Online bullying should be criminal offence, teachers say
Now we already have criminal law against uttering threats and harassment? Why the need for more law? Apparently because the test of the existing law is too hard to meet and there all kinds of aggressive and resentful people out there, given human nature, whom we need to control.
Whom do you trust to judge who should be controlled? How political will the regulation of expression get and how quickly? When I was in school, I was bullied by a couple of teachers who were embarrassed at my questions revealing their intellectual deficiencies. I was basically told to shut up and stop disrupting the order of the classroom, and to consider changing courses, or....? In that situation, who was most likely to get labeled the bully?
Anti-bullying is all the rage in schools today. The war against the evil villain bully is such that one might be excused for thinking the anti-bulliers have become the bullies, with all the sanctimonious self-righteousness that blinds them to this paradoxical reality. I'm not defending bullies, but we hardly overcome the problem by playing to insecure young people's desires to be justified as victims. It is precisely the thrilling moral ambivalence and human uncertainty inherent in any challenge to reveal yourself as a loser or a winner, the paradox involved in any act of finger-pointing at someone who can, but might not, point/finger back, on which the bully dwells. And it's a "game" which we can learn to play in ever more sophisticated ways, especially when the power of the law can be brought into it to corrupt one side or another in undeserved righteousness.
The need for victims is the deeper problem, whichever side of the "bully" you are on. Indeed, what underlines much of the teachers' way of thinking is the need for scapegoats (in the name of the victim) who can be prosecuted to serve the desire for some sense of order in times that prove existentially difficult for those who would make their living by standing and talking to the huddled masses forced to attend at classrooms. Now that the students have freer and broader horizons, thanks to the digital revolution, teachers are less important as conveyors of information, and of authority more generally. What better way to reclaim authority than to become bully for anti-bullying?
Is it any wonder they want to buttress their job descriptions by becoming legal bullies, policers of what is being said by their students on the net? I'll bet dollars to donut holes that bullying is no worse today than when I was in school. Just different.
There's no way to avoid the reality that kids have to grow up by recapitulating some of the more primitive, and often violently sacrificial gestures, of culture. Learning a culture means first learning its more basic or primitive ways of thinking. Bullying and scapegoating are such. Teachers who encourage students to dwell in this morass by thinking themselves victims are not doing their job, which should be to encourage students to overcome, through intellectual and spiritual strength, all manner of bullying and victim thinking. But for that, you first have to learn what is wrong with the victimary world view of postmodern liberalism. And something tells me that course hasn't yet been introduced at teachers' colleges.
Cyberbullying is becoming so prevalent in Canadian schools and society it should be made a separate Criminal Code offence, according to a new policy that will be adopted Saturday by the Canadian Teachers' Federation.
The CTF, which represents 220,000 teachers, is holding a special session on cyberbullying at its annual meeting in Moncton, N.B., where the plan will officially be ratified.
In a draft version of the policy obtained by Canwest News Service, the teachers' group says it should be a punishable offence to use "information and communication technology to convey a message which threatens death or bodily harm or perpetuates fear and intimidation."
The proposal indicates a serious recognition of how common it is now for bullying to be carried out by text messaging, in online chat rooms, on blogs or social networking websites such as Facebook. The idea goes far beyond the expulsions and suspensions that some students have been punished with for bullying fellow students or targeting teachers.
The president of the CTF, Emily Noble, said in an interview the Criminal Code doesn't delve far enough into the use of electronic media and the legislation needs to be toughened.
[...]
A spokeswoman for Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said it's too early to comment on the CTF's Criminal Code proposal, but Noble said the CTF has started to talk to members of Parliament and have so far found a receptive audience. "It is an issue that will resonate, we believe, with the policy-makers and the legislative makers," she said.
The organization's inaugural policy on cyberbullying should be a helpful tool for its members in lobbying MPs, provincial education ministers and school boards, many of whom have not yet developed guidelines on how to handle the growing problem, said Noble.
The document outlines what role should be played by students, parents, teachers, school boards, teacher organizations, ministries of education, government and website providers.
The policy doesn't shy away from controversial issues surrounding cyberbullying such as freedom of speech arguments and whether schools should be allowed to discipline students for behaviour outside of school, in the privacy of their own homes.
The CTF says freedom of expression and opinion rights should be balanced with the responsibilities of parents and the education community to guide individuals in the responsible use of information technology and that it believes cyberbullying policies should apply to "any and all cybermisconduct and cyberbullying that negatively affects the school environment regardless of whether it originated from the school."
Now we already have criminal law against uttering threats and harassment? Why the need for more law? Apparently because the test of the existing law is too hard to meet and there all kinds of aggressive and resentful people out there, given human nature, whom we need to control.
Whom do you trust to judge who should be controlled? How political will the regulation of expression get and how quickly? When I was in school, I was bullied by a couple of teachers who were embarrassed at my questions revealing their intellectual deficiencies. I was basically told to shut up and stop disrupting the order of the classroom, and to consider changing courses, or....? In that situation, who was most likely to get labeled the bully?
Anti-bullying is all the rage in schools today. The war against the evil villain bully is such that one might be excused for thinking the anti-bulliers have become the bullies, with all the sanctimonious self-righteousness that blinds them to this paradoxical reality. I'm not defending bullies, but we hardly overcome the problem by playing to insecure young people's desires to be justified as victims. It is precisely the thrilling moral ambivalence and human uncertainty inherent in any challenge to reveal yourself as a loser or a winner, the paradox involved in any act of finger-pointing at someone who can, but might not, point/finger back, on which the bully dwells. And it's a "game" which we can learn to play in ever more sophisticated ways, especially when the power of the law can be brought into it to corrupt one side or another in undeserved righteousness.
The need for victims is the deeper problem, whichever side of the "bully" you are on. Indeed, what underlines much of the teachers' way of thinking is the need for scapegoats (in the name of the victim) who can be prosecuted to serve the desire for some sense of order in times that prove existentially difficult for those who would make their living by standing and talking to the huddled masses forced to attend at classrooms. Now that the students have freer and broader horizons, thanks to the digital revolution, teachers are less important as conveyors of information, and of authority more generally. What better way to reclaim authority than to become bully for anti-bullying?
Is it any wonder they want to buttress their job descriptions by becoming legal bullies, policers of what is being said by their students on the net? I'll bet dollars to donut holes that bullying is no worse today than when I was in school. Just different.
There's no way to avoid the reality that kids have to grow up by recapitulating some of the more primitive, and often violently sacrificial gestures, of culture. Learning a culture means first learning its more basic or primitive ways of thinking. Bullying and scapegoating are such. Teachers who encourage students to dwell in this morass by thinking themselves victims are not doing their job, which should be to encourage students to overcome, through intellectual and spiritual strength, all manner of bullying and victim thinking. But for that, you first have to learn what is wrong with the victimary world view of postmodern liberalism. And something tells me that course hasn't yet been introduced at teachers' colleges.
