A First Definition of Cyberbullying Applied to Teachers

I read lots of information on the fly, but the article written by Doug Johnson caught my eye for the appealing context with which he discusses the cyberbullying against teachers.

Doug Johnson is the publisher of The Boo Skunk Blog. He posted a very controversial question: Can students cyberbully teachers?

To understand better the topic we want to rephrase Doug's question: At what point do the action of students become bullying?

As you might be thinking it has not a quick or easy answer. All the discussion taken on the Boo Skunk Blog turns to Rate-My-Teacher website. The same as when we are asked about the education objectives, answers will be so diverse as many teachers as we ask. One thing is true, cyberbullying is a plague, all, parents to teachers should be vigilant.

And here the discussion goes over power. The big guy picking on the little guy, as Johnson puts it. The disrespect many students are being pray of, not by teachers but stuff and in many cases administrators. Is a Vice Principal entitled to shout, give out unfair detentions or even suspend a student without a fair hearing of all the students involved? That's abusing power.

In many cases these are the reasons the poor kid in a very poorly designed strategy goes online to libel and cry for help. In other words, is a retaliation to what they are living in their classroom or school. Now, don't get me wrong, there are those little devils for whom school is a prison where they have to fight their way out. They require another kind of treatment we are not going to argue here.

There is not a proper definition to a retaliation against teachers under bullying. The cyberbullying can be easily interpreted as harassment, aggression, electronic aggression or most typically as lack of respect. You'd pick one.

Dr. Micheal Carr-Greg from Melbourne, and cited by the source of this post, as much as Nancy Willard of The Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use provide advice as how teachers got so frustrated for this kind of experiences. Willard has promised to release a narrated report on cyberbullying for educators.

Before this goes out of hand, try your best to have students to perform successfully and to be happy at school. This is the best way to avoid the distress to be impersonated by someone, that in some cases don't even is your student but someone else looking to make your life so miserable.

Be yourself and feel confident you will never be in this circumstances. If so, look for help among professionals on safety and share the incident with authorities and all your colleagues as much as you can. Good luck.

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