThings and its response provide evidence as to how a simple effort can make a significant impact.

I recently saw this tweet to @OsseoNiceThings from another "nice" account: "Being nice is actually fun!" Well, I am proud to say that, more than just being fun, being nice at Osseo Senior High has become a popular attitude.

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Social and Emotional Learning Editor's Note: Although Kevin Curwick graduated from Osseo Senior High, the Twitter project he started continues to be a source of inspiration from current students. In this post, written when Curwick was a senior, he highlights why he started sending positive tweets to fellow classmates.

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Social and Emotional Learning

Photo credit: Sara Björk via flickr (CC BY 2.0)

Sadly, it seems that terrible tragedy needs to keep striking in order for bullying to retain its status as worthy of serious efforts to eliminate it. The latest incident involves 12-year-old Rebecca Sedwick's leap to her death in response to persistent cyber-bullying, and the subsequent arrest of two juvenile female honor students. While all this attention spotlights the serious consequences of this stubborn issue, schools and parents must be equally persistent in providing constant reminders of the dangerous and damaging impact caused by hurtful words, threats and actions when horrors like this aren't center stage.

A Horrifying Confession

One of my best childhood friends, now 63 years old, recently sent me the following letter:

My story begins when I was around 14 years old. My sister had a friend who she had a falling out with, so [the friend] told her three brothers that I made some anti-Christian comments, and they tracked me down one afternoon and beat me senseless. My parents knew their parents who were also longtime locals and tried to have amends made between us with a meeting in my grandmother's house. They had us all shake hands. The next day they surrounded me at the local hangout and hurled insults. My next several years were spent hiding when I saw them coming or staying inside when I could. There were several more incidents of verbal and physical torment which led to bed-wetting, nervous tics and stuttering. My dad found a rope with a noose in the basement and he saved me at that point, as I was this close to a drastic measure. But it was an omen for my adult plans. With my newfound adult affluence, I hired a private detective who located all three brothers and the sister. My plan was simple -- to have them killed with me present, and I had the doer all lined up. But when my mother got cancer and I visited her one day, she actually sensed the darkness in me and we talked, and I told her all about it. Thankfully, I didn't kill myself or them. But to this day, that entire episode haunts me.

As you might expect, I was blown away to read of this incident and its long-term scarring of a childhood friend. It haunts me to think that there must have been many days we were hanging out while he silently lived with this terror. People like my friend need to be encouraged to tell their stories to the kids in our classrooms. We need to keep the issue front and center so that all can be sensitized to the long-term pain of taunts, threats and trauma -- before the next Rebecca Sedwick takes her life.

Anti-Bullying Initiatives

Vigilance on the part of parents and educators can help, but that alone cannot defeat bullying. The main solution lies with kids, not adults. They need to be empowered to take action. I just wonder if Rebecca's outcome would have been entirely different if her friends, acquaintances or even just kids with decent hearts who'd read these negative online comments had stepped forward to counter them with positive comments about her. Did anyone express online outrage at the verbal brutality? How many might have wanted to but were themselves afraid of peer ostracism if they did?

I have observed three school-wide anti-bullying initiatives with staying power that emphasize what students can do to tackle this nasty problem.

1. Schoolwide Themes

In collaboration with students, identify anti-bullying themes and then create daily, weekly and/or monthly activities to support these themes. Examples include "performing acts of kindness," "making our school cool for all" and "what to do if you see someone being bullied online." If the latter theme had been identified and supported at Rebecca's school, perhaps an online bystander could have felt encouraged to contact at least six of their online friends so that all could simultaneously counter the horrible comments with a show of support.

2. Support Groups

Encourage students to create anti-bullying support groups. Paradise Williams, a 17-year-old in Rochester, New York was hospitalized following a suicide attempt. She had been bullied about her weight for years and talked to nobody about it, instead hiding her pain until it overwhelmed her. Following her hospital stay, she made a video about bullying with flash cards and posted it on YouTube. Fellow students started approaching her in the halls with hugs instead of put-downs as they relayed their own stories of being bullied. Realizing the need, Paradise formed a support group at her high school where fellow students talk about issues bothering them. Most members come by word of mouth while others are referred by teachers or guidance counselors. It is likely that most schools can successfully emulate Paradise's idea. All it takes is adult guidance in collaboration with an organized student group, like student council, to get things started.

3. Curriculum

Make anti-bullying part of the curriculum. Defeating bullying will take relentless effort. It takes a daily commitment. It must become a standard part of every school curriculum, visited as regularly as reading and math. Some subjects can more easily integrate content with the topic of bullying. Many of the darkest hours in American history are rooted in bullying. Virtually every ethnic group that settled in America has encountered it. Religious intolerance was a primary factor in colonizing America. Native Americans were forced to leave their homelands by a government more powerful than theirs. African-Americans were at the bottom of the hierarchy, as they could legally be enslaved even to Native Americans. Books such as Robert Lipsyte's One Fat Summer, Ziata Filipovic's Zlata's Diary and Marcella Pixley's Freak are but a few of many literary possibilities. One need only do an Internet search for "novels on bullying" to find texts that integrate well with the issue.

Please add your own ideas and approaches in the comments section below.

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Social and Emotional Learning Photo credit: Sara Björk via flickr (CC BY 2.0) Sadly, it seems that terrible tragedy needs to keep striking in order for bullying to retain its status as worthy of serious efforts to eliminate it.

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Preventing bullying is just as likely as preventing poverty, racism, or violence.

If we can start by considering bullying from this level of humility, we may be able to improve our efficiency in dealing with and responding to it as a problem.

Of course, there is no "it." Bullying is an output and a symptom -- the result of a variety of factors that manifest themselves well beyond the school. Celebration of aggressiveness and violence, pack mentalities, peer pressure, lack of empathy, violence at home, insecurity, social media, a lack of positive role models, and scores of other factors all combine to produce the ugliness that is bullying.

Cyberbullying

Technology has a way of amplifying our best and worst characteristics as people, and that is true with bullying -- or cyberbullying -- as well. Cyberbullying is just a digital layer added to what's gone on for years in schools, on playgrounds, in workplaces, and even with professional athletes. In fact, there is now impressive nuance available when bullying through technology.

For one, there is the visibility and scale of it all. Make one comment on an Instagram thread, and every single person afterward sees that comment, as well as any reply. It's the same with Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter if you dig a little. The snide comment in the hallway that was only heard by four of five people has been replaced by the snarky subtweet that has everybody taking screenshots.

Which brings us to the relative permanence of digital fare. Once it's emailed, posted, liked, tagged, texted, or otherwise flung out into the digital ether, it's "loose," gone, no longer under the sender's control. Social media is designed to make people seen and heard, which means that it captures -- and amplifies -- everything. In fact, apps like Snapchat are built around this very idea of permanence vs. impermanence as some kind of escape from accountability.

The New-Bullying: Passive-Aggressive Social Media Behavior

And then there's the nuance I mentioned, starting with passive-aggressive behavior that so many social media platforms seem designed for. The aforementioned subtweets, sliding in and out of people's "mentions" on Twitter, tagging (and more acutely, failing to tag people that very well should have been tagged), failing to respond to tags in a timely fashion, following and unfollowing, friending and defriending, all create an ecology that breeds bullying. Which brings up an interesting point: What does it mean to bully?

And more broadly, what kind of response makes sense to get closer to the roots of the problem?

Anti-Bullying Education

Education about bullying should probably be a big part of that response, largely built around a clear, modern definition for bullying and all of its degrees. Stopbullying.gov defines bullying as:

[U]nwanted, aggressive behavior among school-aged children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. The behavior is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time.

That's not a very kid-friendly definition, so kid-friendliness would be a good start -- a definition for bullying that the people who have trouble understanding it can use. "Being mean to people that can't or won't defend themselves" may be too flimsy-sounding, but it's clear.

Maybe we could offer some compelling and authentic examples, including passive-aggressive bullying? The iconic bully takes lunch money, grabbing pint-sized kids by their ankles, turning them upside down, and shaking out their change. Certainly this still happens, and it would be a stretch to say "21st-century bullying" is always digital. But updating how we define bullying, what it looks like, where it happens, and some basic strategies for response may be a good first step.

If nothing else, it might be helpful to somewhat "normalize" being bullied -- not to make it acceptable, but to remove the stigma from it. Everyone, at some point, has been bullied. There is no reason for shame -- only transparency.

Bullying Transparency

Which brings us to our key takeaway here -- transparency. We can't prevent bullying, but we can make it crystal clear that bullying:

1. Happens to everyone

2. Has varying degrees, behaviors, and host environments

3. Is not OK

4. Is correctable

5. Takes a village to correct.

Highlighting the behaviors instead of demonizing the bullies themselves could be one strategy. While there is some kind of justice in calling out and ridiculing bullies, that's a lot like spanking kids for hitting, or sending lifelong criminals back to jail. Your reaction to any of this is a matter of personal philosophy and politics, but the big idea is to address the ecology that produces the problem, rather than playing whack-a-mole every time it surfaces.

No, it's not easy, but neither is spending two hours every morning responding to the previous evening's middle school Facebook blow-up.

Setting a New Tone

Educators have taken many approaches to solving the problem of bullying, whether making it "uncool" to bully, meting out scary punishments, or teaching tolerance. Tolerance is certainly part of the issue, but even that starts with highlighting differences between people and suggesting that one "tolerate" the other.

There is no solving the issues, but there can be improved transparency, and a new tone for how we respond -- educating in kid-friendly and authentic language, using real-world examples with updated definitions, all in pursuit of total transparency for a growing problem.

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Transparency: Bullying Redefined and Identified

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Preventing bullying is just as likely as preventing poverty, racism, or violence. If we can start by considering bullying from this level of humility, we may be able to improve our efficiency in dealing with and responding to it as a problem. Of course, there is no "it."

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"We are concerned that too much work in this field has focused on adults telling youth what bullying is and what to do to address bullying behavior. In reality, youth are the primary experts on what is happening at school and on what works best to prevent peer maltreatment....We see authentic youth involvement as key to success in bullying prevention."

Lessons learned from surveying the students can be summarized in the following don'ts and dos:

Don'ts:

#1: Don't try to help youth differentiate between "tattling" and "telling." They key is to have trusting relationships between adults and youth and that means expressing their concerns about what their peers are doing.

#2: Don't imply that a mistreated youth "has it coming" to him or her. No one "deserves" to be bullied or harassed, regardless of their provocations.

#3: Don't overuse the term, "bullying." There are many peer misbehaviors that may not conform to the formal definition of bullying but still have no place in schools. Actions that harm, or potentially harm, others should be the targets, not finding the "bullies."

Dos:

#1: Work collaborative with students to build clear definitions of respectful behavior and respond promptly and consistently, with care and concern, when respectful behavior is not shown.

#2: Encourage youth to reflect on their own behavior and how it relates to their personal aspirations and the school's code of conduct or core values. Students perceive this as showing them considerable trust.

#3: Place a high priority on activities that connect students with one another and school staff, including adviser-advisee times, advisory periods and class meetings, cross-age, interest-based activities in and after school, and meaningful service projects.

#4: Adults must communicate "unconditional positive regard to all students" (p. 142) without exception or hesitation. Students must believe that the adults in the school believe in them and their potential to achieve in the classroom and in life.

#5: All students should be taught "the cognitive skills of social problem solving so they can try different solutions instead of giving up when they experience failure" (p. 142). These skills have the potential to support alternatives to bullying, considering consequences before cyberbullying, determining how to be an upstander, and how to respond with determination if one is victimized or threatened. Social problem solving skills also help youth to evaluate what is said about them and better equip them to "choose how they feel about themselves" (p. 143).

#6: Youth want to see adults respond proactively (i.e., actively discourage hurtful speech and actions), promptly when an incident is reported, and to follow up afterwards. They want to see enduring caring.

Even if the Glass is Half Full, It Needs Filling Up

Looking at general trends across a large number of youth leads to three observations that must be viewed with great caution:

First, the data at times are not "so bad." Fifty-five percent of students who are mistreated because of sexual orientation feel that adults listen to them; 42 percent of the time, they maintain ongoing supervision for a meaningful period of time -- more than happens for other kinds of mistreatment (37 percent). There are many finding like this and one can be tempted to think things are not as dire as one might have predicted. However, why the figures are not 90 percent or more is the real question. Every child deserves to be heard and supported after an incident, whether for reasons of sexual orientation, physical disability, special education status, etc.

Second, students receiving special education services are mistreated by peers more often than their peers and feel noticeably more supported by adults (though not by peers) than other students who are mistreated. While this seems like good news, it is very likely a consequence of social exclusion. These students tend to have a narrower range of contacts with adults than most other student groups, but do feel supported by those adults they do see. On the other hand, their school day will often bring them into contact with a wide range of peers, often without inclusive supports, and those contacts tend to be unsupportive.

Third, general trends mean little in the context of specific schools. Each school must gather and analyze data on incidents of mistreatment and victimization, and tap student voice and involvement and student and staff perception of climate, using anonymous surveys that allow for disaggregation of data while protecting confidentiality. Many schools would find the surveys in Youth Voice to be helpful, at least as starting points for gathering information.

Next Steps

The action implications of these findings, as well as some of the dos noted earlier, are to promote a genuine and broad sense of inclusiveness by educating for true understanding of diversity, especially as manifest in one's own school, to ensure that school codes of conduct and core values are integrated into everyday routines, including opportunities for student reflection and feedback on student report cards (versus being relegated to statements in handbooks or on web sites), and to require that all students are given systematic training in social problem solving or related social-emotional skills and encouraged specifically to use those skills in finding alternatives to mistreating others, seeking help effectively, and upstanding in the presence of injustice and inequity.

What are your thoughts and ideas about this post? Please share in the comments section below.

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Bullying Prevention: Students Share Dos and Don'ts

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"We are concerned that too much work in this field has focused on adults telling youth what bullying is and what to do to address bullying behavior. In reality, youth are the primary experts on what is happening at school and on what works best to prevent peer maltreatment....We see authentic youth involvement as key to success in bullying prevention."

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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Cyber-bullying is an electronic form of bullying that follows students wherever they go. Students who are victims of cyber-bullying take the harassment home with them, which is extremely detrimental on their mental health. Cyber-bullying allows more people to see the victims harassment, since it is can physically be posted on social media for everyone to see. This makes it easier for other students to join in on the bullying, especially since they can hide behind a screen. It is important for students to not be bystanders, and speak up against the bully when they see cyber-bullying taking place. Likewise, the student can notify a teacher or an adult they trust to handle the issue. The victims of cyber-bullying often feel alone and isolated, so it is vital that schools offer support groups and other resources for those victims to feel safe and share how they are feeling.

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What are the statistics of cyber bullying happening to a student?

In High Schools and Middle Schools 87% of students have witnessed cyber-bullying.

34% have personally experienced cyber-bullying.

15% admit to cyber-bullying someone themselves.

And 24% do not know what to do if they are being harassed online.

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DON'T
-make the student feel bad for telling you what is going on
-turn your student away
-turn the bully into the victim
-over use the term "bullying"
-Insinuate that the student "had it coming"
-undermine the situation

DO
-help your student in any way you can
-make yourself available to all your students
-work with each student and find the root of the problem
-respond appropriately to the situation
-make it known that there is a zero tolerance for bullying and cyber-bullying
-Find out where the bullying is happening from (online wise).