I had been reading Totally
Wired: What Teens and Tweens Are Really Doing Online by Anastasia Goodstein
when I was sent an e-mail about a seminar that was going to be given by a
police officer on cyberbullying. I had
been to a seminar given by this same officer a couple of years ago and had
decided that I wasn’t going to go.
After reading the chapter on cyberbullying in the book, I
decided that I would go to hear what he had to say. Things are different now then they were just
a couple of years ago and it seems that teens and tweens have a lot more ways
to access the digital world now then they did then. He talked about how kids were using tweets
and posting pictures to photo sharing sites in addition to the other social
networking sites that were popular with them a couple of years ago.
Both the book and the police officer gave examples of real
world situations—some were about empowerment and some were very sad.
The officer said that cyberbullying was not just a juvenile
problem but also a community problem. He
talked about monitoring mobile devices, computers, and connected gaming
consoles. Since libraries are part of
the community and often offer these devises for check out or use in the library,
I looked at a few public library internet/computer use policies and found them
to be similar library to library.
I did an article search and found a couple of interesting
articles in the Young Adult Library
Services Journal. “Stick, Stones,
and Words Can Hurt You: Antibullying
Resources” by Madelene Barand offers a list of books, fiction and non-fiction,
for teens and adults as well as a list of online resources. The officer talked about using stories such
as Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer as
an example of bullying, a story well known to all kids. “Cyberbullying and Teens What YA Librarians
Can Do to Help” offers information about who the bullies are, who their victims
and what YA librarians can do to help.
There is also a list of resources and information about reporting cyberbullying.
I’m interested in it, I am sad about it, and soon I will be
dancing about it. Some of the schools in
the area are bringing in a group to have an assembly for middle schoolers about
bullying and cyberbullying. My
principal asked if I would be willing to be in one of the skits, a hip-hop
style dance, and I agreed. I apparently
have a 75-minute rehearsal to attend that morning—I am part of the
community. We’ll see how it goes.
Agosto,
D. E., Forte, A., & Magee, R. (2012). Cyberbullying and Teens What YA
Librarians Can Do to Help. Young Adult
Library Services, 10(2), 38-43.
Barnard,
M. (2009). Sticks, Stones, and Words Can Hurt You: Antibullying Resources. Young Adult Library Services, 8(1),
33-39.
Goodstein, Anastasia. (2007) Totally
Wired: What Teens and Tweens Are Really Doing Online. New York, NY: Saint
Martin's Griffin.
