- Sun Oct 17, 2010 5:01 pm
#331876
Springfield learns bullying plague spreads quickly online
Published: Sunday, October 17, 2010
By SUSAN L. SERBIN
Times Correspondent
SPRINGFIELD — Bullying used to be a shove in the schoolyard or teasing in the lunch room. Today, technology has changed all that.
Name-calling can spread throughout a neighborhood or virtually around the world in a matter of seconds.
The Springfield School District, and E. T. Richardson Middle School in particular, is not waiting for problems. There is a pro-active effort to discuss, inform and prevent bullying in any form, including what is done through the technology of cell phones and the Internet.
Recently assemblies were held for each of grades six through eight with guest speaker Claude Thomas, Senior Supervisory Special Agent of the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office.
Thomas also held a session for parents with much of the same information as well as an important extra message: parents are already at a disadvantage since youngsters generally know much more about the technology they use daily.
“Children think the computer is just a tool to have fun. The Internet is a means to talk to each other, and they cannot imagine begin without it. But the people we use to watch for as dangerous strangers are now on line—because that’s where the children are,” said Thomas.
“We used to share ‘stranger danger’ with children,” Thomas said, referring to people on the street or in a public place, “but it hasn’t been translated to the Internet. Children cannot distinguish between friends in the physical world from someone in cyberspace.”
Thomas’ information for parents included a video clip with the story of Jeff, a teen whose classmates first bullied him in school and then on the Internet. Not knowing how to solve the problem, Jeff took his life.
“There is always an answer. But these are children and they aren’t expected to know what to do,” Thomas said.
Cyber problems include everything from inappropriate postings on social networking sites and sexting — sending sexually explicit pictures over cell phones or computers. These practices have negative if not tragic consequences.
Ultimately, one parent asked, “What will the school do about bullying?”
ETR Principal Dan Tracy said the response is case-specific, but all situations involve communication with the victim, perpetrator and parents. The district is still working on policies and procedures that involve events taking place outside of schools, but they will be addressed.
Individual children react in a wide variety of ways to teasing and name calling, Tracy noted. One child may shrug off comments that would trouble another. “But we tell the children if something makes you feel uncomfortable, get an adult.”
Published: Sunday, October 17, 2010
By SUSAN L. SERBIN
Times Correspondent
SPRINGFIELD — Bullying used to be a shove in the schoolyard or teasing in the lunch room. Today, technology has changed all that.
Name-calling can spread throughout a neighborhood or virtually around the world in a matter of seconds.
The Springfield School District, and E. T. Richardson Middle School in particular, is not waiting for problems. There is a pro-active effort to discuss, inform and prevent bullying in any form, including what is done through the technology of cell phones and the Internet.
Recently assemblies were held for each of grades six through eight with guest speaker Claude Thomas, Senior Supervisory Special Agent of the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office.
Thomas also held a session for parents with much of the same information as well as an important extra message: parents are already at a disadvantage since youngsters generally know much more about the technology they use daily.
“Children think the computer is just a tool to have fun. The Internet is a means to talk to each other, and they cannot imagine begin without it. But the people we use to watch for as dangerous strangers are now on line—because that’s where the children are,” said Thomas.
“We used to share ‘stranger danger’ with children,” Thomas said, referring to people on the street or in a public place, “but it hasn’t been translated to the Internet. Children cannot distinguish between friends in the physical world from someone in cyberspace.”
Thomas’ information for parents included a video clip with the story of Jeff, a teen whose classmates first bullied him in school and then on the Internet. Not knowing how to solve the problem, Jeff took his life.
“There is always an answer. But these are children and they aren’t expected to know what to do,” Thomas said.
Cyber problems include everything from inappropriate postings on social networking sites and sexting — sending sexually explicit pictures over cell phones or computers. These practices have negative if not tragic consequences.
Ultimately, one parent asked, “What will the school do about bullying?”
ETR Principal Dan Tracy said the response is case-specific, but all situations involve communication with the victim, perpetrator and parents. The district is still working on policies and procedures that involve events taking place outside of schools, but they will be addressed.
Individual children react in a wide variety of ways to teasing and name calling, Tracy noted. One child may shrug off comments that would trouble another. “But we tell the children if something makes you feel uncomfortable, get an adult.”
'Live without pretending, love without depending, listen without defending, speak without offending.'