Can students cyberbully teachers?
Sunday, October 25, 2009 at 08:16AM 
Twice over the past month or so, I've heard reference to teachers being "the victims of cyberbullying," specifically in regard to comments on the Rate My Teacher site.
Most recently, Dr. Micheal Carr-Greg from Melbourne, as part of a very compelling and balanced keynote on CyberSafety at the Tech-It-Up Conference in Kamloops, BC., spoke of instances in which online comments made by students were so distressing to teachers that they suffered such emotional distress that they needed to take professional leave.
I have a couple questions about using the term "bullying" to describe such circumstances.
First, my personal understanding of bullying assumes that their is an element of the strong preying on the weak. The big guy picking on the little guy. In traditional educational settings, the "big guy" is the teacher; the "little guy" is the student. While we can and should call out libelous or threatening actions by students toward teachers, I just wonder semantically if "bullying" is the right word? Are we in using the term too broadly, lessening its overall impact?
Second, I am not sure how inappropriate sites like "Rate My Teacher" actually are. Do we not use online tools to anonymously "rate" just about everything else - from hotels to movies to physicians? Are there any such sites that don't get their fair share of disgruntled wack-jobs (pardon the technical language) with wildly outlying assessments? If there was a "Rate My Technology Director" website I might feel differently, but were I a classroom teacher today, might I think about using such sites as impetus for changing my classroom practice? I know I value the comments - especially the critical ones - about my speaking and writing, and I do my best to use them to improve my work. (See Constructive Criticism.) Of course, no one has (yet) threatened bodily harm because of a bad keynote address.
Just a few idle thoughts this early Sunday morning, waiting for a flight home...
Reader Comments (9)
Once again, a thought provoking post.
I agree that the word bullying is in danger of becoming QUITE overused and would not use cyberbullying to describe what students are doing to teachers when they give them a poor rating on Rate My Teacher.
If a student hand writes a note with an accurate character drawing of a specific teacher and the speech bubble says, "Blah, blah, blah." and the caption underneath says, "Mrs. Smith is so boring; all she does is talk", is that an example of bullying? I don't think so. So why, when the same message becomes electronic, does it become bullying?
If the student then adds a polling section to their handwritten note, and says, check here if you agree, or add an x if you disagree, does it then become bullying? I still don't think so.
Making information available electronically doesn't change the act. It makes it EASIER to disseminate the information so more people see it, but I'm not clear how it changes the act from one of libel to one of bullying. When I first started teaching twenty plus years ago, a student wrote a note about a teacher who was not very popular that got passed around the school, and by the time it was confiscated, it had been viewed by the entire grade, and students had added their check or cross to whether the teacher was boring. No one would have considered that bullying. Which leads to a great question:At what point do the actions of a student become bullying? CAN a student cyberbully a teacher? The thought of cruel online comments leading to a teacher needing a stress leave is a disturbing one, but again, how does it differ from a cruel comment written on a piece of paper and taped to a locker or written on a washroom wall? Is it bullying? How much power are you going to give the student, usually an anonymous one who writes a cruel note about you?
Sometimes I've heard our guidance counselor advise a student to "ignore" the bully. What would happen if teachers NEVER visited the rate my teacher site, and thus were never aware of their ratings?
Do teachers object to the site if their ratings are positive ones?
Thanks again Doug, for getting my mind going. I have no answers at this point, just questions.
Janice
I think students can certainly harass a teacher (online and off), though I agree that bullying is perhaps not the right term.
However, I think one factor that *can* be a huge stress that's different than, say, a note taped to their door, is that if it's online, it may also affect the teacher's further professional career, or they may fear it will do so. For example, if a teacher has a short-term contract, they may be worried that nasty comments that are online may show up in searches a future potential employer does about them. Whether or not it's true, or whether or not the future searcher would take them seriously (I'd hope most administrators wouldn't), that's still more nervewrackingly public than something that's contained to one school.
There are also issues of students doing things like creating an impersonation account on a site, and posting things that (were they actually said by the teacher - deeply racist or other bigotted statements, for example - would be grounds for being fired.) Sorting that out can be messy, and leave a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths who only hear snatches of the situation, or just remember "There was something about that teacher and really nasty comments" without remembering that the teacher was not actually the one making them. Those things can have a long-term effect both on the teacher's confidence with a class, and with long-term effectiveness in a particular community, though they're impossible to measure, I suspect.
On the rating sites, I think it depends on what they rate. If it's asking (as RateMyTeacher) does about helpfulness and clarity, that's cool - that's useful things for a teacher to know. If it's like, say RateMyProfessor.com, which includes a ranking for 'hotness' (in the appearance/sexual sense), that's not so appropriate. I'm also very ambivalent about 'easiness' as a ranking, which occurs on both the above - I get that it's something a (perhaps sizeable) percentage of students want to know, but I'm not sure if it's actually even helpful to them.
Impersonation accounts are very distressing and do amount to bullying in my opinion. Students at my school opened an impersonation account on Twitter and send extremely nasty messages purporting to come from me. It got so bad that I felt nervous in school as it was impossible to trace who was behind this. So, yes, I did feel bullied because I felt intimidated and worried about my actions and whether this would make the situation worse. This is why I am anonymous on this post too!
Great post Doug. I agree with you on the use of the term "cyberbullying" which unfortunately is the term I have been using in my materials. I actually prefer the term "electronic aggression." You also picked up on the differential in power issue. One thing the research in cyberbullying is showing is that a significant number of instances of cyberbullying are in retaliation for real world bullying. If you are trying to achieve some level of power over someone who is tormenting you at school, it is certainly easier to do so online. This is why it is really important not to immediately think that person who has posted hurtful material online is the source of the problem.
Which brings me to a hard subject. Sometimes school staff ARE the bullies. And sometimes what students are posting online is in response to the fact that they are being bullied by the staff member they have targeted online. Now you might respond, "show us the proof." Well, in some cases, the material being posted online IS the proof - that is, students are capturing evidence of staff mistreatment of students and they are posting it.
What I say in my cyberbullying presentations is that students who are happy and successful in school are not posting cruel material online directed at school staff. Something is going on in this young person's life that is causing him or her to lash out at others. If you want to bring this young person to a point of feeling remorse and becoming better attached to the school community and being a success, it is best to view this material as a very poorly executed cry for help - because more often than not, that is exactly what it is.
Oh, and the legal issue. School officials can impose discipline in response to off-campus student speech if that speech has or could cause a substantial disruption at school or interference with a student's right to feel secure. These kinds of situations generally have involved the potential of violent altercations between students, a hostile environment for a student, or substantial disruption of school operations/instruction. To discipline a student for targeting a school staff member, the school will likely need to be able to demonstrate substantial disruption of school operations/instruction. Not impossible. But significant disapproval of a student's significantly outrageous language/actions is insufficient.
I will soon be releasing a narrated sides presentation on cyberbullying for educators.
Great thoughts, Doug, as well as wonderful comments from all. Rate my Teacher could be a useful tool for educators to evaluate themselves IF all of the comments were actually from students. Clearly you know when comments are posted by kids - "She's booorrrring. 2 much homwork." THAT you can use as constructive criticism and examine your practices. But when remarks become clearly personal and attacking, that is when it becomes very stressful because your attacker is unknown. A few of my colleagues and myself have been the victims of comments posted by "wack-jobs" that were clearly not written by kids due to the nature of the post.
So, yes, Nancy you are right when you write "staff ARE the bullies." and not just to kids.
This is the first time I have heard about students cyber-bulling teachers, although now that I think about it it probably happens often due to easy access. Students have access to all sorts of online programs and are able to create accounts of all sorts. I don't know if I would call it cyber-bullying as much as I would a total lack of respect. I understand that a teacher's feelings may get hurt, but my biggest concern is the impact false imformation could have on the reputation of the teacher in the community.
Hi Janice,
And your questions are good one. I have always thought it intriguing that we have always treated behaviors differently when done online that the same behaviors done in the real world. So much of that has to do with adult comfort levels and understandings, I believe.
All the best and thanks as always for the thoughtful comments,
Doug
Hi Jennifer,
Your observation about electronic "dirt" being both easier to spread and more permanent is a valid reason for teacher concern. Your comments made me think about Dov Seidman's book "How." That reputation will be "everything" in an increasingly transparent world.
Thanks for your observations,
Doug
Anonymous,
Like I mentioned in the post, had some of these actions been perpetrated against me, I might feel differently. I hope your non-online reputation helps you in this. It's been going on for a while. See:
http://www.doug-johnson.com/dougwri/mischief-and-mayhem.html
Doug
Hi Nancy,
As always your comments make so much sense! Thanks for sharing them here. I especially think the observation that "students who are happy and successful in school are not posting cruel material online directed at school staff. " That should be a reminder to all of us in education.
Look forward to your presentation. Let me know when it comes out and I will post about it!
Doug
Students should learn that they should rate their teachers regarding what they have learnt from them and knowledge that they have gained.
Cyberbullying has been around for as long as I can remember.CyberBullying I agree it is very detrimental and hopefully it will be stopped but as to how, im not to sure.