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Yesterday in Ypulse Essentials, I cited a lengthy feature that ran in the New York Times’ Style section, reg. required, on middle schools, cyberbullying and the difficult question of how, if at all, educators can step in to resolve abusive situations that start online or via text message. From the article:

Often, school district discipline codes say little about educators’ authority over student cellphones, home computers and off-campus speech. Reluctant to assert an authority they are not sure they have, educators can appear indifferent to parents frantic with worry, alarmed by recent adolescent suicides linked to bullying.

Whether resolving such conflicts should be the responsibility of the family, the police or the schools remains an open question, evolving along with definitions of cyberbullying itself.

I feel for both parents and educators struggling to protect youth and prevent tragic episodes like the bullying-induced suicide of Phoebe Price, but, as with the earlier Times’ piece on friendship that Casey posted on (see my thoughts in comments), I can’t help but feel this top-down discipline-heavy approach to regulation somewhat misses the mark. It’s not surprising that teen offenders and victims alike are unwilling to cooperate with school “cyberdetectives” when consequences range from sitting through a lecture to possibly having your phone confiscated/Facebook page taken down to even getting the police involved. Not to mention the possibility of inadvertently fueling an even more intense attack online later. It made me think back to all we’ve heard about teens wanting more control with privacy and digital reputations, and how students could be empowered to play a more active role in resolving these conflicts themselves.

After all, no matter how many rules a school a creates, or how strictly they’re enforced, to have a real impact on behavior, teens need to internalize the weight of these digital decisions. A great way to do that, as we’ve seen with efforts outside of the classroom, is by engaging young adults in a dialogue that not only informs but shapes the educational resources and mediation tools available for managing digital drama (whether that means a change in privacy settings or identifying the need for outside help).

There’s a valuable opportunity here for collaboration between educators looking for a tangible understanding of the realities of digital drama, and those students willing to advise and advocate for better digital citizenship (or whatever teens would choose to call the movement). I see young activist types like our own Youth Advisory Board member Amanda Aziz or the posse of eighth grade “cybersages” mentioned in the Times piece as natural leaders.  The idea would be to adopt the approach that Anne Collier of ConnectSafely.org advised for online teen communities and create a “Guild Effect,” where young adults have a stake in creating and maintaining a safe, happy school environment both on-campus and off. Not to say we’d see an instant harmonious transformation  — it is still the tricky developmental terrain of middle school, after all — but this could lead to more self-regulation and self-awareness in tweens and teens alike… and less need for administrators to run themselves ragged “getting ahead of the curve.”

With the growing number of resources, games and smart initiatives out there that address these issues, teachers already have a considerable stable of existing materials at their disposal. These could easily be adapted and customized by an youth advisory board to fit the needs and problem areas (like Formspring.me) most prevalent on a particular campus. One example would be taking a cue from MTV’s A Thin Line campaign and crowdsourcing a digital “Bill of Rights” authored by and for the student body.

The bottom line is to move away from the current fear-based system that draws lines between authority figures and teens and victims and bullies (similarly imprecise terminology to “cyberbullying”, according to recent research) and shift towards a more sustainable model that empowers teens and school officials alike to not only effectively resolve conflicts earlier on, but cultivate a healthier, more open intergenerational discussion around these issues.

Related
Study has good news about kids’ online behavior [Larry Magid's thoughtful analysis of the McAffee study conducted by Harris Interactive, with a particularly interesting tale on the recent decrease in cyberbullying]

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Categorized under: Web

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