Cyber Bullying (Article)

"She Used to Be Pretty": Schoolyard Harassment Goes Online

http://www.edutopia.org/cyberbullying

Summary: This article is about a middle school teacher running a cyber bullying workshop with middle school girls. She talks about how students that are online and hide behind a screen name feel "invisible and untouchable" and have zero empathy. She starts the article by saying that a girl that was a little bigger for her age approached her after the workshop and asked her to help shut down her "MySpace" page. When the teacher looked at the page she found out that one of the girl's ex-friend had stolen her password and posted malicious comments on the girl's page. When the teacher asked if the girl's mother knew about this the girl said, "No, I have just been trying to live with it." The teacher asked if any of the girls knew what the word empathy meant and not one girl raised her hand. To show what the meaning was, and to display that none of the girls had any, she put up a picture of Brittany Spears right after she shaved her head and had dark circles under her eyes. She then asked all of them to write down on a piece of paper what they thought about the picture as if they were talking to a friend on an IM. The comments were malicious and mean saying, "she is so ugly now," "OMG she is on drugs...lol," "she looks like a naked mole rat." By the end of the workshop, it seemed as though the teacher got through as the students used the last few minutes of the workshop deleting nasty comment on their social networking pages.

Assess: This information is written by a teacher that states, "As someone who has worked with hundreds of middle school girls over the years, I am no longer surprised by the brutal cruelty and malicious creativity kids can display when they possess sophisticated tech skills -- and zero empathy." She clearly has been dealing with these types of issues for some time and has trained herself on how to prevent it and recognize when it is going on. This is an ongoing battle to keep each student aware of the effects this has on the student being bullied. This woman is not an "expert" in cyber bullying, but she has been around it enough to credibly write what it is, how to notice it, and how to prevent it.

Reflection: I liked reading this article as it made me think about how I can contribute to putting a stop to cyber bullying. It is very sad to step back and think about what it must feel like for a student that just wants to fit in to be bullied and harassed. The main thing I took from this is the fact that the girl felt like she couldn't tell her mother and that she would just have to live with this problem. We need to make it a socially acceptable topic to be brought up to teachers and parents so that students do not continue to hold in this hurt and pain other students are causing them.