Cyberbullying

C. Assignment- A hypothetical scenario that deals with cyberbullying and my suggestions on how to solve this problem.
 * -- Scenario: ** James is frustrated and saddened by the comments his high school peers are making about his sexuality. Furthermore, it appears a group of male students are creating fake e-mail accounts at Yahoo.com and are sending love notes to other male students as if they came from James - who is mortified at the thought of what is happening.
 * My Suggestions -** Okay so there is a lot of unknowns to this scenario, for example we don’t know how “I” discover the problem but assuming that I find it out without the assistance of James I would first talk to him and see how he’s dealing with it. Then I would notify either the counselor at the school or the administration or both and get a variety of suggestions on how best to deal with this problem. It would be also important to look over the cyber-bullying website and look into the legal and policy issues to see where you land in the legal aspects. They may suggest suspension, expulsion or even pursuing criminal action as to the fraudulent behavior of the bullies, they may also suggest making James family aware. In any case I feel that it’s important to have many eyes on one problem to get a number of ideas and experiences as far as dealing with it. If James comes to me with the problem I still talk to him first but it is not me starting the conversation. During this conversation my goal would be to get him to find a positive outlet that he already has or can start to distract him from the bullies. I don’t mean to ignore the problem but rather to put it in a larger perspective so if he were to join a group in or out of school that he has an interest in and develop or strengthen relationships with people who don’t know or care what someone is saying on the internet about him.

-- This was a good way to bring the problem of cyberbullying to the forefront of my mind. Giving me the resources that will help with dealing with that problem now will help me tremendously if it ever happens to someone within my future classroom.