Digital Citizenship and Cyber Bullying

          The cyber bullying definition from the Cyberbullying Research Center website states that it is “willful and repeated harm inflicted through the use of computers, cell phones, and other electronic devices.” We are living in the social media age and cyber bullying is rampant. It is all over any platform you decide to look at, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok and Snapchat. Cyber bullying does not discriminate age, race, gender, social status, etc. People are always hiding behind their screens typing things to friends or strangers they would never have the courage to say in person. What stands out to me the most is that kindness and common decency has been forgotten and replaced with narrow-minded opinions and snap judgments of other people’s lives. Then it begs to ask, is this the future we want for our children? They are growing up witnessing this hurtful behavior, this cyber bullying.

            As a school, we are tasked with the job of teaching Digital Citizenship and Anti-Cyber bullying. Howard Gardner, a professor at Harvard University developed a unit called “Digital Life” that covers five ethical issues to assist in teaching digital citizenship. The five issues are as follows, Identity, Privacy, Ownership/Authorship, Trustworthiness and Participation in the community. These free online resources seemed like a great starting point for elementary teachers and librarians to delve into the importance of Digital Citizenship. School Counselors are usually very involved in the topic of cyber bullying and teach lessons at the school where I work. It would be wise if the librarian teamed up with them to reinforce and dive deeper into the cyber bullying issues that face young students today. Allowing students time and space to understand the ethical issues and their digital footprint is extremely important considering employers interview your Facebook page before even meeting you in today’s world. In addition, predators are grooming children and taking advantage of their naivety online. So, I think it is important as well to teach children at a fairly young age how protect themselves online.

            The “Digital Citizenship Project” founded in 2011 by a High School in Illinois pairs high school students with middle school students as mentors to explain the importance of digital citizenship. I absolutely love this idea. We have a leadership class at our local high school that has put on book drives and come in our elementary school as “Reading Buddies.” At my school, we could start in third grade pairing this group of high school students to help walk through scenarios and discuss topics surrounding cyber bullying. This way, students are learning from older students, not only teachers, and both are reaping the benefits.

            It is also imperative to have parents involved in this process as well. A study published by the Journal of Education and Training Studies surveyed parents in response to cyber bullying and they tended to “favor punishment-oriented solutions.” Most of the teachers, students and administrators surveyed felt that more education and awareness was the key to correcting cyber bullying. I feel very strongly that adults also need cyber bullying training and must be involved in hard discussions about their own representation online especially with all the divisiveness that is happening in our country currently. After the high school students work with the elementary students. We could have the younger students train their parents on Digital Citizenship and cyber bullying in an evening program event. The librarian could also line up some professionals to discuss internet safety in their homes and the new ever-changing trending lingo or apps.

            As educators and librarians, we have to arm our students with the knowledge of being a good digital citizen. Everywhere they look there are examples of cyber bullying, even by the president of our country. It is my hope that we can do right by them so that they do better than we have with empathy and kindness towards others while using electronic devices.The hurt and pain cyber bullying can cause is devastating to children. We must do better. 

Here is a resources for the Effects of Cyberbullying.