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All three of the subcategories come together to educate students on cyberbullying, which has a huge impact on our students living in a digital world. Many of our students receive a phone on their 12-year-old birthday. As evidenced in the 2011 Pew study, that age group is at the start of the demographic of actively online students. Middle school is the perfect time to begin educating students on digital etiquette, communication, and digital wellness because they are being handed their first opportunity to experience the digital world alone on their personal devices.
In 2011, 88 percent of teens who are online have witnessed cruel or mean behaviors online and unfortunately, a majority of those teens report that they ignore those behaviors (Shapiro, 2014). It is likely that this lack of action in response to cyberbullying resulted in devastating tragedy. Essex describes cyberbullying as “the use of electronic devices to send or post hurtful, embarrassing text or images intended to create anxiety, intimidation, or emotional distress in another person” (2016). During 2011 and the first four months of 2012 (ten years ago), there were 18 suicides that were connected to cyberbullying (Shapiro, 2014). As a society, we must educate our teens, educators, and parents on how to correctly handle cyberbullying. Lives depend on it.
“Together, loneliness, empathy, and self-esteem predicted incidence of both cyberbullying victimisation and perpetration” (Brewer & Kerslake, p. 258). We need to start explicitly teaching empathy to students. This can be done through role-play of case studies based on real-world situations, discussions, and team-building activities. “Self-esteem was a significant individual predictor of cyberbullying victimisation, such that those with low levels of self-esteem were most likely to report victimisation” (Brewer & Kerslake, p. 258). Developing both self-esteem and empathy is highly valuable to students. “Adolescents with low levels of self-esteem and empathy were most likely to engage in cyberbullying” (Brewer & Kerslake, p. 258). We must work to raise levels of self-esteem and empathy. Social-emotional learning needs to be at the forefront of the conversation. Developing student self-esteem and identity need to be supported. We have the power to find ways to build empathy through team building, writing etiquette, and peer support groups.
We must work together to provide students with a safe digital environment to grow up in. Hinduja and Patchin encourage schools to create positive social norming and to continue learning about digital citizenship (2015). We must combat cyberbullying with our actions. We can explicitly integrate it into every lesson and model it for our students. There is no need to teach digital citizenship as a separate entity, as it will never occur as a separate topic in their lives. Students deserve to learn how to be a digital citizens in context, so let’s explicitly teach students empathy and integrate how to be a good digital citizen in our lessons.
We must create an empathetic environment, explicitly educate and integrate digital citizenship every day in the classroom.
References:
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Brewer, G., & Kerslake, J. (2015). Cyberbullying, self-esteem, empathy and loneliness. Computers in Human Behavior, 48, 255-260. Brewer_Cyberbullying_Self-esteem_Empathy_Loneliness.pdf
"Computer keyboard" by newfilm.dk is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0
Essex, N. L. (2016). School law and the public school: A practical guide for educational leaders. (6th ed.) (pp.111-114). Boston: Pearson Education, Inc. Essex_Cyberbullying.pdf
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Hinduja, S. & Patchin, J.W. (2015). Developing a positive school climate: Top ten tips to prevent bullying and cyberbullying. Cyberbullying Research Center. Hinduja_Patchin_School-Climate-Top-Ten-Tips-To-Prevent-Cyberbullying.pdf
"Lockers" by 20'cents is licensed under CC BY 2.0
Marshall, T.H. (1950). Citizenship and social class: and other essays. Cambridge, MA: University Press.
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Ohler, J. (2015, September 22). Digital Citizenship: An Opportunity for Everyone. Corwin Connect. https://corwin-connect.com/2015/09/digital-citizenship-an-opportunity-for-everyone/.
Ohler, J. (2012). Digital citizenship means character education for the digital age. Education Digest: Essential Readings Condensed for Quick Review, 77(8), 14-17. (PDF: Ohler_Digital_citizenship_means_character_education_2012.pdf)
Polgar, D. R., & Curran, M. B. F. X. (2017, December 5). "We shouldn't assume people know what digital citizenship is.". TeachThought. https://www.teachthought.com/the-future-of-learning/we-shouldnt-assume-people-know-what-digital-citizenship-is/.
Ribble, M. (2015). Digital citizenship in schools: Nine elements all students should know (3rd ed.). Eugene, OR: International Society for Technology in Education
Shapiro, E. (2014, January 22). The Case for Teaching Digital Citizenship. The Jewish Press JewishPresscom. https://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/opinions/the-case-for-teaching-digital-citizenship/2014/01/23/.