Beacon Broadside

by Mara Sapon-Shevin

When I was in middle-school, the way the “popular kids” tormented those of us who weren’t so lucky, was through something called “Slam Books.” A popular kid (it was usually a girl) would start a notebook with individual pages headed with the names of unpopular students. The book would be passed around to the other “popular” kids and they would take turns making nasty entries under the unpopular students’ names. Under Beth’s name, for example, they would write, “Ugly,” “Bad complexion,” “Stupid,” and “Slutty.”

There would be lots of snickering and giggling as the notebook was passed (not that unobstrusively) between the popular kids who were writing the nasty comments. Slam books were the source of public humiliation, and they made the lives of some of us miserable. It was never clear whether or not teachers were aware of what was going on, but I don’t remember any intervention at the time.

Now, however, we have entered the era of high technology, and the ways in which students torment one another are far more sophisticated. Cyberbullying is a growing and distressing phenomenon that has recently received extensive media attention.

According to Wikipedia (quoted Mar. 4, 2008):

Cyberbullying involves recurring or repeated harm
willfully inflicted through the medium of electronic text. In order for
it to be cyber-bullying, the intent must be to cause emotional
distress, and there must be no legitimate purpose to the communication.
Cyberbullying can be as simple as continuing to send e-mail to someone
who has said they want no further contact with the sender, but it may
also include threats,, sexual remarks, pejorative labels (i.e. hate
speech). Cyber-bullies may disclose victims’ personal data (e.g. real
name or workplace/schools) at websites or forums, or may attempt to
assume the identity of a victim for the purpose of publishing material
in their name that defames or ridicules them. Some may post victims’
photos, or victims’ edited photos like defaming captions or pasting
victims’ faces on nude bodies.

Although the resulting tension and violence is evident within the
school environment, many schools report that they are unable to respond
because this behavior happens “out of school.” Characteristics of
on-line technologies increase the boldness of cyber-bullies,
particularly the ability to remain virtually anonymous, to use
pseudonyms and to use texting rather than voice messages. Freed from
some of the normal social consequences of cruel and abusive behavior,
many people apparently find it easier to make damaging and painful
comments.

What is distressing to me is not only that new technologies are now
employed in order to hurt other people, but that other negative aspects
of modern media have found their way into classrooms and schools.

In a story one student brought to me, for example, the teacher sat the students in rows,
and each week, the students in each row voted a classmate off the row,
as in the television show Survivor. The class members voted off the row
had to sit in a separate section of the classroom labeled for
“non-community members” and were further punished by curtailed
privileges and second-class treatment by classmates and teachers.

While there is increasing concern by some about school violence,
from bullying and harassment to the spate of school shootings, it is
distressing that many people fail to see any connection between the
violence reported by the media, the violence produced by the media
(television shows that are all about exclusion, segregation, mockery
and derision) and the negative interpersonal behavior we see in our
community.

And it would be a mistake to believe that such negative
interpersonal behavior is the exclusive province of the young. There is
increased recognition of bullying in the workplace, and the use of
email and web spaces to hurt people of all ages. We seem to be becoming
a culture of increasing nastiness. I challenged my students the other
day to identify a situation comedy that showed positive sibling
relationships, for example, and they could not. They were, however,
able to cite multiple examples of mockery, competitive meanness,
derision and put-downs in the families portrayed on television.

I’m wondering what other connections people have seen between
negative media and negative student behavior and ways new technologies
have been used to hurt and damage? How do we begin discussions within
schools about how we treat one another and the far-reaching
consequences of enacting violence?  What role can the schools play in
setting limits and norms regarding inter-personal behavior, even when
those behaviors occur off school property and out of the direct
supervision of teachers and school personnel? Most importantly, what
would it take to change the increasing societal acceptance of hateful
speech at all levels?

Mara Sapon-Shevin is a professor of education at Syracuse University and the author of Widening the Circle: The Power of Inclusive Classrooms and Because We Can Change the World. She is a social justice activist working in the field of anti-racism, anti-homophobia and disability rights.