"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me."--Children's chant
"Not true."--Andrew Bathke, assistant principal, Rodney Thompson Middle School
At a parents' workshop at Rodney Thompson Middle School last week on cyber- bullying and Internet safety, moderator Andrew Bathke, the school's assistant principal, was asked, "Why here? Why now?"
"Middle school is where and when it all begins," he replied. "This is the age when kids begin to seriously socialize, when the cliques form. You and I used to just pass notes in class. Now these students have the technology to text message across the room, or practically anywhere."
The problem with computer technology, Bathke added, "is that there is no moderating adult influence. We used to communicate directly with our peers in the school hallway, usually with a teacher standing nearby. Now it's easier to get away with saying hurtful things over a computer, things we would never say face-to-face."
It becomes cyberbullying, said Bathke, when a person intentionally hurts someone emotionally through the Internet. "A parent called me the other day," he said, "and told me her child had received an Internet message that made her afraid to climb on the school bus the next morning."
The sometimes tragic result of such activity is called bullycide. The term was created by the authors of a book on the subject that was published in January 2001, a month after the suicide of an 18-year-old Oklahoma student, Brandon Swartwood. He shot himself after years of being bullied and beaten by a classmate.
When Brandon complained to an unsympathetic principal, the bully falsely accused Brandon of making a bomb threat at the school. Even though he was exonerated, Brandon felt stained and finally put a gun to his head. The documented suicides of at least 15 other bullied students can also be read on the Web. Of the 16 total, nine were boys, seven were girls.
"In the world of computers," Bathke said, "there are what are called 'immigrants' and 'natives.' You and I," he told the parents, "are usually immigrants. Our children are natives of the computer world. We must learn our way around in it to help them avoid its dangers."
Terri Cox, an eighth-grade teacher and student counselor at Thompson, said that "with the availability of technology we feel it is necessary to increase parents' awareness of the seriousness of this." When you can readily send messages and even pictures of any kind on just a cell phone, "problems fester and grow."
Dave MacDougal, computer technician for Stafford County schools, demonstrated for the parents how a young person can create his or her own site without their parents' knowing. He also explained how easy it is for someone else to get into that site and ruin or change its content, often to the detriment of the site's creator.
"One kid set up her MySpace account and started out with the couple of hits the first day. In a month she was getting 2,000 hits and by the end of a year had 250,000, when her parents found out. They pulled the plug on it. MySpace is an outstanding idea," MacDougal said, "that took a wrong turn somewhere."
Such activity often becomes illegal, 1st Sgt. Nancy Morin of the county Sheriff's Office reminded the parents. Morin is in charge of the special deputies who are posted individually to Stafford schools.
"When someone writes down harmful information, it becomes a crime," she said. "Harassment over the Internet is a crime. And when, for example, a threat is written down and circulated, that is a felony." But the good thing involving computers, Morin added, "is that you can track them, you can find them."
Parents should remember, the sergeant pointed out, that children may want something like MySpace, "but they don't need it. Don't hesitate to cut it off if necessary."
Hugh Muir: 540/735-1975
Email: hmuir@freelancestar.com
|
Thompson's student counselor, Terri Cox, says that parents who sense something is wrong with their child's relationships at school should call the school and talk with the counselor.
Parents should also feel free to call 1st Sgt. Nancy Morin at the Sheriff's Office; her number Look up "cyberbullying" or "bullycide" on the Internet to learn the scope of the problem. And most important, Cox says, talk with your child. --Hugh Muir |