Bullying of teachers more damaging in online era

[Kobi]

MIAMI (AP) — The bullying that bus monitor Karen Klein endured on a ride home from an upstate New York school was painful and egregious, but also shows how student harassment of teachers and administrators has become more spiteful and damaging in the online era.

Much attention has been paid to students who bully students in class, after school and on the Internet. Less has been given to equally disturbing behavior by students who harass instructors, principals and other adults.

It's something that's long existed; think ganging up on the substitute teacher. But it has become increasingly cruel and even dangerous as students get access to advanced technology at earlier ages.

In Maryland, students posed as their vice principal's twin 9-year-old daughters on pedophile websites, saying they had been having sex with their father and were looking for a new partner. Elsewhere, students have logged on to neo-Nazi and white supremacist sites claiming to be a Jewish or minority teacher and inciting the groups' anger. Others have stolen photographs from teachers' cellphones and posted them online.

"The ways they provoke teachers are limited only by their imaginations," said lawyer Parry Aftab, who described the above cases as just a few of the hundreds she's handled.

Compared with those, what happened to Klein in Greece, N.Y., a suburb of Rochester, was mild, Aftab said.

Students poked the bus monitor with a textbook, called her a barrage of obscenities and threatened to urinate on her front door, among other callous insults. One student taunted: "You don't have a family because they all killed themselves because they don't want to be near you."

Klein's oldest son killed himself 10 years ago.

Eventually, she appears to break down in tears. A cellphone video of the incident posted on YouTube went viral.

There is no data collected on how often students bully and harass teachers and other school authorities.

The most recent school safety report from the National Center for Education Statistics, the data branch of the U.S. Department of Education, found that 5 percent of public schools reported students verbally abused teachers on a daily or weekly basis. Also, 8 percent of secondary school teachers reported being threatened with injury by a student, as did 7 percent of elementary teachers.

"Is what we saw in this video occurring with many children every day with adults? No," said Ken Trump, president of the National School Safety and Security Services, a Cleveland-based consulting firm. "One incident is one too many, but we certainly have a problem where the authority of educators and school support personnel has been undermined."

Certainly, students harassing teachers isn't new.

John Ristow remembers an incident from his early days as a teacher's assistant in Alpena, Mich. A student in the class was upset that he was singled out by the lead teacher for disrupting other students who were trying to study. When Ristow passed him in the hall later that day, the middle school student lashed out.

"It was very nasty swear words that were extremely demeaning to my character," said Ristow, who now is head of communications for the Broward Teachers Union in Florida.

Ristow held out his hand and said, "Stop."

A security officer came by and asked if Ristow wanted her to take the boy to the principal's office. He said no, deciding to resolve the issue directly with the teacher and student instead. He brought both of them together, they discussed how inappropriate the behavior was and told the student he would face a suspension if it happened again.

"It never happened again," Ristow said.

That was in the late 1980s.

Two decades later, students are equipped with cellphones with video cameras and a plethora of apps that allow them easily to share information among each other and post online.

One of the new ways that students are harassing teachers has become known as "cyberbaiting." Students irritate a teacher to the point that the teacher breaks down; that reaction then is captured in photos or video to post online. A Norton Online Family Report published last year found that 21 percent of teachers had experienced or knew another teacher who had experienced "cyberbaiting."

Then there are cases of students who have created websites and blogs against teachers and administrators.

In South Florida, one student created a Facebook group page called, "Ms. Sarah Phelps is the worst teacher I've ever met!" The student encouraged others to "express your feelings of hatred."

The student, Katherine Evans, took the page down but was suspended for three days and removed from her Advanced Placement classes. She later was represented by the American Civil Liberties Union in a lawsuit against the principal of the Pembroke Pines Charter High School, arguing that her right to freedom of speech had been violated. She settled for $15,000 to cover her legal fees and her suspension was wiped from her record.

Aftab said such an outcome is not uncommon. Unless the incident occurs on school grounds, during school hours, at a school sponsored event or on school equipment, the district generally does not have jurisdiction to expel or suspend a student, although some courts around the country have ruled differently.

Courts "tend to side more with the students unless you can show dramatic problems," Aftab said.

Phelps, in her first public comments since the 2007 incident, said while kids make mistakes, it's the responsibility of adults to turn them into teachable moments.

"We need to redefine and expand our definitions of bullying, particularly techno-spread bullying devoid of personal accountability and disseminated under the guise of free speech," Phelps said in a written statement Friday.

District administrators in New York plan to pursue disciplinary actions against all four students who taunted Klein, though police say she does not want them to face criminal charges, partially because of the onslaught of public criticism and even threats they've endured since the video went online.

A fund started for Klein has raised more than $500,000.

School safety experts and administrators say they hope the incident will encourage parents to sit down and speak with their children about the damaging effects of all bullying, and that school officials will reinforce bullying prevention, not just among students, but also aimed at teachers and adults.

"The schools can have consequences," Trump said, pointing to counseling and disciplinary action. The bigger question, he said, is why a student would treat a bus monitor in a way they would not treat their own grandmother. "And that goes far beyond what a school can deal with."

http://news.yahoo.com/bullying-teach...131037020.html

[Julien]

I agree with June's post.

To add, I want to say where were the parents? This may cause a stir, but I think the parents failed these children, not that the children are not to blame for their actions I completely believe they are responsible for their actions. I wonder if the children did not learn some of their behavior by watching how their parents treated or talked about other people in a less than civil or appropriate behavior. I do realize that children's peers have a lot of influence, but I hope that if the person in question had a firm foundation of civility then this type of behavior would not happen. I have a 28 year old son and I'd like to think that I gave him this foundation, he shows it everyday in the things that he does for his friends and others. Just my own thoughts on this very sad situation for all concerned.

[WickedFemme]

I was quite disgusted by the video. We would have never behaved like that as children - my Mother would have punished us for even thinking about behaving in that manner. I don't think parents are paying enough attention to their children these days.

I will use my Sister as an example... her now 14 year old daughter has been on the internet since she was probably old enough to type and read. I found her facebook page a little over a year ago and there were some pretty hateful things posted there about other people as well as 'gay' remarks - it was actually quite subtle but you catch my drift. So, I called her out on it and she went whining to her mother and guess what? her mother took her side and proceeded to tell me things about her daughter making her out to be some kind of 'angel'. All the things she told me were about her daughter's behavior in school and how her daughter always sticks up for people being bullied, etc.. So, I said 'did a grown up tell you this or is this what your daughter told you after I confronted her?

Well, my sister went into 'defensive' mode because I was probably right in that she was believing everything her then 14 year old daughter was telling her as the truth. She rarely follows up on her children to see what they are doing. I told my sister that she needs to read her daughters facebook page and pay attention to what she is really doing. A year later, we are finally talking again. I doubt I will ever say anything about her parenting after that.

I just recall that when I got in trouble as a child, I was held accountable for my behavior and if an adult told my mother something about what I was doing, I didn't dare lie to my mother. My mother also made sure that I respected adults too. She never would have taken my word over an adults word. And what is this whole 'besties' between moms and their daughters these days? I think there has to be a parent child relationship between moms and their daughters - this whole we're equal and we're going to hang out and i'm going to co-sign your b.s. thing is way out of hand if you ask me.

Kids are bullying and they are getting away with it - its horrible.