Tag Archives: cyberbullying

A Positive School Climate Makes Everything Possible

Article posted by Justin W. Patchin in August 31, 2012 at 9:18 am.

(14 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5)

Loading ...

We have a lot of really great anecdotes and ideas from educators included in our latest book School Climate 2.0:Preventing Cyberbullying and Sexting One Classroom at a Time. Below is one example from our friend Steve Bollar, who is a principal in New Jersey. He is an “in-the-trenches” expert when it comes to developing and maintaining a positive school climate. We highly recommend that you sign up for his regular “Ideas, Ideas, Ideas” newsletter which you can learn more about on his website. Here are his thoughts on why a positive climate at school is so important:

“The climate in a school can either make everything possible or not make everything possible.” That quote is one of the most profound statements about schools that I have ever heard. It is true that instruction and curriculum are important, but neither can be effective unless the climate of the school/classroom is centered on respect, clear expectations, personal responsibility, and recognition. Every school has a climate that is developed through the actions of the school leader. Therefore, it is vitally important that the school leader purposefully works to establish the climate in the way that he or she knows will best benefit the students and staff. The other option is for the school leader to do nothing, thus leaving it up to others to set the tone and develop the climate. That climate may not be positive, empowering, or productive. Instead, it may be demeaning, unclear, and non–student focused.

A school that has a positive climate rooted in clear expectations, and supported with recognition and respect, leads to students and staff making decisions that are in the best interest of not only the school but also themselves. Roy Disney once said, “When your vision is clear, decisions are easy.” It is so true within a school. When your climate, vision, and expectations are clear, deciding whether or not to do the right thing is easy. It leads to the thought process of “that’s the way we do it here.” When students are faced with a choice of going onto a website that is inappropriate or not, whether at home or school, the climate they are most exposed to at school comes into play. Therefore, making the right decision is easier to make.

True, it doesn’t work all the time. Within my building are many students who get into “trouble” with social networks, inappropriate websites, connecting with dangerous people online, and making poor choices in the photos they post on the Internet. Two years ago, we had a large spike in the number of issues and disciplinary action related to Internet behavior. Approximately 25 to 35 percent of discipline during the school year was Internet related. The following year, we implemented a morning homeroom meeting. During this 30 minutes once a week, two adults in each classroom would lead an activity or discussion that focused on the vision and expectations of the school. This practice, once a week, continued consistently throughout the school year. The results were amazing! The number of Internet-related disciplinary issues decreased significantly, and as did the number of overall discipline issues. Problems were either handled more often at the classroom level through discussion and guidance of the teachers, or the lessons learned and reinforced during those morning meeting times guided the thought processes of the students when opportunities to behave inappropriately came up.

At the end of each marking period, my administrative team would look at the discipline report and say, “Wow!” We did not start an anti-Internet campaign or increase the amount of Internet safety training. All we did was connect with students and purposefully strengthen the climate within our building around positive clear expectations and recognition. The end result was students making better life decisions. “The climate in a school can either make everything possible or not make everything possible.”

Tags: climate, cyber-bullying, cyberbullying, online safety, school, school climate.
Subscribe to this blog via RSS or Email.

One comment

A Lot to Believe In

Article posted by Justin W. Patchin in July 17, 2012 at 2:20 pm.

(10 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

Loading ...

Sameer and I just returned from the Jostens Renaissance National Conference which was held this year in Orlando, Florida. This was the 5th year that I have presented at this conference and the second time that Sameer has participated. The theme of the event was “Something to Believe In” and did they ever deliver. Despite what the media and some politicians might have us believe, there is a lot to believe in when it comes to the current state and future of education in the United States. Don’t get me wrong, I know there are some significant challenges out there confronting educators in America, but if the folks who attended this conference are any indication, there is much to be optimistic about.

Over 800 enthusiastic educators and 300 rock-star students were in attendance, but with the amount of energy and vigor that was present during all of the activities, you would have thought that ratio was reversed. The conference included dozens of educational breakout sessions, several featured presentations, two Congressional Medal of Honor recipients, a rock show (by Parachute!) and a trip to Epcot, among the many other highlights. It is always the best conference I am involved in every year and this was no exception.

Most educators are familiar with Jostens because they offer yearbooks, class rings, diplomas and a whole host of other products and services to create and promote school spirit. What is most attractive to us, though, is the outreach and programming work they do to help schools increase graduation rates and boost student learning, leadership, character, and integrity. For example, Jostens Renaissance is a *free* program that schools can customize and implement to improve attendance, academic performance, belongingness, and connectedness. It is all about recognizing and rewarding students and staff for positive behaviors in the classroom and beyond. The National Conference is an annual showcase of best practices in these efforts and educators leave with hundreds of practical ideas along with a boatload of inspiration and motivation.

Sameer and I presented a 3 hour pre-conference session along with two breakout sessions during the conference. All of the sessions were filled to capacity – even the 8am breakout on Sunday morning! That tells you something about those who were in attendance. They are motivated to learn as much as they can to improve the culture of their schools.

We did a “Pause Before You Post” student session that had well over 100 participants. We learned from our online interactive polling during the presentation that 61% of them had posted something online that they later regretted and that just about half of them didn’t think that their school took cyberbullying very seriously. To be sure, this is not a representative sample in the scholarly sense, but it gives us a unique perspective on these issues from the viewpoint of a specific sample of students who are generally very involved in their schools. Many of the students talked with us afterwards about some ideas they had to improve the climate of their school and to prevent the misuse of technology. A couple dozen turned to twitter to publicly pledge to “pause before they posted.” (We worked with Jostens last year to develop a “Pause Before You Post” kit that schools can use to reinforce positive messages about the safe and responsible use of technology.)

What I like most about this conference is that it embodies much of what we preach about how to develop a positive climate at school. It is all about the people: the relationships and connections. In schools, how the staff treats students and each other determines a lot about the climate. The teacher at the front of the classroom is perhaps most important in this regard but the counselors, principals, cafeteria servers, bus drivers, and anyone else who interacts with or in front of students also has a significant role to play. In a school with a positive climate, students and staff treat each other with respect and value each other’s contributions to the greater whole. Moreover, the students and staff genuinely want to be there—they want to be a part of the learning that is taking place. They look forward to coming to school and interacting with their friends.

That is how the Jostens conference is. Even though most of the attendees are first-timers, it is like one big family. People come from across the United States and Canada, yet revel in their common experiences as educators and students. It is a carnival-like atmosphere where everyone is learning and having a good time (and the conference clearly shows that these two things need not be mutually exclusive!). It is also an opportunity to forget about the problems facing education and focus on why teachers went into the business in the first place. The organizers pour their lives and hearts into this event, and it shows. You want to be a part of this. It is just plain amazing. And you can’t help but want to bottle that up and bring it back to your school.

If you are interested in some additional tidbits from the conference, check out @J_Renaissance on twitter and the hashtag #somethingtobelievein. If you are a Jostens school (you have Jostens yearbooks, class rings, or graduation materials), talk to your sales representative about bringing Renaissance to your school. Again, it is free and you will not regret it.

Tags: conference, cyberbullying, Jostens, school climate.
Subscribe to this blog via RSS or Email.

One comment

Peer Influences and Social Norming

Article posted by Justin W. Patchin in June 1, 2012 at 2:39 pm.

(19 votes, average: 4.58 out of 5)

Loading ...

We are working on a new paper that examines the influence of peers on cyberbullying behavior. We have long known that there is a strong correlation between a youth’s behaviors and those of his or her friends (see Mark Warr’s work, especially “Companions in Crime”). It should come as no surprise, then, that we are seeing similar results in our analysis. Students who reported to us that many of their friends had bullied others (at school, using a computer, and using a cell phone) were significantly more likely to have also reported to us that they too had bullied and cyberbullied others. Specifically, only 4% of the respondents who said none of their friends had cyberbullied others in the previous 6 months reported that they had cyberbullied others in the last 30 days. In contrast, 62% of the students who said “all” or “most” of their friends had cyberbullied others in the previous 6 months reported that they cyberbullied others.

There are many theoretical reasons to help us understand this relationship. For example, it could be that cyberbullying, like just about anything else, is learned behavior. Teens see their friends cyberbully others and not only learn the specific techniques or tactics, but also learn to justify the behaviors (it is just a joke, the target had it coming, it is no big deal, they won’t get caught, etc.). The behaviors could be reinforced further if their peers encourage them through social acceptance or if they are otherwise rewarded (or at least not punished) for what they did. A teen might cyberbully another simply to avoid the possibility that negative attention will be directed back at them if they do not go along with the crowd. It could also be a sort of “birds of a feather flock together” syndrome whereby teens who are cyberbullying others seek each other out to reaffirm the normality of their behaviors. No matter what the precise reason is, it makes sense that kids who participate in cyberbullying might tend to hang out with others who also engage in cyberbullying.

Of course there are some limitations to using a teen’s report of their peer’s behaviors as a measure of the peer’s actual behaviors. Teens could simply be reflecting their own behaviors on others or may think that their friends are behaving in certain ways, when they really aren’t. I see this phenomenon often when speaking with students. I ask them to tell me what percent of students cyberbully others. Their estimates are all uniformly very high (70-80-90%). They are surprised when I tell them that the correct number is actually much lower than that – less than 10% have done it in the previous 30 days. I was at a school this spring that had just collected data from its students about cyberbullying. I quickly skimmed through the handout that the principal gave me with a summary of the results and noticed that 9.5% of the students admitted that they had cyberbullied others. Yet when I asked the students during my presentation, they too estimated the number to be in the 80-90% range.

Correcting the perceptions of youth about these facts is important because if they come to see a certain behavior as normative, they may feel free to engage in that behavior. Or they may feel pressure to “fit in” by doing what they think “everyone” else is doing. Well, the truth is that most students are not cyberbullying others. I tell teens that it is in their best interest to work to reduce the 10% number even more because, like them, the adults in their lives often see the behaviors of the 10% and assume that most young people must be behaving similarly. I mean, there is no shortage of examples in the morning paper or on the nightly news of teens getting into trouble for misusing technology. But these examples represent the exceptions rather than what is most often occurring.

In the end, perceptions can be just as important as reality in terms of influencing behaviors. Which is why we need to work to educate teens and adults alike about what most youth are doing online, using valid and reliable data. (We discuss social norming theory and how it applies to cyberbullying and sexting in our new book). And the data show that teens generally do behave in concert with what they believe their friends are doing. This is even more evidence in support of working to create a climate at school where no form of bullying is tolerated. If students don’t see bullying and cyberbullying happening, or if they see it but the behaviors are immediately condemned by people they care about (their peers and adults), then hopefully they will learn that the norm in their school is to treat each other with respect.

Tags: cyberbullying, cyberbullying research, prevention, research, social norms.
Subscribe to this blog via RSS or Email.

(8) comments

School Climate 2.0: Preventing Cyberbullying and Sexting One Classroom at a Time

Article posted by Justin W. Patchin in April 26, 2012 at 3:34 pm.

(16 votes, average: 4.69 out of 5)

Loading ...

We’ve been discussing the importance of school climate as it relates to bullying and cyberbullying quite a bit on this blog (see here and here for examples). Well, we just published a whole book on the topic! School Climate 2.0: Preventing Cyberbullying and Sexting is now in print and available from the publisher, on Amazon, or many other online bookstores. This is the first book on the topic of cyberbullying and sexting that focuses primarily on what can be done to prevent the behaviors from happening in the first place. We argue that “educators who establish a nurturing and caring classroom and school climate will make great strides in preventing a whole host of problematic behaviors, both at school and online.” The book provides concrete examples of how to do just that.

Here is an excerpt from the Preface:

This book seeks to explain and promote the importance of school climate in preventing teen technology misuse. Most of books and articles in print today simply describe the nature of cyberbullying or sexting (e.g., what it looks like, how much of it is occurring, and among whom). While this is an important first step, we seek to meaningfully build on the knowledge base and more explicitly connect the high-tech behaviors of teens to the school environment.

Much of what you will read is based on information we have learned through our decade-long exploration of the ways teens are using and misusing technology. We have completed seven formal independent studies involving over 12,000 students from over 80 middle and high schools from different regions of the United States. To guide the discussion, this book specifically features information from our most recent study, a random sample of over 4,400 middle and high school students (11 to 18 years old) from one of the largest school districts in the United States. Surveys were administered to students in 2010, and the information gathered represents some of the most recent and comprehensive data on these topics. We will also refer to the work of many others who have labored to better understand how adolescents use, misuse, and abuse these technologies.

In addition to the quantitative data collected, we have also informally spoken to thousands of teens, parents, educators, law enforcement officers, and countless other adults who work directly with youth. Our observations are essentially a reflection of their experiences. During these interactions, we have been fortunate to learn from those on the front lines about what they are dealing with, what is working, and what problems they are running into. The stories we hear are largely consistent with the data we and others have collected that will be presented throughout this text. We also receive numerous emails and phone calls on a weekly basis from educators, mental health professionals, parents, and other youth-serving adults looking for help with specific issues. These conversations help us to understand and consider the problem from a variety of angles and perspectives. All of the stories included in this book are real. In some cases the language has been modified slightly to fix spelling and grammar mistakes and improve readability, but the overall messages have not been changed.

In Chapter 1 we begin the discussion by focusing on the intersection of teens and technology and how the inseparability of adolescents from their high-tech devices affects, and is influenced by, what is going on at school. In Chapter 2, we outline the characteristics of a positive school climate along with some of the beneficial outcomes associated with such an environment.

In Chapter 3 we detail the nature of bullying in the 21st century. In many ways the bullying of today is very similar to the way it was when we were growing up. But technology has enabled would-be bullies to extend their reach, resulting in many significant challenges for educators, parents, and others who are working to resolve relationship problems. Cyberbullying, which we define as willful and repeated harm inflicted through the use of computers, cell phones, and other electronic devices, typically refers to incidents in which students threaten, humiliate, or otherwise hassle their peers through malicious text messages, web pages, or postings on Facebook or YouTube. It is clear that peer harassment that occurs on school grounds is a significant threat to a positive school climate. That said, online bullying also disrupts the ability of students to feel safe and secure at school. The vast majority of the time, targets of cyberbullying know the person doing the bullying (85 percent of the time in our research), and most of the time the bully is someone from their school. If students regularly post hurtful, embarrassing, or threatening messages to a fellow classmate’s Facebook page, for example, it unquestionably affects that student’s ability to feel comfortable, free, and safe to focus on learning at school.

Chapter 4 describes sexting, which we define as the sending or receiving of sexually explicit or sexually suggestive nude or seminude images or video that generally occurs via cell phone (although it can also occur via the Web). Some have described this problem in dismissive ways, calling it this generation’s way of “flirting” or characterizing it as a safer way to experiment sexually and come to terms with one’s own sexuality. While this may be true in part, engaging in sexting can lead to some significant social and legal consequences. We begin to tie everything together in Chapter 5, where we explicitly link school climate to online misbehaviors. Here again we argue that schools with better climates will see fewer cyberbullying, sexting, or other online problems among students. Ancillary benefits for educators who harness the power of a positive climate at school may include better attendance, higher school achievement, and more cooperative attitudes across the student body and among staff. A school with a positive climate is definitely more enjoyable to work and learn in, and can therefore lead to many other beneficial outcomes for students and staff alike. The remaining chapters of the book focus on providing you with strategies to establish and maintain a positive climate (Chapter 6) through peer mentoring and social norming (Chapter 7), assessment (Chapter 8), and appropriate response strategies (Chapter 9).

You can learn more about the book, including a full table of contents and reviews from folks who have read it, on our companion website, www.schoolclimate20.com. You can also like us on Facebook, and follow us on twitter. Let us know what you think!

Tags: cell phones, climate, cyberbullying, cyberbullying research, education, policy, prevention, sexting.
Subscribe to this blog via RSS or Email.

One comment

Can a School Respond to Off-Campus Cyberbullying?

Article posted by Justin W. Patchin in March 19, 2012 at 1:30 pm.

(20 votes, average: 4.55 out of 5)

Loading ...

We discuss the legal issues associated with schools responding to cyberbullying incidents quite often in this space. You can find many blog posts which attempt to clarify the variety of issues raised (see here and here) and we have a summary fact sheet that is available here. Of course the law, and our understanding of it, is constantly evolving. So I thought I would post a (relatively) simplified update with the lineage of case law that demonstrates that schools do in fact have the authority to apply reasonable discipline to students who participate in cyberbullying while away from school. Below I provide a brief one or two sentence summary of the ruling, but I encourage everyone to read the actual facts of each case so that you can better understand the unique contexts of each incident.

Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969): Students have free-speech rights. “A prohibition against expression of opinion, without any evidence that the rule is necessary to avoid substantial interference with school discipline or the rights of others, is not permissible under the First and Fourteenth Amendments.” Students have constitutional rights under the First Amendment. Those rights, however, do not grant students the right to substantially interfere with school discipline or the “the rights of other students to be secure and to be let alone.”

Bethel School District No. 403 v. Fraser (1986): Student’s free-speech rights are limited while at school. “[T]he constitutional rights of students in public school are not automatically coextensive with the rights of adults in other settings….” The Supreme Court ruled that there is a substantive difference between a non-disruptive expression (such as in Tinker) and “speech or action that intrudes upon the work of the schools or the rights of other students.”

Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education (1999): If a school knows about harassment or other hurtful actions against students and doesn’t respond effectively to prevent it from continuing, they may be held responsible. “…the common law, too, has put schools on notice that they may be held responsible under state law for their failure to protect students from the tortious acts of third parties.”

J.S. v. Bethlehem Area School District (2000): Schools can discipline students for their off-campus electronic speech (student created a threatening web page about his algebra teacher). “…school officials are justified in taking very seriously threats against faculty and other students.”

Wisniewski v. Board of Education of the Weedsport Central School District (2007): “…it was reasonably foreseeable that Wisniewski’s communication would cause a disruption within the school environment…. The fact that Aaron’s creation and transmission of the IM icon occurred away from school property does not necessarily insulate him from school discipline. We have recognized that off-campus conduct can create a foreseeable risk of substantial disruption within a school…”

Barr v. Lafon (2007): Schools do not need to wait for a substantial disruption to occur at school before taking action. The U.S. Court of Appeals (6th Circuit) ruled that “…appellate court decisions considering school bans on expression have focused on whether the banned conduct would likely trigger disturbances such as those experienced in the past” and pointed to the fact that the high school had even positioned law enforcement officials on campus in previous years to maintain order in an environment of racial hostility and violence. Citing Lowery v. Euverard (2007), the court stated: “…under the Tinker standard a school does not need to wait until a disruption has actually occurred before regulating student speech.”

Kowalski v. Berkeley County Schools (2011): Schools can discipline students for their online speech, consistent with Tinker. “Kowalski used the Internet to orchestrate a targeted attack on a classmate, and did so in a manner that was sufficiently connected to the school environment as to implicate the School District’s recognized authority to discipline speech which “materially and substantially interfere[es] with the requirements of appropriate discipline in the operation of the school and collid[es] with the rights of others.”

There are several examples of cases where students were successful in their lawsuits against schools when the student was disciplined for off-campus behavior (see: Klein v. Smith, 1986; Emmett v. Kent School District No. 415, 2000; Layshock v. Hermitage School District, 2010; Blue Mountain School District v. J.S., 2010. In all of these cases, however, the school was incapable of demonstrating that the off-campus behavior or speech resulted in, or had a likelihood of resulting in, a substantial disruption at school. In fact, when the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the schools in Layshock and Blue Mountain, Judge Kent Jordan stated: “The issue is whether the Supreme Court’s decision in Tinker, can be applicable to off-campus speech. I believe it can, and no ruling coming out today is to the contrary.”

Finally, it is important to point out that I correspond with many of the best and brightest legal minds in the United States and many of them disagree about these issues! We are at a challenging and uncertain time (to say the least) when it comes to education in this country, and the legal ambiguity concerning a school’s authority to respond to off-campus behaviors is just one more example. But the reality, in my view, is that there is no uncertainty about this issue. Schools simply do have the authority to reasonably discipline students for any behavior (whether at school or away from school) if such behavior results in, or has a high likelihood of resulting in, a substantial or material disruption at school or if the behavior infringes on the rights of other students. So the short answer to the question posed in the title of this blog post is: YES!

But I will conclude my thoughts by asking all of you who read this to let us know if you are aware of any cases where a school was found to be liable for damages for disciplining a student for their off campus behavior which resulted in a substantial disruption at school. I am not aware of any such cases. Part of the trouble here, I think, is that examples of cases like that have not reached a court and therefore we have not received reassurance in our interpretation of the law. Most of the time schools get it right and they do not end up in court. Until more case law is established, we will continue to recommend that schools act in accordance with the cases discussed above.

Tags: cyberbullying, law, myspace, response, school, substantial disruption.
Subscribe to this blog via RSS or Email.

(9) comments