Ep 117 // Digital Citizenship: Starting the Conversation about Cyberbullying
Inside This Week’s Episode: — Cyberbullying is a beast all on its own. It’s easier to control bullying when it's within the walls of the school - but once bullying is taken online - schools have less control. This makes it all the more important to help students know how to identify when they see or experience cyberbullying, and how to respond.
Links & Resources Mentioned in the Episode
EPISODE 102: Digital Citizenship: Making Healthy Media Choices and Finding Balance
EPISODE 106: Digital Citizenship (Helping Elementary Students Understand Privacy & Security Online)
EPISODE 112: Digital Citizenship: Teaching Students About the Digital Footprint They Leave Behind
Let’s talk about Cyberbullying
Over the past couple of months I’ve been peppering in conversations about digital citizenship. Every few weeks or so, I’ve focused on different aspects of digital citizenship. We’ve discussed helping our students understand the concept of media balance, how to teach them about privacy and security online, and how to be mindful of the digital footprint that they are leave behind.
These are all great topics of digital citizenship to weave into our every day conversations as students are interactive online and on digital devices.
But today, I’m going to talk about the one element of digital citizenship that keeps me up at night: cyberbullying.
I have two young kids myself, and I worry about what online life is going to be like when they reach the age of being on social media and interacting online. It’s already a scary place out there online, especially for young, vulnerable kids.
So, that’s why we can’t leave the conversation of “cyberbullying” up to anyone else. This topic might be one of the most important digital citizenship concepts that we teach students. And in this podcast episode, I want to explore how teachers can help be part of conversation.
Defining Cyberbullying for Elementary-Age Kids
It’s likely that your students are familiar with the term bullying. I actually think that schools have really started to take a stand against bullying. It’s not a perfect process, but at least in my own experiences, I see evidence of schools making it a priority to stop bullying and to make it part of their school values.
But - cyberbullying is a beast all on its own. It’s easier to control bullying when it's within the walls of the school. But, once bullying is taken online - schools have less control. And, like we talked about in our conversation on digital footprints, once something is out there online, it becomes nearly impossible to erase the tracks… and the damage… of our actions.
Cyberbullying might be a term that you’ll need to explicitly teach students, especially for younger kids who are just getting started with online interactions. We can first have students share what their understanding of bullying is and give some examples. Then, you can introduce the term cyber and let students know that when you use the word cyber, you’re referring to anything online. So, cyberbullying is bullying that happens online.
Talk about what that might look like. Without giving too much probing, it will be interesting to see what students already understand when it comes to cyberbullying. By simply asking: What do you think cyberbullying looks like? will give you insight to what students may have already experienced themselves, or witnessed others experiencing.
The Power of Our Words
At it’s core, cyberbullying is all about our words - more specifically - the POWER of our words.
Here’s a quick exercise you can do with students to help them see the power of words in action:
Use a simple phrase like: How are you doing? to illustrate the power of words. Write this phrase where students can see. Read this phrase in multiple ways. For example you might read it with a warm, inviting tone, or a concerned tone, or even a mockery tone.
Each time the phrase is read - ask students how it would make them feel.
Now, ask them to just read the words to themselves. How does just seeing the words in text make them feel? How do they interpret it just from the text alone?
Point out that when we just see words in text, it becomes difficult to interpret what it means, or the intention behind the words. We might all interpret it differently because we all bring with us different experiences.
Now, of course, How are you? is a simple phrase, but shift the conversation to other things that could be written and shared online — words that carry a heavier weight, words that may refer to someone else.
We might say something to just be funny, but someone else may take it another way and be hurt by those words. When we aren't face to face, the meaning of our words gets harder to interpret.
This is the power of our words.
The “THINK” acronym works perfectly when it comes to thinking about cyberbullying.
THINK stands for:
T- Is it True
H - Is it Helpful
I - Is it Inspiring
N- Is it Necessary
K - Is it Kind
This is a great place to start when helping students to choose their words wisely. And - it would be a great acronym to have posted somewhere in your classroom.
It is also important to take it one step forward and teach the concept of empathy and teach students to imagine the feelings of other before acting, specifically online.
How would the comment that they are about to make make others feel? (Is it true, is it helpful, is it inspiring, necessary, or kind?)
Teaching students how to respond to Cyberbullying
Just as important as it is to teach kids to be mindful of the power of their words - it’s equally as important to teach students how to respond when they experience or witness cyberbullying themselves.
We can teach students that first and foremost, they should tell a trusted adult about their experience. But, we also want to teach them the importance of being an upstander by supporting the person being bullied and defending them. The more power we give to a person being bullied, the less power the bully has.
You might even consider making a chart with students outlining several scenarios of cyberbullying (maybe even authentic experiences that your class has experienced or witnessed). On the chart list ways that kids could respond if they were the ones being bullied vs. how they would respond as an upstander supporting the person being bullied.
The thing is, we need to give students concrete examples of how to respond in cyberbullying situations. We need to explicitly teach them what to say and what to do. We need to teach them what cyberbullying looks like (in their terms, in real situations that they might encounter) so that they know how to recognize cyberbullying and know what to do in response.
Keep the conversation on Cyberbullying Going
Make cyberbullying a continuous conversation in your classroom in whatever developmentally appropriate way you can. When something arises that constitutes as cyberbullying - talk about, discuss it, brainstorm ways to respond.
Call it out. When you overhear something students are saying that falls under the category of cyberbullying, call it out. The line between just trying to be funny and actual cyberbullying is not a clear line for many students. The more examples that have, the better they will be at identifying it.
If appropriate, use real stories that students might be hearing about in the school, and even on the news. Authenticity is what is really going to make the difference here. When students can apply what they are learning to real-life situations, it is a much more powerful learning experience.
I encourage you to reflect on how you can weave these conversations into your classroom.
Take the lead from your students and listen to their conversations. Be open and honest with students and always come from a place of love to help students understand their role in combating cyberbullying.
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