How, as a teacher, will you address issues of cyberbullying in your school?
I was surprised and a bit shocked at the amount of information there is on cyberbullying, but on the flip side there is a definite awareness of the issue and positive steps are being made to raise awareness and try to eradicate the problem. Education is the beginning and it doesn't need to only involve the students as this is a topic that could effect whole families and communities so I think a good avenue would be to invite parents to the school one night to discuss issues associated with cyberbullying and what they can be doing at home to help support the schools effort managing the problem. Role play situations are powerful teaching aids when trying to get students to see multiple perspectives of an issues. I came across a great site that has lesson plans for dealing with this issue called CyberSmart, http://www.cybersmartcurriculum.org/lesson_plans. This is just one of many I came across. I also came across another interesting site called cyberbulling.ca which offers courses to educators on how to deal with this latest epidemic sweeping the internet world. On this website they made an interesting point about the lack of such a unit in educational studies. I have to say I had not given the topic a lot of thought up until now but it made me wonder also why we are not offered some form of education when it comes to dealing with this issue as it appears to be one that is growing all the time, sad as that thought is. It is important to establish a classroom environment that is non-judgemental, safe and secure of all students and students must be made responsible for their actions and any possible consequences that may follow as a result of inappropriate behaviour.
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