Kathleen Steeb Prof.

Bruner April 4, 2012 Essay #4 Epidemic of Cyber Bullying The educational experience is racked with moments of stress, anger, discomfort, and a lack of belonging. Many of these feelings can be attributed to the bullying that many students experience. These feelings and bullying encounters traditionally take place in the physical building of the school, but recently, they have been carried over to life outside of the school. The bullies do not physically follow the victims everywhere they go, but the statements made, the insults, and threats do. Living in an age of such high technological advances makes education much more accessible and advanced, but it also has allowed an extreme amount of socialization to occur; some positive and some negative. Laura Gurak, author of the book Persuasion and Privacy in Cyberspace, states: While the capability is being promoted widely, the policy issues are often left up for grabs, with many differing visions of life in cyberspace being offered at every turn. (3) The classroom should be a place of acceptance and escape from environments of that could stunt the students growth in their education and social skills. For a victim of cyber bullying, the classroom can be a daily reminder of their peers that are threatening and not accepting them. Cyber bullying does not stop outside of the computer or cell phone, it continues when students talk about cyber bullying that occurred through electronic sources such as Postings on Facebook, texting, emailing, and many other forms of digital communication. Many parents and citizens feel it is the teachers job to be aware of the

Kathleen Steeb Prof. Bruner April 4, 2012 Essay #4 possible bullying that is occurring. Teachers should find ways to end and eliminate the distractions and effects that occur due to cyber bullying. The parents and citizens also believe it should be the main goal of schools to create an accepting and safe environment for their children to learn. Schools are ideally made to be a haven from the outside world and to protect students from the threats and feelings that are being let in by the use of the internet, especially those that tear down fellow peers including those who are different or unique. Within the past few years, cyber bullying has become a highly publicized, but misunderstood word. Although there have been many cases of students harming themselves or others, some people do not believe that cyber bullying is as harmful as the traditional form of bullying because it does not have any physical harm happening between two people (Winter and Leneway). To fully understand cyber bullying we must first define bullying as: being an aggressive, intentional act or behavior that is carried out by a group or an individual repeatedly and over time against a victim who can not easily defendhim or herself... several main types physical, verbal, relational (e.g., social exclusion) and indirect (e.g., rumour spreading).(Peter et al. 376) With the understanding of bullying, we can now thoroughly understand Joanne Wojciks definition of cyber bullying as the use of computers, cell phones or other electronic devices by students to embarrass, harass or threaten another person. With these definitions, it is possible to understand the term of cyber

Kathleen Steeb Prof. Bruner April 4, 2012 Essay #4 bullying. There are reports all across the world of victims of cyber bullying. According to Ann Epstein, Ph.D. and Jeffrey Kazmierczak, M.A. (2006), cyber bullying has become more abundant do to the ability for aggressors to hide behind a computer screen, not have to physically do the harm, and they have to ability to do all this anonymously if they wish (42). These two factors have made the cyber bullying epidemic spread rapidly through schools, counties, states, and countries. Just like in the traditional definition of bullying, there is an aggressor, a victim, and bystanders who participate in cyber bullying. Many times, the bystanders are unaware that they are causing more harm to the victim. The bystanders help to perpetuate the problem many times in cyber bullying by Reposting, Liking, or commenting on the bullying. The bystanders, in many situations, are following the lead of one leader or aggressor. The bystanders will participate for many reasons such as fear that they will be the next victim, simply to fit in with the crowd, or they think it is funny. These bystanders are not the sole cause of cyber bullying, but many times they carryout the bullying and can cause more harm to the victim than what already existed. Continual physical, emotional, and mental battery is wearing on a person, but without the ability to escape the abuse and seek refuge in a private place, such as your home or room, the abuse becomes too much and can cause stress, a feeling of hopelessness, or even thoughts of suicide. This form of bullying is not just locked within the walls of schools and it does not simply end when the victim

Kathleen Steeb Prof. Bruner April 4, 2012 Essay #4 steps off the bus, but it invades the victims personal computer, cell phone, social networking sites, and email. Also, this abuse never takes a break. It takes place during all hours of the day and can last for weeks at a time. The continual bullying can cause students to loose interest in school and to lower their personal desire to achieve a quality education, according to Courtney Stoel (1). The act of pulling away from their academic endeavors can cause a lower self esteem due to the conjunction of falling behind in school and being constantly bullied. Stoel also states that cyber bullying can drag down the victims emotions and cause them sadness and even to enter into a state of depression. She states that, along with the emotional depression, the victim can feel also experience psychological trauma(1). The victim can also be left feeling powerless due to the speed of the internet and the ability for many of their piers to see the abuse that is taking place. The victim can soon feel as if they are trapped within the cyber bullying and have no ability or hope of getting out of the situation. Along with feeling trapped, the victim may also feel weak and incapable of surviving the cyber bullying because they have had their power stripped away from them due to their inability fight back and defend themselves. Coupled with feelings of anger and exclusion, many victims feel as if they are being forgotten by the adults in their life who are supposed to be supportive of them. These feelings can be attributed to the already existing feelings that the victim is trapped in the abuse and has no one on their side to help them with these feelings; many victims will begin to pull

Kathleen Steeb Prof. Bruner April 4, 2012 Essay #4 away and distance themselves. Due to the technology that has been created, it makes it difficult for teachers to be aware of the abuse that is taking place and even harder to track the source of the abuse. Due to the technology that is used frequently in todays society, the abuse of cyber bullying happens mostly at home, but the effects carry over into the school day and into the classroom. While technology is a great use for communication and is used in schools as a positive effect for students learning, it can also cause distractions that schools are not prepared to handle. The difficulty that schools are having when it comes to discipline deals with the fact that many people do not agree on where the freedom of speech ends. Parents and citizens are very concerned with school taking away the right of youth to have an opinion and to freely say what they feel and believe. Authors at the New Zealand Herald states: Censorship is not the only enemy of free speech. Those who exercise their free speech to intimidate, bully, denigrate and harass others on the internet lessen the credibility of free speech arguments. In effect, those who exercise their free speech rights to cause harm may inhibit others from participating freely in this vital new public domain. The practical anonymity afforded abusers, and the lack of real-life consequences can create an environment where such abusive behavior can thrive. Many times aggressors and victims are very similar in the way that they both want to be liked and accepted by their peers. This feeling of acceptance can

Kathleen Steeb Prof. Bruner April 4, 2012 Essay #4 drive students to abuse a peer in order to be seen as equal and cool. Aggressors are putting their fear on another student by making them feel rejected. Cyber bullying causes many to feel unwanted and not worthy, but this outbreak can be handled by parents and schools working together to make all students feel safe and protected.

Works Cited Epstein, Ann and Jeffery Kazmierczak. Cyber Bullying: What Teachers, Social Workers, and Administrators Should Know. Illinois Child Welfare 3.1-2 (2006- 2007): 41-51. Web. 28 Mar. 2012. Gurak, Laura. Persuasion and Privacy in cyberspace: the online protest over Lotus MarketPlace and the Clipper Chip. Durham: BookCrafters, Inc., 1997.

Kathleen Steeb Prof. Bruner April 4, 2012 Essay #4 Print. "Law Commission looks to crack down on cyber-bullies." New Zealand Herald, The n.d.:Newspaper Source Plus. Web. 30 Mar. 2012. Smith, Peter, Jess Mahdavi, Manuel Carvalho, Sonja Fisher, Shanette Russell, and Neil Tippett. Cyberbullying: its nature and impact in secondary school pupils. Child Psychology and Psychiatry 49.4 (2008): 376-385. Web. 28 Mar. 2012. Stoel, Courtney. Cyber Bullying and the Classroom. Scholar Works 6.2 (2011): n. pag. Web. 28 Mar. 212. Winter, Ryan and Robert Leneway. Terror in the Classroom: What Can be Done? Part 2. School CIO. School CIO, 16 Nov. 2007. Web. 28 Mar. 2012. WOJCIK, JOANNE. "Schools Have Some Authority To Curb Cyber Bullying Of Students." Business Insurance 46.10 (2012): 6. Business Source Complete. Web. 30 Mar. 2012.

Reflection Paper When writing my cyber bullying informative paper, I found it very difficult to be able to stay neutral and to not place my personal opinion into the discussion. While writing, I would have to continually go back and read what I wrote and edit out my opinion. I believe this was the most difficult part because I feel so passionate about cyber bullying and its effects on students and their school work. With cyber bullying being such a close topic to my heart, I was able to really

Kathleen Steeb Prof. Bruner April 4, 2012 Essay #4 explore my own feelings about it and what its true effects are and how we can combat them. The most significant change I made while editing was when I went through and removed all the sections where I had my personal opinion and replaced it with facts; this sometimes meant rewording the sentence to represent a fact, rather than my personal opinion. This was a significant change in my paper because without it, my argument and explanation of the problem would not be as significant for the readers. Without these edits, my paper would have been a paper of me ranting and explaining my feelings and opinions instead of helping to educate students, teachers, and parents on the problems and effects of cyber bullying. I feel that the best part of my paper is where I explain the trauma that can occur and the effects on every aspect of the cyber bullying victims life. I believe this is the best part because I am able to explain the effects and how they can cause a student to feel trapped in the classroom setting, as well as all other places. I feel that I was able to accomplish my own personal goal of writing this section without listing it out and having it sounding very mundane.