I am in the process of designing a training approach to help schools address the issue of bullying and cyber-bullying and I'm trying to gather as many good resources as possible. If anyone would like to share ideas, I am all ears!
Thanks in advance!
There are a couple of videos that we (our school) found to use with middle school grades. One called "Reality Matters: Cruel Schools: Bullying And Violence" (24:52) is on the United Streaming site. The other one is on NetSmartz.org at http://www.netsmartz.org/resources/reallife.htm. The Real Life Story "You Can't Take It Back" has an activity sheet that can be used with the video. Short and to the point.
Hi Kevin. My wife was looking for a good Internet/teen/cyberbully story for a class project in her high school. I found this great true story on Wired. It may be helpful.
Permalink Reply by Ann on September 5, 2007 at 5:05pm
I have been taking the online training (free) at iSafe. Sign up and then use the Education Resources - i-Learn Online. They have several topics including Personal Safety, CyberCommunity Issues (cybersafety), CyberSecurity, and Intellectual Property. They have nice materials to use with students. There is also a parent section. I found the teacher training very informative and useful.
Ann
One of our school computer teachers did this program. She ran safety lessons with the kids from videos provided by the site--and those videos had a powerful effect. There was a lot of discussion that carried over to homeroom class.
(I have to add an ironic comment: I was so impressed with the material our computer teacher showed me that I signed up. In short order the company sent me an acknowledgment of my registration--an email containing my user name AND password! Shouldn't they have known better? Oh well-in general the educational materials I've seen have been good.)
Guys - I will keep you posted on this event in the uk:
Thursday 22nd November 2007
The Royal Oak Suite, Emirates Stadium (North Entrance), North London
The conference website is livegroup.co.uk/childnet
I am currently writing up my thesis on cyberbullying among girls in grades 7-10 in Saskatchewan schools. Through my research I have read a lot of stuff on bullying and cyberbullying--popular media, scholarly journals, books on bully prevention, etc. Most of this literature is focused around bullying being a problem of individuals and the solutions seem to resolve around the idea of identifying who the bullies and cyberbullies might be, teaching them empathy and social skills and this will make our schools safer for all. However, after reading an article by Gerald Walton (2005) called "The Notion of Bullying Through the Lens of Foucault and Critical Theory" and taking a fresh look at my research, I have come to believe that all of our problems will bullying and cyberbullying stem from socially constructed systems of power that privilege some students and marginalize others. In my study, it was evident that students were bullied along lines of race, gender, and social orientation. I think that our teaching pedogogy needs to start addressing these issues. I would highly recommend reading Kevin Kumashiro's book called Against Common Sense: Teaching and Learning Toward Social Justice This book does not speak directly to bullying, but it does talk about how we can start to address injustice in our classrooms.
I realize that this is probably not what you were looking for. I, too, have given presentations to teachers and students about the prevention of cyberbullying, but very recently I have come to think that if these discussions about power and privilege don't take place in our classrooms, the bullying will persist.
I would be very interested to hear what others have to say about this as I am drafting my thesis as we speak and have just begun to piece things together to come to this understanding about bullying and cyberbullying.
To this I would add the value of using 'design solutions' in online protocols.
Your thesis sound intriguing - I look forward to reading your book when your thesis is published!
Colleagues
I am only sorry that I cannot have you educators in Liverpool for a Roundtable. Should any of you venture across the Pond - do not hesitate to get in touch: jsaviri@liverpool.ac.uk
Thank you for your generosity in sharing the efforts of your work.