Who's Job Is It?

Parry received a letter after being quoted in an article in Parade magazine. She Cc.ed me and I had to add my own response. Here's the letter and my response.

Dear Parry,

As a school district technology coordinator, I was disappointed in the misguided advice you present related to the Facebook bullying scenario. While we go to great lengths to educate our students on cyber-bullying, what happens on Facebook does not fall under the coverage of school policies. Obviously, if a page is brought to a teacher or administrator's attention, it will be dealt with appropriately, meaning the parents will be contacted. But expecting schools to police what all of their students do outside of the buildings on their own devices is not reasonable or legal. Would you ask a teacher to intervene in a fight between two neighborhood children that happens at 7:00 at night? Of course not. Unless the bullying happens at school, on school computers or causes a disruption in the educational process, the parents, or police, should be handling this. Your advice is unfortunate because it is another example of basic parental responsibilities being shifted to the school's (already full) list of duties.

Sincerely,
John Doe (Name changed by me)

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Dear John,

I’ve been an educator for 35 years. I first came across cyberbullying in 1981. No, I’m not crazy. I know the Internet wasn’t even around then, but dial up computer bulletin board systems were, and our school had the state’s first school sponsored BBS. I’ve learned quite a bit since then. One of the things I learned is that kids who are being bullied online are usually also being bullied in school. I’ve also learned that teachers and administrators can’t police students anywhere near as effectively as students can.

I don’t think Parry expects schools to police Facebook, but the fact of the matter is that if an incident on Facebook is brought to the attention of the school, it is probably for good reason. I would be willing to bet my pay check that the bullying that is taking place there, is just an off shoot of bullying that takes place in school.

You ask if we would expect a teacher to intervene between two neighborhood kids who have a fight outside of school at 7:00 at night. Well, the obvious answer is, of course not, but there is also a not so obvious answer. I would expect the teacher to intervene if they had knowledge during the school day that the fight would take place. How about, if the fight at 7:00 were to continue or escalate during school time the next day?

There is an alarming practice that is starting to show up more and more in schools. It is gang related instigation of fights. Gangs will use cyberbullying tactics to instigate fights between students. These incident are usually initiated online and designed to create a fight that takes place in school where there is an audience.

The simple fact is that there is almost ALWAYS an in-school component to cyberbullying. While no one expects schools to police Facebook (heck, Facebook has a hard enough time doing that), it isn’t unreasonable to expect schools to look into incidents that are reported to them, because they probably do have an in school component. Whether or not they meet the legal test for action, is something that has to be considered carefully before any punitive action is taken. However, even if substantial disruption is likely, punitive action isn’t necessarily the best course of action. Each case has to be judged on its own merits.

The landscape is changing rapidly and the distinction between in-school and out-of-school is being blurred. Policing and punishing is never an acceptable substitute for education and empowering students to do the right thing.

The school district in which I taught was called Southern Regional. In 1998, three students created a website called SouthernRegionalSucks.com . It was done outside of school, with their own computers. It quickly because popular. There was actually some decent parody, but some of the forums were ugly and hateful. It was obvious that we could make a case for substantial disruption and take action, but that wasn’t my recommendation. I simply asked that they administration allow me to see what I could do.

What I did was engage the students in dialog right on their own site. I offered to find them a teacher sponsor to help them develop quality parody. I gave constructive criticism on the sites layout and design. I pointed out typos and spelling errors. I was teaching Internet Basics and my approach was to develop civic responsibility and empower students to make a difference in their world. As part of the class, we visited the site and discussed it. Some of my students added to the parodies and others stuck up for those who were being bullied. By not reacting the way the students expected and by making their attempt at disruption, a part of the mainstream, interest in the site died within two weeks and the site disappeared entirely not much later.

We developed a school community that was based on dialog, education, and youth empowerment. The positives that came out of that were nothing short of amazing. Of course there were cases where punishment was necessary. One student was arrested for credit card fraud and we even had a cyberbullying incident that involved a visit from the Secret Service, but we found those incidents few and far between. For the most part, we empowered students to make a difference and taught them the power of positive online social action.

Oh, incidentally, the visit from the Secret Service was prompted by action a student took online from his own computer at night and didn’t even involve another student in our school. He was attempting to use cyberbullying by proxy to bully a student in another school.

If we wait until there is substantial disruption to act, we are forever in reactionary mode. We need to be proactive. We have to educate, model good online citizenship, promote positive online social activities, and empower students to take responsibility for making their online and off-line world a better place.

Best Regards,
Art

Empowering Youth to Make a Difference

Since 1995, WiredSafety has been empowering youth to make a difference. The Teenangels program trains teens over a two year period to become experts in cybersafety. They do original research and make presentations to schools, community, media, and industry to educate and inform. Last night at Dean College in Franklin, MA, the program took it’s next logical step with the help of WiredSafety Teenangel Mentors, Lisa Keohane, Sharon Jackson, and Linda Rondeau.

In early days of Teenangels, the teens received face to face training from Parry Aftab, local law enforcement, the FBI and industry experts, but that model wasn’t scalable and a few years ago we added Moodle as a way of providing lessons and resources to the growing chapters.

Teens learned about Cyberbullying, Social Networking, Sexual Predators, Netiquette, Privacy and Security, Cyberlaw, and how to present to others. With input from mentors and teens the program improved and grew and in 2009, Lisa Keohane, a parent and technology instructor from Dean College, after getting support from principals, administrators and the Franklin Community Health Council came to Parry with the idea of a community-wide chapter of Teenangels that spanned all of the schools in the district.

The chapter grew and a significant number of other students expressed a desire to become part of the program, but the two year commitment to training and research was not something that all the students could do. In order to accommodate these students, a new Moodle was created with condensed training and the first chapter of WiredTeens was formed.

Last night the 17 Teenangels collaborated with 65 WiredTeens to conduct a Town Meeting on the topic of Cyberbullying. The two hour program was written and conducted almost entirely by the teens.

Teenangel Booke, began the program with the welcome, some background on the Teenangels and an overview of resources on the tables, which included instructions on how to log into the college network and access resource they has placed on the taskforce web site. Many of the documents were at the Franklin Cyberbullying Taskforce site.

Next Kate introduced MA Legislature Majority Leader Representative, James Vallee, who has been a long time child advocate and supporter of Massachusetts Cyberbullying legislagtion, and Parry Aftab, founder of WiredSafety.

From there, it was time for the teens to do their thing. Allie and Maddie gave the audience an overview of cyberbullying and then quizzed the adults to make sure they understood the definition.

Tara, Eric, and Justin presents the stories of cyberbullying victims in the news, including Ally Pfeiffer, who made news this week, but tracking down and assisting law enforcement officials in identifying and arresting teens who had been cyberbullying her. Ally will be working with the teens in the coming weeks to help promote WiredSafety’s Don’t Stand By, Stand Up campaign.



They sold white bracelets with the slogan engraved in it. They then told the audience that each time they do something to stop or prevent bullying, they should color in a letter.

Students from the Annie Sullivan Middle School chapter of WiredTeens presented a series of skits they wrote about cyberbullying and how to deal with it.

Then Laura and Natalie presented an overview of the technology used by cyberbullies and the ways they use them.

Though WiredTeens don’t do in depth research project, the teens from Remington Middle School conducted a technology survey. Particularly interesting was the differences in texting between grades 6 and 8. Eight percent of 6th graders sent 100+ texts per day, but 32% of 8th graders sent 100+ messages and 60%

Probably the most interesting statistic came from the Franklin Teenangels survey of 730 middle school students in reply to the question, If someone asked you in person if you had been cyberbullied, would you be honest? While 45% said yes, about 6% said they weren’t sure, 9% said no and 40% said it depends on who was asking.

After the teen presentations there was a Q&A where the audience asked questions of the teens and Parry. The night ended with a challenge to the audience to help them in planning and funding their next goal. They want to rent a bus and spend a week traveling around the state making presentations to schools and communities.

For me, the most important comment was made during the preprogram preparation where Parry asked the teens the most interesting or exciting thing they learned or did since starting Teenangels. Of course many of the pointed to their presentation at the Summit in DC, but they all agreed with Brooke when she said she was amazed that they could really make a difference and help stop cyberbullying.

That’s empowerment!

NH Proposes Amending Law to Include Cyberbullying

This is one of those posts where I have to point out that I'm not an attorney, nor do I play one on TV, but it's not going to stop me from putting my opinion out there.

NH House Bill 1523 is designed to provide schools with clout to enforce the state's Public Safety and Violence Prevention Act.

It adds definitions for bullying and cyberbullying and requires schools to set policies and procedures for dealing with it. It also mandates training for staff and the involvement of pupils, parents, administrators, school staff, school volunteers, community representatives, and local law enforcement agencies in the process of developing the policy.

Overall, I think the law will do a good job of addressing the issue. There are some provisions that I really like, and two items that cause me a bit concern.

Having community involvement in the development of policy is an good idea and the inclusion of students in the process even better.

I also love the idea that the law puts the emphasis on staff training, rather than requiring specific curriculum. My stance on this is well documented. Cybersafety and cyberbullying are part of online citizenship which should be naturally infused throughout the cults schools that do what they should be doing, but doesn't prevent parents from suing if policy and procedures are not followed. To many schools make a show of creating policy and then ignore them.

The first thing that concerns me is the requirement of the schools to report incidents to the state. This wouldn't be a bad idea if the state was providing resources, training, and funds to help support the goals of the law, but with out that, it is nothing but additional paperwork and liability placed on already overburdened school.

The next thing gives me concern is the definition that includes a one time incident. It appears to be to be an attempt to deal with incidents like the Megan Meier case, but this will become a rallying point for free speech advocates and possibly a basis for a Constitutional challenge.

Leaving it out wouldn't preclude acting against a single incident. I think the law has enough in it to allow following up on that kind of case. While excluding it wouldn't preclude following up on a single incident that is severe enough, it lessens the likelihood of abusing the law and raising the wrath of free speech organizations.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Education and legislation go hand in hand. One must inform and help the other.

Al Capone and Internet Safety

I'm sure you are all aware of the suicide of 13 year-old Megan Meier, a St. Louis teen who thought she was talking to a 16 year-old boy who was actually an adult neighbor.

Today, the U.S. Attorney in Los Angeles announced a four count indictment against, Lori Drew, the adult accused of being instrumental in Megan's death.

I think this is an extremely interesting case for many reasons. If you look closer at the indictment, you realize that there were no cyberbullying or harassment laws in place that could be used to get justice in this case. The US Attorney had to get creative and took a page from the Al Capone prosecution book. While there were laws against what Capone was doing, no one could get the goods on him for murder or other heinous crimes. However, they were able to put him away for tax evasion.

What has happened in the Megan Meier case is that the US Attorney has applied laws that are typically aimed at hackers and used the MySpace Terms of Service as a key portion of the issue. I am sure that this will catch the attention of the ACLU and EEF and you will be hearing charges that this prosecution is too broad and may be leading us down a slippery slope.

I seriously doubt that anyone will be prosecuted for minor violations of TOS as they might suggest. The US Attorney took great pains to emphasize that the decision here was made on the merits of this particular case. It was the death allegedly as a result of the actions of an adult online. That indeed is a serious case and anyone thinking that the US Attorney would be going after someone for anything minor is either delusional or paranoid.

Cudos to the US Attorney for seeking justice for Megan.

Take 5... or is it Take 82,000?

It seems as if every time you turn on the TV there is a news story about teenagers in trouble because of their online behavior. Everyone is scratching their heads wondering why and wondering what can be done. In part, that will be the topic of an upcoming episode of "Real Talk" with Brenda Blackmon on WOR-TV, My9.

Today, Ryan, one of our Tweenangels and I taped a segment for that show, but this entry is only peripherally about us. Ryan talked about advice that we give teens and tweens who encounter cyberbullying. We tell them to Stop, Block, and Tell and Take 5! Stop what you are doing and don't respond. Block the bully. Tell a trusted adult and then Take 5. Walk away from the computer and do something you love for five minutes.

While this is good advice, Morgan Simone, the teen who taped the next segment seems to have taken the Take 5 concept to heart and then some. As many youngster do, she had bully problems, but she also had good friends to help balance things out. That all changed when she moved away. As the new kid in school she was without friends and the subject of constant attacks.


Rather than lash out or attack back, this amazing 15 year-old didn't take five minutes. She took her experiences, her feelings and her insight poured out 82,000, words that became "I'm Still Here", a novel for other teens.

The title is testament to her spirit and subject of her dedication, that along with the book, seeks to instill hope in others who suffer as she did. She dedicates the book to those who felt as if they were not good enough, not beautiful enough, and just not accepted, because you can still proudly say "I'm Still Here."

With all the negativity in the world, I look at youngsters like our Teenangels, Tweenangels like Ryan, and other exceptional youngsters like Morgan, and realize that with future leaders such as these, there is hope.

Oh, and while I don't have a signed first edition Hemingway, I do have a signed first edition, Morgan Simone, and it may be worth just as much some day.

The Megan Pledge - An Anti-Cyberbullying Campaign

A few weeks ago I gave you a peek behind the scenes of the 8th Annual Wired Kids Summit. Today, I'm here to tell you about the major focus of the Summit. The suicide of Megan Meier that took place after a cyberbullying incident brought national attention to the problem that is running rampant with teens. A Tweenangel chapter in New Rochelle, NY has done something about it and we would like to turn it into a national campaign.

The tweens have initiated the Megan Pledge, a three part campaign to help stop cyberbullying. There are three parts of The Megan Pledge, a signed individual pledge, a group banner and a black and white polka-dot ribbons to wear and share. The pledge itself contains both statements and a set of promises. It is signed and witnessed and given to WiredSafety’s Megan Pledge volunteer team and sent back to WiredSafety where the pledges will be recorded and entered in a data base with the objective of getting one million signatures by the end of the year.

At the Wired Kids Summit, Tina Meier, Megan's mother and Deputy Director of the Megan Pledge campaign, presented the program along with tweens from the Ridgewood chapter.

A dedicated web site is being created and when it is announced, it will be with the endorsement and help of Facebook, Xanga, and Tagged, with others to follow as arrangements are completed. The site will have all the necessary information and resources to get a program started in your school. Watch for that in the coming weeks. However, there is no need to wait. If you would like to get a Megan Pledge campaign started in your school, just email me at awolinsky@3dwriting.com and I'll email you a starter kit.

Help fight cyberbullying. Be one in a million!

I Just Got Beat Up!

IMVU is an avatar world/3D Chat/Social Network. I wrote about it a little after it was out of beta and had some serious concerns. I hadn't been back there since those early days and after reading an article about it, I decided to go back and check it out. There have been some changes for the better, but if my first trip back is any indication not a lot has changed.

If you click on Chat Now, you are randomly paired with another avatar. I found myself in the room with someone who opened with, "hey". I clicked on his home page and saw that he was a 20 year-old for TX.

I said, "hi, this is my first chat." Not exactly true, but I had forgotten so much about the interface since I was last there, it was like my first chat. His response was to walk up to me and begin beating me up! I said, "ouch?" and he said nothing. I followed with, "beating up on an old man?" (I'm assuming he visited my homepage and saw my age.) Still no reply, but he did walk up to me and tweak my ear. Again I tried to talk to him and asked, "what's with the bullying?" He left.

Actually, for me it was pretty funny to watch. I had absolutely NO idea how he got his avatar to do what it did and had no way of responding in kind, not that I would have. I can imagine what happens when two like minded immature individuals end up in the same room. Can you say, trouble?

My original concern has been answered by a change in their policy. Back then, you could search for anyone of any age. Now you can't search under for anyone under 18, but it wasn't the ability to search for teens that concerned me.

I sat down one day and searched state by state for anyone between 14 and 17 who was online at the time. Two things concerned me. First I was alarmed at the number of teens who were online during a time that they clearly should have been in school, (and probably were in school). But even that wasn't my real concern.

When you register, you have the word Guest tacked in front of your avatar's name. If you supplied credit card information and purchased your avatar, the Guest designation was removed. If I was gullible, I would have been shocked at the number of 13-17 year-olds that had given credit card information. Of course, some gave the information with the blessing of parents, some probably gave daddy's card information without permission, but my skepticism led me to believe that a significant number of the 13-17 year-olds were considerably older. The predator potential was significant.

When I first signed up, I thought the technology and concept was cool and kids would gravitate to it. I had concerns and I still have concerns. I'm not exactly a big fan of IMVU at this point, but I'll reserve further judgment until I spend more time there.

Harvard, tech firms seek to create safety Net

It's a big step in the right direction, but regardless of what this task force accomplishes, it will only be a part of the solution. Without education and increased parental involvement, children will remain at risk.

Swim Team on Porn Site

Photos of members of an Orange County, CA water polo team have found their way to some gay porn sites, much to the alarm of students, parents, and school officials. A quick Google search will yield dozen of hits to give the details.

The article on the KNBC web site indicates that "police confirmed they are investigating whether a dispatcher, Scott Cornelius, photographed high school players for gay-oriented sites. Cornelius was granted a photo credential to the 2007 Junior World Water Polo Championships at Los Alamitos last summer"

Based on that snippet alone, you can be sure we will be hearing more about this. While those pictures may turn out to be attributed to the dispatcher is irrelevant. Once ANY picture is posted to ANY web site, for all intents and purposes the poster risks losing control of the picture. Anyone can grab it and do with it as they wish. As illustrated by my Ditherhead story and accented by this story, any picture can take on a life of its own with unpredictable results.

The simple fact is that nothing will prevent predators, creeps, and perverts from doing what they do. This sort of tragedy is bound to happen regardless of what we do, but parents and children need to be wary of what they post so as to not become unwitting accomplices to the twisted minds that do this sort of thing.

How we go about accomplishing this is not a simple matter. If I had a magic wand, every school would have a course on cybercivics where students would learn safe, responsible netizenship. But I'm not Harry Potter and even if I could magically conjure up the courses, we would still need knowledgeable teachers who are capable of understanding the online world of the teens. There are precious few of them right now and until today's teens become tomorrow's teachers, the numbers will be woefully insufficient to meet the challenge.

One thing we can do is to get kids talking to kids. That's what WiredSafety's Teenangels are doing. I'll talk more about them in the future. Until then, talk to your kids about incidents like this and have them take a look at my lesson titles Put Your Best Foot Forward.