In the article White House Conference Tackles Bullying by Miami Hall, she refers to a quote by First lady Michelle Obama, appearing with President Obama at the day-long White House Conference on Preventing Bullying. She says, “The issue is something we care about not only as president and first lady but also as parents. It’s tough enough being a kid today, and our children deserve the chance to learn and grow without constantly being picked on, made fun of–or worse” (Hall).
Cyberbullying is a new, but very crucial topic that some people don’t take seriously enough. With the new technology we have embraced, kids tend to use it for bad purposes. Everyone knows about the new programs and sites teens use for communicating with one another such as IMing, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and Tumblr. Some kids use this new technology which is supposed to better our society, as their bullying playground. The kids who abuse these sights should be punished as severely as someone who isn’t hidden behind a computer, due to the damaging effects their actions have on kids.
The amount of kids abusing the internet and tormenting kids online is growing in numbers every day. Some of them don’t realize how hurtful cyberbullying can be. Just because you’re doing the bullying from behind a computer and you are not face to face doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt just as much. The things you say are taken just as seriously. “Research shows that bullying adversely affects children’s mental health, academic success and ability to relate to other kids. It also has lasting emotional consequences” (Hall).
Why Do Kids Bully others Kids? – Essay
Sharon A. Harris Why Do Kids Bully others Kids? Composition II Instructor: Kristina Nelson October 29, 2011 Why children bully other kids? Some reason why other kids bully other kids is because they were trained to bully born bully, are they can’t manage anger and hurt, frustration, or other strong emotions. To me children that are aggressive are bullies. Either they have seen violence and ...
This is a quote by Mary Wakefield, who runs the Health Resources and Services Administration at the Department of Health and Human Services in the article White house Conference tackles Bullying by Miami Hall. As Mary Wakefield said, bullying affects not only their mental health, but their academic success. Because of this bullying it makes kids constantly scared in school. They can’t pay attention in class which causes their grades to drop.
“In an age where cyberbullying is blamed for bad grades, poor attendance and even suicide, some say the law is long overdue. They say it is far more onerous than schoolyard bullying because the bullying sweeps across the school community with the tap of a computer key—reaching victims even in their bedrooms” (Lambeck).
With regular bullying before computers it was limited to just school, now their harassers are wherever they go. And since these bullies don’t have to do it to their face and see their reaction they are even more comfortable saying horrible things. Everyone in the school can know a rumor about someone in a matter of seconds. Because the bullying isn’t taking place at the school it is difficult to punish kids for it, but it does affect their learning abilities, which is even harder to prove. In Connecticut Trumbull High School is a school where cyber bullying is taken very seriously. They have an Anti-Defamation League to train students to stop bullying due to the new state law that was passed to put a stop to not just bullying, but cyberbullying as well. Connecticut is the eighth state in the nation to do this (Lambeck).
In the article New Cyberbullying law Forces Schools to Intervene by Linda Conner she refers to a quote by Susan Smith, director of social work for the Bridgeport Public School System. She says, “The law places additional responsibilities on schools, but will ultimately benefit students” (Lambeck).
Teachers already have an overwhelming amount of work to do to teach their students, but it is also their job to make sure their students get the best possible education they can under their teaching. With this cyberbullying going on kids can’t learn to their full potential. So if they find out about any type of online bullying it is their job to report it and try their best to terminate it. As the case of Tinker v Des Moines concluded, Kids can be punished if their outside of school actions interfere with the learning of students.
The Term Paper on School Bullying 2
Bullying is the use of force or coercion to abuse or intimidate others. The behavior can be habitual and involve an imbalance of social or physical power. It can include verbal harassment or threat, physical assault or coercion and may be directed repeatedly towards particular victims, perhaps on grounds of race, religion, gender, sexuality, or ability.[2][3] The victim of bullying is sometimes ...
In Massachusetts a 15 year old hung herself due to harassment and bullying that the school knew about but did not prevent. Phoebe Prince was harassed and ended up hanging herself after months of being taunted on Facebook and other cyberbullying ways (Lavoie).
On September 18th Jamey Rodemeyer, a 14 year old student in Buffalo, committed due to online taunting on Facebook and FormSpring due mainly to his sexual orientation (Tan).
Cyberbullying is not only causing emotional stress and school phobias for students who fear powerless to stop this online bullying, but it is also causing deaths. As you can see, Cyberbullying is having a great toll on the teenagers among us. Some states have passed laws to make Cyberbullying punishable. Should it be mandatory for every state to do the same?
On the other side, many people believe that to interfere with what happens on the internet is over the top and an invasion of their rights of free speech. In the article New Cyberbullying Law Forces Schools to Intervene by Linda Connor Lambeck, she refers to a quote by Sandra Staub, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut. She said, “The law may be too vague and broad to be consistent with the First Amendment clause guaranteeing free speech. The new law has language that may enhance the ability of schools to deal with harassment, but she is concerned school officials will be compelled to prohibit speech that causes “emotional harm,” regardless of whether it creates a hostile environment at school. If the law requires schools to discipline students based on what they say, it may be at odds with the First Amendment, she said” (Lambeck).
Staub believes that this new law in Connecticut is violating their free speech rights. Korene Garcia, a Bridgeport parents states, “These are children developing ideas and not always understanding consequences of their action” (Lambeck).
The Term Paper on Legal Issues Related to the New Laws Banning Internet Gambling
HISTORY OF LAWS TARGETING GAMBLING United States Regulations During the United States’ history, there have been many attempts to regulate gambling, however, in the early 1960’s a series of laws were enacted to combat ever increasing organized crime activity and racketeering. In 1961, Congress enacted the Wire Act as part of a series of antiracketeering laws. The Wire Act was intended to assist the ...
Everyone knows that in school you have fewer rights than you do out on the street.
The principle doesn’t need probable cause to search you like cops due on the street. Your freedom of speech is also limited on school grounds. Parents are afraid how this new law is giving schools not just the power to limit their rights in school, but outside as well. An eight-grader in Beverly Hills was called a number of inappropriate and mean things on the internet and the school suspended the girls who were doing it. U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson wrote, “Punishing the student for behavior outside the school was illegal. Without any evidence that such speech caused a substantial disruption of the school’s activities” (Mean Kids, Online).
A Pennsylvania student was also suspended for having a fake MySpace account of his principle calling him a “big whore” and other things. A U.S. district judge lifted the suspension saying that the material was undisruptive in school (Mean Kids, Online).
In some peoples opinion, the school should not be able to interfere with bullying that goes on at home, and their children should not be penalized.
A Cyberbullying Legislation was passed On January 1, 2009, formally known as California AB 86 Assembly Bill. “The new law gives schools authority to suspend or expel students for bullying students over the Internet, in text-messaging or by other electronic means. Assembly Bill 86 adds cyberbullying to school disciplinary codes that previously defined bullying only in terms of direct physical or verbal harassment” (Wikipedia).
The authorities are also allowed to get involved depending upon what the bullying consists of. The supporters are American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees California Teachers Association. The bill being passed only positively affects the kids of California, who will now feel safer in school knowing that their cyber bullies can be put to a stop.
Cyberbullying is an ongoing crucial problem that is torturing kids and should be addressed. The kids who are doing it deserve to be punished by the school and to the fullest of the law if necessary. A majority of kids in high school have internet phones such as the BlackBerry or I phone where they can go on internet sites even at school and harass people. Even though it is limiting their freedom of speech, it is causing kids to do worse in school, so it is affecting their learning ability. The government should be passing laws to not only encourage the districts to handle the issue of cyberbullying in their own way, but make it mandatory for them to do something about it. Not doing anything about cyberbullying is only encouraging kids to do it more and more. Putting horrible false information on the internet that everyone can get to with the click of a button is even worse than bullying in school because everyone knows about it so fast.
The Research paper on Taking Middle School Kids Back to the Adventurous World of Literature
The problem is that middle school students in Texas do not practice leisure reading creating a deficit in their reading skills as measured by the National Center for Education Statistics. Texas students showed an upsetting lack of improvement in reading on the Nation’s Report Card. In 2011, the average score of eighth-grade students in Texas was 261. This was lower than the average score of 264 ...
“Unlike traditional bullying, experts point out that cyberbullying can be a 24-hour experience that offers targets no respite. The perceived anonymity of the internet can encourage bullying behavior. And the ability to spread malicious or humiliating information quickly through words and images and to gang up on a victim is almost limitless” (Tan).
Freedom of speech outside of school is fine, but when they’re doing it on sites where everyone in their school can see it in a matter of seconds and when they can even get it on their phone when they’re in school is a different story. Just think of the tragic stories of Jamie, Phoebe, and hundreds of other kids in the country, and tell me what you think the right answer is to this bullying problem. Once information is out on the internet, you can never get it back.