“Courage is fire, and bullying is smoke.” –Benjamin Disraeli (British Prime Minister and Novelist. 1804-1881)

One of the ongoing challenges amongst leaders in education is preventing and managing cyberbullying. This has been an issue for me through my entire (although short) career, and continues to be to this day. As a matter of fact, the first bullying situation I ever had to work with was cyberbullying, and it remains to be the most challenging.

Several school districts, including Lindenwold, have policies that address bullying. In the past, school districts mostly dealt with incidents of bullying that occurred in the school. Now, with increased access to technology, school districts, including ours, have policies that allow us to address any situation, in or out of school, that can disrupt a students learning, including all forms of bullying and harassment.

So, yes, it's a huge step that we have actions that we can take when someone is being cyberbullies, but how do we prevent it? This has been racking my brain for years. I have seen so many students hurt by posts that people have put on their Myspace pages. More than once, I've seen fake Myspace pages made for students with the sole purpose of publishing false information about the person, or to manipulate another. Many are done with no purpose but to completely embarrass someone.

Why is this so pervasive? Because you can be anonymous. Isn't it ironic that one can publicly humiliate someone while hiding behind their computer? It's really hard to accuse someone of cyberbullying, and, often times, the incident is left unresolved, and the victim is left embarrassed.

So what can I do? As educators, we try our best to teach students core values and ethics within the confines of our profession. We try to teach students how they must treat others in order to be successful and productive citizens. We have special mediation and conflict resolution programs for people to talk with each other. We have highly skilled counselors ready and willing to help resolve any conflict at any time. We block certain websites, we put policy in place, we focus on instruction, and we never ignore bullying. But is this enough?

got me workin' day and night

Recently, two of my best friends, who also happen to be my colleagues, were honored as Hometown Heros.  Now, between you, me, and the rest of the interweb, I am very proud of them.  Being so close to two people that are seen in such an honorable light, in turn, makes me feel honored.  

The dream of everyone who honorably enters any profession hopefully is to make a positive, and hopefully memorable impact in that field.  Whether is saving lives, the planet, or a ruined hollandaise, we all want to leave that profession knowing that we haven't spent the past 30 or more years working in vain.  To be  acknowledged by the students you've motivated, inspired, and/or hopefully educated is one form of that blessing.  Although these two educators are confident in front of a classroom full of students, they are very humble women in constant search of better and more effective ways of reaching their students and staff.  

 As I relentlessly, and often painfully, watch students move through and beyond high school, I pray that they all find that profession that makes them stay up late at night, work on weekends, and talk about it in their spare time. If in 5 years, I have former student stop by and tell me about their first out of college job with excitement, invigoration, and exhaustion, that will be my bonus.