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Canadian Teachers Concerned About Online Bullying

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Source: marketingvox.com, theglobeandmail.com, & rlslog.net

 

Teachers across Canada are increasingly concerned about online bullying, reports The Globe and Mail, and this week, they will try developing national policy for protecting students and educators from the tactic.

 

A Toronto-based gathering of the Canadian Teachers’ Federation will try to tackle the elusive problem of bullying over the Internet. The Federation is comprised of over 215,000 teachers and will meet Wednesday through Saturday. “Cyber bullying is without boundaries, it’s without borders,” said President Winston Carter of the Canadian Techers’ Federation.

 

Cyber bullying can occur over e-mail, cell phones and social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook. After a series of school-related incidents that occurred in recent months, teachers decided it was time to address the issue head-on.

 

In February, 19 Toronto students were suspended complaining about their principal. And two 13-year-old girls were suspended in Quebec last November for posting a YouTube video of a teacher shouting at a student. The teacher is now on medical leave, and the school has exiled electronic devices. In early June Ontario passed the Safe Schools Act, which forbade students from engaging in physical or online bullying. Breach of this legislation can lead to suspension or even expulsion. “What we write and post and do online has real implications for real people,” said Bill Belsey, webmaster of cyberbullying.ca. He added that children must understand “you can’t take back” what you say, even on a medium as fluid as the Internet.

 

“One of the things that makes cyber bullying different is the speed with which this can happen,” he added. “The bully’s audience can be as wide as the Internet itself, where traditionally it might have been in a classroom or a school yard or a hockey locker room.” If a student is being cyber-bullied, Belsey advises keeping copies of each instance and telling a parent, a law enforcement officer or even their local ISP. The Canadian education system is by no means unique in its attempts to counter new instances of cyber warfare. In the UK last month, the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers requested that mobile phones be classified as “potentially offensive weapons” in schools. And in May the country of Estonia suffered a “cyber attack,” presumably by Russia.

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In February, 19 Toronto students were suspended complaining about their principal. And two 13-year-old girls were suspended in Quebec last November for posting a YouTube video of a teacher shouting at a student. The teacher is now on medical leave, and the school has exiled electronic devices.

That's the only important part of it. Those Idiots have finally gone and legislated a way for students to be punished for stuff they do away from school.

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They had to make legislation to say that physical bullying was wrong. Holy shit. Shouldn't it be common-fuck-knowledge that bullying is wrong in the first place?

 

"I was gonna steal your lunch money, but shit, now it's ILLEGAL"

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In February, 19 Toronto students were suspended complaining about their principal. And two 13-year-old girls were suspended in Quebec last November for posting a YouTube video of a teacher shouting at a student. The teacher is now on medical leave, and the school has exiled electronic devices.

That's the only important part of it. Those Idiots have finally gone and legislated a way for students to be punished for stuff they do away from school.

 

True but you're missing the point: what's taking place outside of school is affecting how things run INSIDE the school. If a high-school student sexually assaulted a girl at a party on the weekend and she came to school Monday and told them about it do you you think their response would be "Sorry sweetie, happened outside school jurisdictions."? Same principle here.

 

The inverse of this is that the students are really taking advantage of the opportunity to show the real world what their teachers can be like and much like my above example the school can't really ignore it and they're not going to win any favors for punishing the students and giving the teacher a paid leave.

 

Next big story is going to be people suing their employers when they find out that the employee was a part of a "I Hate This Job" type of club on MySpace of Facebook. Where I work there is a Facebook page for our employees and despite numerous people around the office telling me to join up I won't because they shit-talk the company on it and I'm not going to be named when the hammer comes down.

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Next big story is going to be people suing their employers when they find out that the employee was a part of a "I Hate This Job" type of club on MySpace of Facebook. Where I work there is a Facebook page for our employees and despite numerous people around the office telling me to join up I won't because they shit-talk the company on it and I'm not going to be named when the hammer comes down.

 

We have something similar in a Death Pool at our workplace. Ie: how long it takes someone to get canned or quit. They draft rosters and throw in $20 each. I'm sure a shitton of people would get in hot water if they were found out.

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Never really thought about something like that, actually. Since I've started our team has lost 5 reps, 3 that quit and 2 who were transferred to other teams. Then again I do deal with creditor insurance on a daily basis which tends to wear on the soul.

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True but you're missing the point: what's taking place outside of school is affecting how things run INSIDE the school. If a high-school student sexually assaulted a girl at a party on the weekend and she came to school Monday and told them about it do you you think their response would be "Sorry sweetie, happened outside school jurisdictions."? Same principle here.

 

...what? No, not same principle, not in the same ballpark, not even the same fucking sport. These kids got suspended for complaining on Myspace. What the fuck? That's like a national pasttime for minors now.

 

Also, in your hypothetical example, why wouldn't their response be to call the cops and throw the little rapist's ass in jail?

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Well, let's play the hypothetical game and assume he's a minor so he likely wouldn't be thrown in jail but he'd sure as shit be suspended from school. Maybe I misread your post but I got the idea that you're saying that what happens outside of school shouldn't determine punishment inside school which I vehemently disagree with.

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Why? If it didn't happen on school grounds or during a school function, how is it the school's business to punish someone for extracurricular shit?

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If it affects the well-being of other students, disrupts their ability to learn or hinders a teachers ability to teach you're damn straight it's the schools business.

 

Obviously there are limits. Two guys having a bit of a scrap off-school grounds that ends after 5 minutes and is never repeated doesn't warrant any involvement but MySpace and Facebook bullying can seriously affect the way a kid will look at going to school and definitely affect their level of social interaction which in the end can fuck somebody up badly.

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Guest Vitamin X

Curry, I can see the good intention behind what you're saying but bringing the law into the matter will only complicate things and make it much worse. You can't shelter children from real-world distractions all the time; bullying is a part of life, and people are going to encounter it in a variety of places and times in their lives where they will have to learn how to deal with it in their own way, and not be sheltered by it, hiding behind the law.

 

Furthermore, minor or not, at least in our country (which we all know is way more fucked up than Canada, right?) rape is still grounds for incarceration, and probably a bit more than just a suspension. At the very least, the kid would spend some time in juvi.

 

There are a variety of things that can affect the well-being of other students, disrupt their ability to learn, and hinder a teacher's ability to teach that go beyond bullying, which in and of itself can be caused by a lot of other things. The solution isn't to bring the law into the matter but to resolve by other means the causes of said bullying.

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The sad thing is that each Canadian Province will handle things differently.

 

What is more of a problem is Kids and Teenagers are using the internet like Youtube to post a teacher that has been egged on from students refusing to do work, or talking on cellphones. That is one example.

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These kids got suspended for complaining on Myspace. What the fuck? That's like a national pasttime for minors now.

 

Whatever. These kids will have to learn one way or another that talking shit about people in direct authority over you does not fly when it's in a public forum. If I were to go on MySpace and publically post about how much I hate my boss and how he's a fucking asshole and someone reported it back to him - I'd fully expect to be reprimanded for it, or at least called out on it.

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I do wonder what kind of society we live in when students are suspended for expressing an opinion on Facebook. That's total thought police bullshit.

 

Teachers should have no authority over students, especially outside the classroom setting.

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Guest benoitwasmurdered

While I don't really like the school trying to get involved with off site behavior, something needs to be done because there are kids who are bullied so badly they kill themselves. Obviously most kids aren't treated so poorly and I do think that being teased is part of growing up, but there has to be a limit.

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Guest Tzar Lysergic

A bully will generally stop if they get their nose smashed open. Loosen up on fighting in school. That zero-tolerance crap begets environments where a kid can be tormented and not be able to fight back without getting expelled. It's a big box of hormones. To assume that tempers won't flare is ridiculous.

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If kids would stop bringing guns to school that might happen. Of course, what you describe is much of the reason the shootouts occur.

People in general are stupid. The zero tolerance policies in schools are much like outlawing prostitution. But they do it anyway.

My school days being before the internet saturation took hold, this is interesting to me. It's a phenomenon I don't have experience with, and I'm curious how it would play out. If I place myself in the situation, it would likely be like walking up to someone in school, being like "Hey, I read your blog." and then punching them in the face. They were fairly loose on fighting when I went to school in the south. A couple days detention or what have you. In California, fuck that. Still, you'd only get transfered for breaking someone's jaw, no jail time. This was mostly pre Columbine, though.

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Guest Tzar Lysergic

I went to a pretty big school, and the worst anyone ever got was three days out of school for a fistfight. This area is also saturated with guns, and no one ever got shot there. I guess a kid got stabbed a couple of years ago, but that's the most violent incident I've ever heard of at that school, which happened to occur after a zero-tolerance policy was implemented.

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I was bullied some when I was a kid, and I'm alright today. Milky mentioneded that people in general are stupid, but it should be pointed out that kids in particular are stupid. You guys were kids once, tell me that ain't true.

 

That's total thought police bullshit.

But the Dream Police live inside of my head.

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