Knowledge is power, and that principle can apply to almost anything in life. This is especially true for parents who want the best for their children. They would need to know more about the focus of their affections in order to be effective guardians. What’s amusing is that for such a small bundle of joy, a baby or toddler also holds loads of surprises regarding their growth and development. Therefore, let us discuss some of the most essential development details about babies and toddlers that parents need to know.
Children Are Physically Optimized
You can’t keep up with your kid’s exuberance and energy? Well, that is perfectly understandable. Studies have shown that a typical two-year-old toddler is more energetic and active than any other time of his life thereafter. Their mental capacity to learn and discover is also boosted with physical activity. Therefore, it is important to find expert toddler classes in Phoenix for your child. These professionals know how to effectively maximize your child’s energies for their improvement and learning. After all, you shouldn’t scrimp when it comes to your toddler’s mental, social, emotional, and physical growth.
Toddlers Are Nice to Strangers
This fact may sound alarming to you as a parent who intends to keep their children from possible harm. However, studies show that they do have existing social skills and can act charmingly toward people outside of their family circles. This may be because they are used to their parents and are more open to showing off their “naughty” sides to them. Another reason is that kids reserve exposing their true feelings to unfamiliar people because they’re unsure of the reactions they’ll receive. Whatever the reason, you should instruct your child about “stranger danger” for their own safety’s sake.
Kids Learn Faster than Adults
It’s a fact that toddlers can retain an impressive amount of information. An example is the capacity of a two-year-old kid to understand and memorize at least ten words daily on their own. Their cerebral cortex, which controls voluntary movement, memories, and opinions, produces more than two million brain cell connectors every second. By the time they turn into toddlers, their brain would already have more than a hundred trillion synapses. This is how they manage to gather and store knowledge faster than adults. Take note that you should be careful with how you act around your kids because they will observe and mimic your actions.
These are not-so-common data about toddlers, and it’s not surprising that many adults may even doubt them. However, studies and research have proven the accuracy of these findings. Applying these said data about your child in your parenting methods can mean a lot to your toddler’s improvement in life. As a parent, this is your chance to make a difference in your offspring’s formative childhood years. It would be mostly up to you what your kids will remember and retain from their childhood. These same memories can actually make or break their future, so take them seriously.
The way people feel about themselves and others are affected by many factors, with the most important being one’s own view of self. Many times, confidence in this view comes from looking good. That’s why we maintain personal hygiene and invest other improvements in our appearance.
However, there are many more lasting sources of self-esteem, and it’s important that everyone knows about them. You may help boost your and others’ self-confidence by starting to know about the significance of the following actions.
1. Try new things.
Sometimes, the best way to increase one’s confidence level is to do something that they’ve never done before. People, some children included, tend to play it safe or stay within their comfort zone because they don’t want to get hurt or because they’re afraid of failure.
However, what many people who do this don’t know is that it leads to regret in the future. Encourage people to try something new, such as creating stories for creative writing worksheets or playing a new sport. The new activity doesn’t even have to be done regularly.
What’s important is to get them to open their minds to new concepts and ideas, as well as discover parts of themselves that they don’t know yet. There’s too much to see in this world to stay under the tree.
2. Be kind to yourself.
Those with low confidence tend to be hard on their selves to the extent that it’s not doing them any good anymore or at all. There’s nothing wrong with criticizing yourself as you always need to keep yourself in check, but don’t do it all the time and without good reason or without being fair to yourself.
People who don’t treat themselves well may end up transferring that same sentiment to others and create problems in the future. Teach others that it’s okay to treat themselves to what they like once in a while. It will help them relax and gain the confidence that they need.
3. Be especially kind to others.
Nobody can live completely independent of others. From the moment you were born, you’ve been dependent on what your parents, relatives, friends, and people in your neighborhood do for you, directly or indirectly. Because of this, it’s important to learn how to be kind to everyone you meet.
As people start doing it, more are encouraged to return kindness back and positively contribute to everyone’s self-esteem. Find ways to speak gentle words and perform considerate actions anywhere you are. It doesn’t matter if it’s in person or on the internet.
In this world where bad news seems ordinary, happiness and confidence in ourselves are valuable commodities that we tend to forget about.
While activities such as getting a job or making a living out of business are essential for living, it’s important not to lose track of the reason you have for living. For sure you won’t always be right or successful, but what matters is that you do what you do in the best way that you can.
There is a growing demand for English teachers in today’s increasingly globalised world. In a 2015 report by the British Council, one of the largest providers of English language instruction in the world, it’s estimated that 2 billion people will be studying English by 2020.
With high demand, it’s no surprise that schools all over the world are hiring teachers outside their countries to teach English. Whether it’s an international school in the Philippines or a public school in Chile, people who want to teach in a foreign country will find numerous career opportunities abroad.
If you’re considering teaching English abroad, it’s important to remember that hiring requirements differ in each organisation. Some institutions require a college degree, while others will consider applicants only with teaching experience.
Most schools require some form of basic English language certification. Although it’s possible to find a position without it, a certificate will make your job search easier and gives you more leeway to negotiate a higher salary. Certified English teachers learn useful strategies to help their students understand English.
Available English Language Programmes
There are two common programmes for English teachers: Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) and Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults (CELTA).
A TEFL programme refers to certified courses that train teachers who teach English to non-native speakers. These include: Teaching of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) and English Language Teaching (ELT). Some TEFL programmes are applied more to teach in native-speaking English countries like the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States, while other certifications grant access to teach in local schools.
CELTA is a specific programme sponsored by Cambridge University. Considered by many as prestigious, the course follows strict standards and employs teachers from the university. The programme is designed to teach adults.
The Differences Among English Language Certifications
Although both essentially certify you to teach English to non-native speakers, CELTA and TEFL have several differences:
Length of Classes
CELTA requires students to complete 120 hours of class time and at least six hours of practical experience teaching to English as a Second Language (ESL) learners. Most courses are offered on a full-time basis and take a month to complete, while students can opt for a three-month programme if they want to study part-time.
The length of TEFL courses differ per programme provider: they can be as short as 100 hours of class time or as extensive as 300 hours. Like CELTA, it requires students to undergo six hours of teaching practice to complete the programme.
Course Load
CELTA courses are known to be rigorous, as you’re required to complete four written assignments and prepare lesson plans for your ESL students. TEFL courses vary in intensity, and some allow you to complete your teaching practice at your own pace, as long as you finish it within the schedule of the programme.
Price
TEFL courses are cheaper compared to CELTA, costing as little as $200. Since CELTA is considered a prestigious programme, fees for courses cost between $1,500 and $4,000. Despite the price, CELTA is an internationally recognised certificate, and it increases your chance of getting into the school of your choice.
With the demand for English teachers increasing, it’s natural to want to get ahead of other applicants. Although some schools do not require English language courses like TEFL and CELTA, being certified shows your commitment to a high teaching standard, and makes you more attractive to potential employers.
If you’re in your mid-twenties or older, you probably remember what school was like before technology became ubiquitous in the classroom. It was a treat when your teacher would come into the classroom with a bulky TV and cassette in tow, or when they rolled in a cart carrying the overhead projectors.
Today, nearly all classrooms have a computer attached to an LCD projector installed. Computer classes include doing more than just memorizing the letter positioning on the keyboard and how to draw art on Paint. Nowadays, teachers have to train their students at a young age how to navigate the internet safely and responsibly, and idea that was never in curriculums decades ago.
As a teacher, you have the responsibility of teaching digital literacy and teaching and learning in a digital world. In this article, we list down ways you can teach your students how to use technology responsibly.
Responsible Digital Technology
Just because your students know how to navigate the internet through accessible technology doesn’t mean that all of them will use it responsibly. Instances such as trolling, cyberbullying, and children being preyed on by older people online occur because not a lot of children are aware of both the dangers of trolling and cyberbullying have on people as well as the dangers they themselves are prone to when online.
Safe Browsing
The internet is filled with websites both useful and dangerous. If your students are young, chances are, they’ll be searching for YouTube videos, flash games, and social media sites they can enter, so the risk of them finding age-inappropriate websites and apps (e.g. pornography, adult imageboards, dating websites) is relatively low. However, as they grow older and inevitably learn more about adult topics, they may be curious and begin searching for it online. How they find out about adult topics depends on your school’s policies on sex education and their curiosity, but as a teacher, you want to at least instill that visiting these websites in school computers is bad.
You can prevent your students from looking at these websites by turning on the SafeSearch feature on Google. When on, Google filters out websites with potentially harmful material and only shows kid-friendly content. This won’t affect your students’ ability to do research for school related topics.
Your school might also want to install a website blocker on your school’s entire network. That means all computers in the school connected to a certain network cannot access sites listed on the block.
Teach About Plagiarism
I remember the days when my teacher would ask us to do research about a certain topic, and what I’d do is simply copy and paste the first few paragraphs of the topic’s Wikipedia page, format it a bit, and then call it a day. Back then, when teachers realized that this was what most students were doing and not bothering to read the work they actually copy, they eventually decided to make this form of research a part of plagiarism and made it an offense in most schools.
Technology and the internet allows nearly all the information on the internet to be available to the public. Before the internet, plagiarism was stealing people’s essays in books or old theses and claiming it as their own. Today, it is the act of students copying articles online without drastically changing the words or adding their own info.
To avoid plagiarism in the classroom, ask your kids to send their homework online. You save a few trees by going paperless, and it’s a lot easier to check the digital file for plagiarism. There are plenty of free plagiarism checkers online, but if you want a thorough checker, invest in programs such as Copyscape or Turnitin. These programs scour the internet and see if your students’ homework matches word-for-word with a certain website. Have a sit-down with students who are caught completely plagiarizing their work.
In some cases, your students may unintentionally commit plagiarism or fail to re-word an idea in their own words. Programs like Turnitin measure how much of their paper is plagiarized, so set a limit of the percentage; around 10 percent is a fair number. If they exceed that percentage, it’s highly likely that they did not give their homework enough attention.
But plagiarism is not just limited to essays and articles. Nowadays, many adults don’t understand that just because you can find an image on Google Images does not mean they’re allowed to use those photos without permission from the author. This may be an idea that we have to teach our students at an early age.
If your students are young, they may not totally understand copyright and plagiarism, but teenage students may have an idea of how Creative Commons and Fair Use work. Let’s say your student needs a picture of a sun for a science project, so they use a picture taken by NASA in 2010. It’s legal for them to use the photo for a school project because they need it to learn. They’re not making a profit off the photo, and they’re using it for personal uses – that is, to further their education. But if they were to take that photo, put it on a shirt, and sell, this would be illegal as you are making a profit out of it.
Avoid Cyberbullying
It’s important to talk about cyberbullying and its effects not only on the bullied but on the bully’s personality and attitude towards others. People think that just because the internet provides the ability to say things anonymously, no one becomes accountable for what they do or say.
We’ve provided an entire lesson plan on how to address cyberbullying to students of all ages. If you want to learn more about this topic, click here.
Be Wary of the People You Talk to
While the internet is used by ordinary people, there are also some people with bad intentions. Some, called trolls, like to anger or confuse random targets just for the sake of it. These are nuisances, and teaching your students to ignore them or not be baited by them is relatively easy.
However, other people have worse intentions. If they find out your student is a young person surfing the web, they may prey on their naivety and get them to become their victim. Sometimes this involves asking them for personal info, their parents’ credit card number, or even invite them to meet them in real life.
It’s a sensitive topic, but teach your students not to trust strangers on the internet the same way they shouldn’t trust random people when they go outside. They don’t know what these people’s intentions are, so it is best to play safe and not give any sensitive information until they are really sure they can trust this person.
The internet allows your students accessible information and easy communication. However, some children may be tempted to abuse the power of the internet and harm other children, or they may be too young to understand the dangers that lurk in the web. As their teacher, it is your job to ensure they understand these points and what they can do to avoid hurting others and falling into harm when they surf.
In the digital world, a key learning factor for middle school students is developing a proper digital citizenship mindset. Although learning about the intricacies of digital citizenship has no age limit, it’s important for children to learn good digital behavior early on as it will give them the proper tools they need to stay out of trouble later on in life. Because generation Z onwards are considered to be “digital natives”, that is, people who were born with technology, creating a digital citizenship lesson plan for middle school students is less about teaching them how to use devices and more about how to behave in such a way that they can bring their real-life good morals and conduct into cyberspace.
During their middle school years, children are starting to develop a sense of autonomy, a yearning to control their own lives and be independent. From a social perspective, they’ve started expanding their circles, interests, and activities both online and in the real world. In the 21st century, children learn how to be tech-savvy very early on because of the ease of access they have for digital devices. With this in mind, most of the middle schoolers you’ll be teaching are probably already on the internet with active social media lives.
It is for this reason that teaching digital citizenship at this age becomes critical to empowering our youth to become healthy, active, and productive members of the digital landscape. Digital Citizenship becomes a critical tool for them to do this, as it teaches them how to be independent, safe from harm, and courteous to one another, despite the relative anonymity they have on the internet.
One of the best ways you can teach digital citizenship is by providing your students with practice scenarios and guide questions that not only test what they know about proper online behavior, but also pushes the boundaries of their digital ethics and morals, as well as their critical thinking. Here are some examples that you can use.
Lesson: Creating Online Profiles That Are Respectful of Others
There’s a hot new social media site that all your friends have started joining. A key feature of this new site is that it only displays the username of each person. The trick is to create a user profile that is based on your name, but vague enough that strangers will not know who you are.
What name would you use and why?
Lesson: Being Mindful About Who You Add As Contacts On Social Media. As A General Rule, Only Add People You Know In Real Life.
You receive a friend request on your most frequently used social media site. It’s from a profile featuring a person of the same age as you. You check their profile and see that you have fairly similar interests, and the profile photo looks legitimate.
Should you accept their request? Why did you make your decision?
Lesson: Some Sites Are Restricted To Adults Only. There’s a Reason For This, And One Should Respect The Age Restrictions That Websites Have On People Viewing/Joining Their Site.
A friend of yours recently joined a dating site that is for adults only. On the homepage, it clearly states that all users MUST be 18 years old and above. Your friend lied about his age so that he could join the site. Your friend then starts telling you that they received an invite to go on a date with one of the other users of the site.
What advice would you give to your friend? Do you tell an adult?
Lesson: Privacy Settings on Social Media Are There To Protect You From Scammers, And Other People Who May Want To Harm You.
One of your classmates is making jokes about your last holiday. You haven’t ever spoken to them about it and you think they might have been looking at your social media profile and pictures. You are not friends with them but your privacy settings are set at Friends of Friends.
A schoolmate of yours, who you’re not particularly close with, starts asking you about your recent holiday. This makes you uncomfortable as you rarely speak to this person, and when you ask them how they knew about your holiday, your schoolmate says they saw it on your social media. However, you are not friends with this person on social media, and your privacy settings are set to Friends of Friends.
What does the privacy setting Friends of Friends mean? Should you upgrade your privacy settings?
Lesson: The Photos You Post On Social Media Can Be Seen By A Large Number of People, Some of Them Might Not Be As Kind As You. Only Post Appropriate Photos, Videos, and Texts.
Your friend posted photos of herself in very revealing clothing and in very provocative poses. She then tells you that she’s received numerous compliments from her “online friends”, but she has also received some hateful comments.
What should you do? What advice should give to your friend?
Lesson: Online Behavior That Makes You Uncomfortable or Disturbed Can Be Reported to the Authorities.
An online friend of yours, who is older and of the opposite gender, starts chatting with you through instant messenger. You’ve spoken to each other at length online, and so far this person has been friendly, and in fact, shares many similar interests as you. However, this time, this person is starting to ask you inappropriate questions about what you’re wearing at the moment, if you’ve ever kissed anyone, and whether you’re alone at home. The person then starts pressuring you to send you “daring” photos of yourself. This makes you very uncomfortable.
What should you do?
Lesson: Talk To your Parents, Teachers, or Other Authority Figures About Things You Experience Online. The More Open You Are, the More People Can Help You If You’re in Trouble.
Someone outside of your real life and social media circle of friends posted a funny photo of you and started making fun of you. Soon enough, other people you don’t know started joining in. While some of the comments really are funny, some of them are hateful, hurtful, and very rude. You see that some of your friends posted on the photo as well, but you’re scared to call them out as they might get angry at you for being too sensitive.
Who should you talk to and why?
Lesson: Hateful Comments Online Can Have Real Consequences On A Person. Show that you’re A Responsible Digital Citizen by Not Joining In On Hateful or Hurtful Threads.
You and your friends are invited to join a group chat on an instant messaging app. The group shares funny jokes, videos, and memes. At first it was fun, but then you notice that the other people have started posting hateful comments about other people, as well as sharing racist, derogatory, and pornographic images and videos.
What should you do?
Lesson: There’s No Difference Between Real Life and Online Bullying, And You Shouldn’t Participate in Either of Them.
Your classmates are all huddled together over a phone. One of them calls you over to see a “funny photo” of one of your classmates. As you get closer, you see that they’re making fun of a person from your school. The group is posting comments that are intended to be jokes, but are in fact very mean, hurtful, and damaging to a person’s psyche. In fact, one of them even encourages the person to commit suicide.
Lesson: Never Tolerate Online Bullying. If You Encounter a Thread Online That You Feel Is Unkind or is Bullying Someone, Report Immediately to Authorities.
There’s a meme going around your school that features a funny image of one of your schoolmates. This particular schoolmate of yours has cerebral palsy, but instead of being kind and understanding, other people have started making fun of his condition via the meme. A schoolmate then asks you to like their post so that it can go viral.
What should you do? Ignore it, post a comment, or report it?
Lesson: Some People Want You To Be Racist and Bigoted Like Them, So They Make Websites That Propagate Their Negative and Destructive Thinking. A Proper Digital Citizen Avoids Websites Like That And Will Not Hesitate to Report it to Authorities.
One, boring, weekday night, you’re browsing the internet and you stumble upon a “news” website that contains some inaccurate articles. As you continue reading, you realize that it’s a neo-nazi website, and that many of the commentors in the forum are members of your local community.
What should you do?
Lesson: “Stalking” People Online is Creepy. If You Did That in Real Life, It Would Make You And the Person You’re Stalking Feel Uncomfortable, So Don’t Do it Online.
You have a crush on a person in your school. You search for their name on social media apps and find their profiles have no privacy settings. You start saving their photos on your device and start following their social media feed. You haven’t sent them a friend request because you’re afraid they might reject you. A friend of yours sees the photos you’ve saved and tell you that it’s not right.
What should you do?
Lesson: Illegally Downloading Movies, Tv Shows, Music, Games Etc. Online is Piracy. Piracy is Stealing. Stealing is Against the Law.
Your favorite artist dropped a surprise album the other day on iTunes. However, the artist made sure that people will buy the whole album and not individual songs because it’s “part of the artistic experience”. It’s priced at a premium level, but your friend tells you about a website where people can download music for free.
Do you search for and download the music?
Lesson: Sharing Your Downloaded Media To Other People For Free is Wrong. They Should Pay For It In the Appropriate Channels
A friend of yours is hanging out with you in your room. You decide to spend the afternoon watching TV shows and listening to music. Your friend notices that you have a fairly extensive collection of music and asks if they can copy your whole music library.
With digital technologies like social media – as well as e-commerce and a host of other online solutions –becoming completely integrated into our everyday lives, it’s important to teach people how to behave properly on the internet. This type of Digital Citizenship is essential for this day and age, where industries, politics, and society in general, are transitioning into the digital landscape.
Educating teenagers on Digital Citizenship should then become a priority for educations. Digital Citizenship lesson plans for high school students should focus on teaching them about the nine elements of digital citizenship, the three principles of digital citizenship, and applications of the those two concepts in real-life scenarios.
But first, let’s discuss the nine elements and the three principles of digital citizeship:
The Nine Elements of Digital Citizenship
Digital Citizenship, as defined by leading digital technological think-tank Digitalcitizenship.net, has nine elements that give it structure. Those nine elements are:
Digital Access
The first and most important aspect of being a digital citizen is access to technology. In previous decades, this was problematic largely because of factors like socioeconomic status, learning disabilities, and even location. However, because of advances in internet infrastructure building and cheaper computers, digital access is now possible despite those factors.
In fact, many schools both here and abroad are integrating their teaching programs with internet technology, offering lessons on digital citizenship, computer training, and many more. Encouraging digital access for everyone should be a priority of Digital Citizens.
Digital Commerce
With more and more industries shifting towards paperless transactions and investing in digital currencies, commerce (and, indeed, most economies) is now mostly online. Digital citizens should be active participants in the e-commerce industry, as well as proponents of making it accessible to all.
Aside from that, a Digital Citizen must also be wary of the risks e-commerce brings: credit card fraud, unstable cryptocurrency markets, and online scams, to name a few. Digital citizens must be knowledgeable in weighing the pros and cons of digital commerce so that they can make informed decisions.
Digital Communication
One of the key aspects of digital technology is its ability to bring people closer together by facilitating easier communication. Digital Citizens must be adept at using online communication mediums like email, instant messaging apps, twitter, among other things, and must also be active in teaching people how to use this technology properly.
But beyond competence, digital citizens must also be aware of each medium’s code of conduct. Proper messaging etiquette should be followed, and expanded so as to include as many people as possible.
This deals with the understanding of how to use various digital devices. For example, how to properly search for something on a search engine versus a database. How to use various online logs. Oftentimes many educational institutions will help form an individual’s digital literacy.
Speaking of competence, Digital Citizens must display a rote understanding of how to use digital devices, from hardware like tablets and smartphones, to understanding how to use software like search engines and databases. The burden of digital literacy education mainly falls on the shoulders of schools and teachers, but informal training via regular usage is also encouraged.
As Digital Citizens, teens must be able to use technology and teach other people how to use it. Again, inclusion of as many people as possible in the digital age is essential for the growth of any Digital Citizen.
Digital Etiquette
One of the most relevant topics to discuss, primarily with high school students, is digital etiquette. Much like in the real world, proper manners and codes of conduct must be followed online, especially in various messaging apps and social media.
With cyberbullying on the rise, it’s doubly important for teenagers and high school students to learn about the impact their online behavior has on other people. For them to become upstanding Digital Citizens, young people must be taught how to act like a productive member of cyber society.
Digital Law
With new technology comes new laws that govern it, and Digital Citizens are expected to know the basics. Illegal activities such as identity theft, creating viruses, plagiarism, cyberbullying, spamming, illegal downloads, and other kinds of destructive behavior is highly discouraged.
As responsible members of cyberspace, digital citizens are expected, much like in real life, to abide by the cyber laws that govern their place of residence.
Digital Rights and Responsibilities:
Every digital citizen is granted rights while in the digital world. These include, but are not limited to: privacy, freedom of speech, the right to internet access, freedom of assembly online, and right to develop their internet infrastructure.
These rights were outlined by various UN bodies since 2003.
Digital Health
A downside of the constant use of technology is the physical stress it places on people’s bodies. Digital citizens must be cognizant of the ill effects of too much internet usage and should take action to mitigate these.
Digital Security
Digital citizens are well aware of the dangers the digital landscape has in store, from hackers and spammers to identity thieves and fake news peddlers. As regular users of technology, Digital Citizens must be able to take necessary precautions to protect themselves and others from malicious online attacks.
Three Principles of Digital Citizenship
Along with the nine elements, think-tank DigitalCitizenship.net also outlined three underlying principles that guide Digital Citizens. These principles are meant to define the responsible and appropriate use of technology in the digital world.
Respect
The elements of digital law, access, and etiquette fall under the principle of respect. This principle underlines the importance of digital citizens respecting each other’s space and giving them basic decency when interacting with each other.
Educate
Communication, literacy, and communication are all governed under the principle to educate. Digital citizens must encourage other people to use technology and be on-hand to educate them in proper etiquette and usage.
Protect
Keeping the digital landscape safe is the responsibility of every digital citizen, and the elements of security, health, and rights all fall under this principle.
Lesson Plan #1
Now that your students have been made aware of what it takes to be a Digital Citizenship, you can take it further by designing lesson plans that educate them about Digital Citizenship while using real-life examples to help them understand better.
Learning Objectives:
Once you complete your lesson, your students should be able to:
Understand what “Digital Citizenship” means
Define different types of Digital Citizens
Apply what they know about Digital Citizenship in their everyday use of technology
Length:
1 hour
Curriculum Standards:
The following lesson plan fulfills curriculum standard CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RST.9-10.8, which aims to “Assess the extent to which the reasoning and evidence in a text support the author’s claim or a recommendation for solving a scientific or technical problem.”
It also fulfills curriculum standard CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RST.9-10.9, which aims to “Compare and contrast findings presented in a text to those from other sources (including their own experiments), noting when the findings support or contradict previous explanations or accounts.”
Key Vocabulary:
Digital citizenship
Digital literacy
Digital safety
Digital etiquette
Instructions:
Ask your students to mark down how many times they accessed digital technology during the day. This includes checking social media, using a messaging app, among others. List down their answers and write the average number on the board.
After you’ve written down the class average, ask your students to define “citizenship”. What does it mean for them? Ask as many students as you can and write their definitions down on the board.
Write students’ ideas on the board as well. Now ask them if citizenship is the same as digital citizenship. Do they agree or disagree with it? Why or why not? Write these down as well.
Ask your students to read aloud the nine elements of digital citizenship, as well as its three principles.
Now that they’ve had a recap of Digital Citizenship, ask them again if their definitions of citizenship and digital citizenship remain the same. Have their views changed? What are the differences between the two? Do they consider themselves as native digital citizens? What about their parents or grandparents? Ask them why or why not.
Prepare some reading material regarding Digital Citizenship and distribute it amongst your students.
While they are reading, write these down on the board:
DIGITAL LITERACY
DIGITAL SAFETY
DIGITAL ETIQUETTE
Once they’re done reading your materials, divide the class into three groups: the first group will discuss digital etiquette, the second will discuss digital literacy, and the third group will discuss digital safety. Give each group 15 minutes to discuss what they know about these elements.
Once their 15 minutes is up, ask each group to provide 3 examples of issues that each element faces on a regular basis. Once they’ve come up with these examples, ask them to brainstorm possible solutions to solve the issue or at least prevent it from happening again.
Have each group present to the class. Open up the floor for debate and moderate the comments as much as possible.
Discussion Questions
How can individuals become digital citizens? What steps can they take to become better digital citizens?
Should digital citizens be left to roam the digital landscape freely, or should they be regulated? Why or why not?
Lesson Plan #2
As your students learn more about digital citizenship and the impact their digital footprint leaves on other people, challenge them some more by teaching them about proper Digital Citizenship vis-à-vis their use of apps. For this activity, ask them to answer this guide question:
How do ephemeral sites like Snapchat impact our daily lives?
Materials
Snapchat App
Pen, paper
Procedure:
Start by asking your students about their social media activities, specifically the social media apps or features that heavily use photos, videos, and texts that only last for a few seconds, like Snapchat or Instagram Stories. This type of app is called an “ephemeral” site, because the posts only last a very short time. Ask them the following questions:
What do they know about how Snapchat works and how other ephemeral apps operate
Why does their generation choose to use ephemeral apps?
Why do they think other people use ephemeral apps?
What is the appeal of using an app that only posts videos, images, or texts for a limited amount of time?
What is unappealing about it?
What are the dangers of it?
Are these apps safe? Explain.
How is your privacy protected within the app?
Discuss the recent privacy breach issues regarding social media apps and sites, specifically Snapchat. Ask them if they’re aware of the privacy breach and how they reacted when they found out.
Group your students and have them discuss with each other what they learned about Snapchat. Ask them to answer the following questions:
What fact about Snapchat did they learn just now? Did it change the way they see Snapchat? Why or why not?
Explain to your students about the differing opinions people have regarding ephemeral sites and apps. Show them quotes and interviews from industry leaders. Ask them if they agree or disagree. Task them with a writing exercise wherein they write down their opinions.
Once complete, ask each student to present their opinion to the class. Once everyone has had a turn, open up the floor for a roundtable discussion. Facilitate the debate and make sure everyone remains on point and respectful. At the end, ask them again: how do ephemeral sites affect our daily lives?
High school students are at a critical age where they are starting to form opinions and views of their own. As they mature, these opinions will solidify and turn into political stances that they’ll leverage in the future. With technology continuing to advance every day, and with the constant integration of technology into everyday life, questions like the ones you presented will come up and challenge them. By educating them early about Digital Citizenship, they’ll be well-armed to tackle any issue that arises in the future.
At the formative ages of 11 to 13, a student should learn more than just what’s in the books. These children are at an age where they’re still in an age where they are easily influenced by external factors and the people around them, but at the same time, they’re more likely to be more mature and understand complex situations more than the ordinary child.
If you want your students to be morally upright citizens, you need to teach them more than what is provided in the textbooks. Since school bullying is still prevalent in many schools, students must understand the importance of their voice and how they must be willing to stand up and intervene for a student that is visibly being bullied by a bully.
Objectives
This lesson plan is merely a rough draft of what you ought to do when teaching middle school students about bullying interventions. It is up to you what you choose to do and how you plan to lecture your students on bullying. This lesson plan is suitable for middle school students aged 11 to 13.
By the end of this lecture, your students should be able to:
Recognize bullying in all forms, whether it is done to them or to their classmates
Intervene, stand up to bullies, and report to proper authorities
Choose to be involved instead of a neutral bystander.
Activity: Situational Reaction
This worksheet gives you an insight as to how your students initially react to situations where bullying is present – but the bullying is towards a stranger or an acquaintance. This activity is formatted as multiple choice, but feel free to turn it into a worksheet where they can write down their reactions to fully express their intent.
With multiple choice, you can see how many children opt to intervene or not and see the general consensus of their answers. For free-writing formats, you can ask them to share with the class what they wrote down.
ACTIVITY: WHAT WOULD YOU DO?
Instruction: Circle the choice which would most likely be your actions if you are faced with these scenarios. There is no right or wrong answer; try to answer as honestly as possible.
You’re browsing through Facebook when you see your classmate Charles sharing a Photoshopped photo of your other classmate, Amy, whose head is edited on top of a gorilla’s body. Amy does not find this funny and, in the comments, asks Charles to take it down, but he ignores her request.
Continue scrolling through Facebook and let them sort out their quarrel.
Privately message Charles asking him to delete the photo.
Like Charles’ photo and move on.
You hear rumors that your classmate, Carly, does not bathe. When she is not around, you can hear people talking about her. What do you do?
Tell everyone talking about her to stop.
Report the rumor to your teacher.
Simply ignore the rumor, but do nothing to stop it.
Your classmate, Anthony, has a mild learning disability and learns math at a slower pace than you and your other classmates. Every time he asks a question, his classmates mock him without catching Anthony’s or the teacher’s attention.
Say nothing to Anthony or the teacher.
Quietly shush your classmates and tell your teacher privately after class.
Punch your classmates.
On your school bus, Micah teases Tyler every day because he lives in the poorer side of town. The bus driver constantly tells Micah to behave, but he only does so for a few minutes before making jokes about Tyler again.
Keep quiet throughout the ride.
Report Micah to school authorities.
Make fun of Micah for being ugly.
You are in the locker room when a group of older students ask you to leave. They intend to violently prank a student inside the room.
Warn the victim about the older students’ intentions and leave.
Find a teacher to stop them.
Leave quietly.
Your classmate, Nico, calls your chubby classmate, Patty, “Fatty Patty.” You notice she does not eat her packed lunch ever since Nico and his friends call her that.
Dump your food on Nico.
Sit away from Nico during lunch time.
Tell Nico and his friends to stop making fun of Patty.
Analysis
Your students’ answers can say a lot about their behavior when they encounter a bullying scenario they aren’t necessarily affected by. Some of your students may honestly say that they can choose to do nothing because they don’t want to get involved. Don’t vilify these students, as you did ask for their honest answers and want to assess their own situational reaction. After all, this module is meant to change attitudes like these into a more positive, pro-active approach.
In some cases, such as questions 3, 4, and 6, you may find that your students have tendencies to fight fire with fire. While the intentions are noble, this is not the right way to solve bullying. By punching bullies or taunting them the way they taunt their victims only make your students the bully in return. It may even lead to a physical confrontation between the student and the bully. There is a more effective approach without having to resort to the bully’s level.
Questions 2 and 5 may look like they both have answers where the situation shows the student taking the initiative to help the bullying victim. But look closely: one answer takes the initiative to help the victim, but it won’t necessarily solve the problem. You could tell off a group of people you hear making fun of Carly, but that won’t stop everyone else from continuing to spread the rumor. You could also warn the student about the upperclassmen’s intentions, but that doesn’t guarantee that he’ll make it out safely. In both cases, calling a teacher’s attention not only protects the victim, but it also punishes the bully.
Overview on Bullying
By this point in their age, your students may already be aware of what bullying is and how to spot it. Since this lesson plan focuses on recognizing bullying in others, focus more on showing the signs of bullying and its effects. These videos make good supplementary material when discussing about bullying.
Intervening on a Bully
The best thing to do when your student sees a bullying situation is to avoid being a bystander. When they see a bully hurting their victim, a bystander ignores them because the action does not involve them in any way. By choosing to be neutral and side with anyone, however, your student is siding with the bully by allowing them to continue.
Teach your students about the value of empathy and how it differs from sympathy. If you see a bully harassing their victim for lunch money, here’s what a sympathetic and an empathetic person would do:
Sympathetic: That poor kid is being bullied. He must be sad. I feel sorry for him.
Empathetic: That poor kid is being bullied. If I were bullied, I would want someone to be at my side and help me. But if I want help, wouldn’t that kid want help too? What if I needed help against a bully and someone else chose not to help me?
By showing empathy, your students have a deeper recognition of the bullying victim’s emotions. They understand what the victim is feeling and what they would have done in their situation. And if your student needs help if they were in the victim’s shoes, wouldn’t it be the right thing to do if your student provided help to the bullied victim?
Safety First: Assessing the Situation
Sometimes, your student doesn’t have to call a teacher to stop a bully, and they can easily do it themselves. However, in some cases, confronting a bully may jeopardize your student’s own safety. While they’re in middle school, it’s best to err on the side of safety and tell them to call a teacher if they feel like the bully may set their sights on your student.
If they grow older and brave enough to separate a bully from their victim, they can do so. However, never let your student think that violence fights violence, and stopping a bully requires giving a bully a taste of their own medicine.
Depending on what the situation looks like, your students can avoid being a bystander in many ways. Teach them how to assess the situation properly by providing examples for these actions:
If a bully makes jokes about their victim whether or not the victim is within earshot, don’t laugh at their jokes.
Don’t encourage the bully to continue. This includes adding quips that prompt the bully to add extra jokes. Don’t act interested and don’t participate.
Make the bully recognize that what they’re doing is wrong. Ignoring the bully completely, focusing on the victim, and leading the victim away lets the bully know that what they’re doing is socially unacceptable and they will be ostracized for this. If everyone did this, the bully would feel isolated by their actions and may try to change.
Don’t be an audience to the bully.
Befriend the victim and offer your support. If bullies try to isolate the victim, invite them to join you and your friends.
If all else fails, encourage your students to tell a teacher. Some students may be hesitant to tell school authorities for many reasons. Maybe the bully is a teacher’s pet but secretly mean to the students. Maybe the bully’s parent is a high-ranking member of the PTA and their parent has a reputation of getting their child to walk away unpunished. Maybe the bully has blackmail material against the student if they tell. It’s even possible that the bully may be a teacher or a staff member with a good relationship with the principal.
In any case, you need to let your students know that an adult – whether a teacher, the principal, or even their parents – can help stop the bully. The bully is only one person. Against the authorities and everyone around any one of your students, the bully can be punished for their actions and can be told to stop or stay away from the bullying victim. If the victim is too scared to tell, your students must be willing to work with the victim to tell an adult.
Tips for Teachers
Depending on how your lecture goes and how you finalize your lesson plan, you may want to offer your students the chance to talk to you about bullying they may be secretly experiencing. If they can talk to you privately after class or have the access to email you, you can tell them to contact you.
While it’s good to intervene on visible bullying, don’t force your students to intervene on bullying even if it’s at the cost of their own safety. If a bully has violent tendencies, contact a teacher instead of trying to get in the middle of a brawl. Emphasize the importance of knowing when to stand up to a bully and when to analyze a situation and recognize when it’s dangerous.
If there is still additional time, you may have an open forum with the students talking about the dynamics of the class. This may be a great time for students to air out their feelings towards their classmates. This can be a great way to bond with your class and get them to work better as a class.
As early as middle school, students should be picking up lessons from school, including lessons outside of any textbook. Teaching your students not only to recognize bullying happening to themselves but also to students around them not only fosters empathy, which is important if you want your students to grow up to become kind and caring individuals.
Do not teach them to bully a bully. Instead, teach them how to save a bullied victim from their bully and convincing them to report their case to someone with the power to stop a bully.
High school: where film and TV shows claim is ruled by your stereotypical dumb jock and rich mean girls.
However, thanks to modern technology, fiction is not the same as reality. Today, your average bully isn’t a buff senior or a blonde clad in pink. Today’s high school bully has no exact characteristics, as it’s as simple as a person with a smartphone or an anonymous face behind a fake account.
This lesson plan deals with bullying in a high school setting. We discuss bullying in all its forms and how students can deal with bullies. And because high school is a mix of minors and people over 18 years old, we discuss the various ramifications of bullies and what could happen to them if they’re found to be bullying.
What Is Bullying?
Whether in school, at work, or any public or private place, bullying is the act of repeatedly acting aggressive or intimidating to assert once dominance over others. Bullies have power because they enforce a social or physical power over their victims.
In the past, a traditional bully was someone significantly larger than their victim, allowing them to use physical violence and intimidation. Today, a bully can still be someone who is larger, but it can also be someone who has information they can use to blackmail their victim, someone who can emotionally and verbally taunt them without using physical force, and someone who, anonymous or not, can continue to bother a person online – all of these regardless of how they physically look.
Bullies can also range in numbers, not always limited to just one person. A group of people can mob a victim, or one bully can have multiple assistants, but the one bully serves as the ringleader of the group. Even online, because it is very easy to create fake accounts, bullies can appear to be tens or hundreds of people, but it may just be one or two bullies trying to make their victim feel small by making them feel like plenty of people are going after them.
There is no one definition of bullying as there are several ways one can do so. Sometimes, students may not even realize they’re being bullied and think it’s all just mean-spirited fun. To recognize bullying, there must be three criteria: the intent is to be hostile towards the victim; the bully tries to show they have more power than the victim; and the bully must act hostile repetitively. This may be done physically, mentally, verbally, and emotionally.
Why Do People Bully Other People?
While some teens choose to ignore their differences among their peers and form connections, others choose to act hostile around those outside their circles or someone who they don’t relate to. It’s important for your students to understand throughout your lesson plan that if they have a bully, it isn’t their fault and the fact that they are a bullying victim says more about the victim than the actual bully.
Bullies, especially teenage bullies in high school, are mostly people who are envious of others (e.g. Student 1 hates that Student 2 outperforms them academically), consciously or unconsciously resent something a person has (Student 1 sees Student 2 being dropped off at school daily by loving parents, a stark contrast to Student 1’s familial relationship at home), or uses bullying to hide that they are ashamed or have low self-esteem (Student 1 is unsure about their sexuality and bullies Student 2, an openly-gay person proud enough to show their true identity).
In some cases, a bully can have mental conditions such as displaced anger or a personality disorder. While they may need to seek help for it, this does not make it OK for them to bully others and then use the “mental health” card as a pass for their behavior.
Contrary to popular belief, a bully rarely acts a certain way just for the fun of it. By bullying someone, they’re hiding their own insecurities and feel empowered by pushing others down. Studies found that students who practice bullying behavior have fragile egos that can shatter quite easily because they’ve built a picture of themselves people can easily destroy. Because they refuse to accept this fragile truth, they resort to violence and insults.
As a high school teacher, you’re in a very delicate position, and your lesson plan has to adjust the way you see fit. Your students are not exactly children who’ll cry when reprimanded, nor are they truly adults with the independence to think maturely. You may have one or two students who have reached the age of maturity but continue to bully younger students, but stressing the fragile ego, insecurities, and shortcomings of a bully can help them see the error of their ways.
Types of Bullying
Bullying comes in four main forms: physical, verbal, emotional, and cyberbullying. There are also special forms of bullying, such as collective bullying or mobbing. And while bullies can target a victim for different reasons (the victim’s physical characteristics, their religion, gender, etc.) there are some forms of bullying that target specific groups (the LGBT+, students with disabilities) that they have become a special category of their own and how to deal with such bullies.
Exercise 1
When teaching your high school lesson plans about bullying, try this exercise. In a room, ask your students which one of them believes they are a victim of physical bullying, verbal bullying, and emotional bullying, and so on. Don’t be surprised when no one or only a few raise their hands, as many high school students are unwilling to admit they are bullied in front of their peers.
Now, tell them to close their eyes and look straight forward. It would help if the front of the classroom is raised so you can see if someone is trying to peek. Ask the same questions. You’d be surprised how many more people are willing to admit they are a victim of a specific type of bullying.
Don’t force them to share details or make them feel like admitting to being bullied will require them to report to school officials. Tell them to put down their hands, open their eyes, and don’t give any clue as to who raised their hand. They’ll know a few of their classmates raised their hands; many are aware of the bullying done to their own classmates, but they don’t say anything.
Regardless of the results, let them know that you, as a teacher, as well as the school administrators and their parents, are available to talk to should they want to come forward. Not only does this feel reassuring to those who admit their worries, but it also reassures those too scared to raise their hands even when others are looking will know that they have someone to talk to just in case.
Physical Bullying
This is one of the most common forms of bullying, but it doesn’t necessarily have to do with hitting or punching you’d expect from schoolyard bullies. These are the bullies that both hurt your body or your own physical possessions. If they steal and break your possessions, shove you in the corridors, or actively seek you out to start a fight, this counts as physical bullying.
It’s very common, but it’s not the first type of bullying you’d experience from one bully. Bullying usually begins with intimidation and escalate into physical violence. Bullies who are relatively bigger than their victims can easily resort to violence, but students in small stature can also be just as dangerous if they know taekwondo or mixed martial arts.
This form of bullying doesn’t necessarily use physical violence, but this is one that almost exclusively uses mean words. Often used by female students than male students, this is where name-calling, threats, teasing, and rumors come into play. While men have a tendency towards physical bulling and girls verbal bullying, it’s also possible for men to use verbal bullying.
While words can never really hurt you, verbal bullying can greatly affect people who are very sensitive to what other people think or say about them. While some are unaffected by verbal bullying and have a strong resolve or do not care about what people say about them, this (especially when used as a social exclusion technique) is still a subtle but powerful method of bullying.
Emotional Bullying
Also known as psychological abuse, emotional abuse involves using a victim’s relationship with others and trying to isolate the person by either turning everyone against the victim or making the victim believe that everyone is out to get them.
This is usually done by ruining someone’s reputation or social standing. It’s possible to categorize this under verbal bullying, but it’s not just limited to spreading rumors and saying mean things about the victim. This could also be sabotaging a person’s character and making a victim a pariah. In the film Mean Girls, this was done when Regina George made it look like Cady, Gretchen, and Karen were responsible for the Burn Book, isolating Cady in the process.
Psychological Bullying
This form of bullying is the least visible of all, as it’s possible for a bully to do this through online or secretly in person, focusing on the mental warfare between the bully and their victim. In such cases, a bullying victim is subject to trauma and develops mental conditions such as depression, anxiety, and a reluctance to leave the home due to the bullying they face in the school/
Cyberbullying
Cyberbullying is using technology and social media to bully a victim. Unlike physical bullying, the bullying and humiliation stops the moment a student goes home. But in cyberbullying, the humiliation follows the student everywhere they go and they’re reminded of their bullies each time they go online. Sometimes, the bullying is public and for everyone to see; and because of the fear that what happens on the internet is recorded forever or cannot be removed except by the bully, it’s pretty traumatizing.In some cases, a bully may even open several fake accounts to torment their victim anonymously.
LGBT+ Bullying
If your school allows you to teach LGBT+ topics, you may want to consider this section as well. Over the years, people from non-traditional genders and sexualities have become more open about their identity, and plenty of people, regardless of gender, sex, and sexuality, have come to accept them. However, there are some people (extremely religious individuals, toxic masculinity stereotypes, bigots) don’t agree with a non-traditional lifestyle. The LGBT+ community isn’t forcing heterosexual men and women to become gay, but there are some people who go out of their way to deny the community the right to express themselves.
These are bullies who target people who have openly identified as a different gender or sexuality. Gay men, lesbians, and transgender people are frequently made into the butt of jokes; at worst cases, they are physically harmed and told to commit self-harm due to their identity.
Disability Bullying
In public schools that receive government funding, the school is not allowed to discriminate who they admit into their classrooms, regardless of their physical and mental disabilities. Some people may be physically handicapped (e.g. born with a condition that makes them unable to walk) or a mental condition that makes them unable to socialize normally or keep up with their classmates academically.
While some cases of bullying may be common knowledge within the students, teachers and staff may be unaware of the bullying that is happening. In such case, the most important thing you can teach your students is to report all cases of bullying, no matter how small. Each of the 50 states has legislations against bullying, with some states stricter than others. In New Jersey, for example, each case of bullying, no matter how small, must be reported to state authorities, who then base the school’s grade partially on the number of bullying incidents and how they dealt with the bully, who could be suspended or even expelled for their actions.
When the Bully is a Legal Adult
Some bullies may be 18 years old and in high school. In such cases, the bully is treated as an adult and it’s no longer just a case of bullying, but a crime that meets the criteria of cyber-harassment or cyberstalking. This is particularly serious if the bully in question harasses a high school student that is still a minor, since the bully should have known better than to harm or hurt a child.
In these cases, a bully may even be sent to jail if their actions are particularly damaging to a child.
The First Step Is Opening Up
The point of this lesson is to teach your students that bullying won’t stop unless they report it. Fighting back will only result in more violence, and blackmailing a bully to stop won’t make your student better than the actual bully.
Make your room a safe space. Your students will be unlikely to report bullying to you if you seem like the type who will brush off their concerns or mock them for seeking help from teachers and staff. And if you can tell one of your students is being bullied, you might also want to gently and privately check if they are alright.
Tips for Teachers
Don’t treat your students like children. These are high school students who are not children, but they’re not exactly adults either. If they come to you or if it looks like a serious bullying issue, don’t think that putting the bully and victim in one room and forcing the bully to apologize will change things. A bully may be forced to verbally apologize, but unless the bully understands why their actions are wrong, they aren’t going to change their treatment unless given the appropriate consequences.
If you suspect that your student is a victim of bullying, ask them privately. They may fear being seen as weak in front of their peers, so asking them if they are bullied while in public may make them hesitant to say anything out loud.
While teenage bullying is common in high schools, it is still something you, as a teacher, need to address with your class. You have to handle them maturely, but in such a way that they are still responsible for their own actions.
Just because it’s not happening in your classroom, that doesn’t mean bullying isn’t happening right under your nose. With technology making retail, information, and other conveniences easily accessible through a smartphone or any access to the internet, the same applies to communication with others. Unfortunately, some students and other children, teens, and even adults abuse this communication tool to bully others online, sometimes with the advantage of anonymity on their side.
As a teacher, you may have your own lesson plans or measures against bullying in the classrooms. Unfortunately, most teachers that teach against bullying have outdated ideas on the subject that what they tell their students may not apply to the way bullying is practiced today. While emotional, verbal, and physical bullying still exists in the classroom, the effects of cyberbullying are just as bad and degrading on students’ physical well-being, mental health, and overall self-esteem.
Lesson Summary
This lesson plan on cyberbullying focuses on two aspects: the bullied and the bully. For the first part, we talk about cyberbullying in general, how to spot if you’re being bullied, what to do, and measures your students can take against cyberbullying.
In the second part, we discuss what accounts as cyberbullying, when to know when your student is stepping over the line, and how to avoid cyberbullying others. This lesson plan is applicable to students of all ages, though some changes may be needed to adjust to your students’ level of maturity and your own teaching style.
Learning Objectives
This is a cyberbullying resource meant to help teachers learn about cyberbullying and how to effectively teach their students about avoiding being a bully as well as knowing what to do should they face a cyberbully of their own. After educating your students in cyberbullying, your students should be able to:
Understand the characteristics of cyberbullying.
Recognize when they are being cyberbullied by their classmates.
Perform the appropriate action against cyberbullies.
Avoid cyberbullying their classmates.
Background on Cyberbullying
Before the internet became a ubiquitous part of students’ lives, bullies from both male and female students have existed for a long time. From the stereotypical jocks who bully the less physically fit students, to the mean girls who look down on everyone outside their clique, bullies exist for a number of reasons, both having to do with internal and external factors of the bullies themselves.
For bullying to occur, there has to be habitual and repeated actions against the victim. For example, let’s take two students, Alex and Billy. If Alex bumps into Billy along a crowded hallway and Billy angrily pushes Alex so hard that Alex falls to the floor, then this isn’t bullying. Billy may have difficulty controlling his temper and reacting to negative situations and may get into trouble for this if Alex is physically injured or if Billy refuses to apologize, but the fact that Billy wouldn’t actively seek out Alex to hurt him another time makes this an example of non-bullying.
But if Billy decides to tease, shove, and threaten Alex with physical violence if Alex doesn’t give him money, then this is a form of bullying. Based on US legislation, regardless of which state the two live in, if Alex reports Billy to school authorities and Billy is found guilty of bullying, the school can use state legislation to punish Billy – often this leads to suspending kids like him. In worst cases, a bully may even be forced to leave the school permanently.
Legislation on Bullying
As of 2019, all 50 states have anti-bullying legislation. Georgia was the first state to create laws against school and workplace bullying in 1999, while Montana was the last state to implement laws in 2015. While all the laws generally ban bullying from schools, some legislations are stricter than others.
New Jersey currently has the strictest bullying legislation in the country, as every case of bullying (from simple teasing to severe physical and emotional bullying) must be reported to the state authorities. These authorities grades every school in the state based on their anti-bullying policies, the number of bullying incidents that have occurred in the school, and how the school plans to effectively deal with each bullying case. All school faculty are required to treat every reported bullying case seriously, and bullies may be suspended or even expelled for cases ranging from minor to major.
Cyberbullying
Also known as online bullying and cyber harassment, cyberbullying takes the verbal and emotional bullying and makes it easier for the bully to reach out to their victim because of the ease of communication provided by the internet. As such, it is arguably more dangerous as cyberbullying has the effects of traditional bullying but sometimes without the witnesses or jurisdiction provided by a student’s home or school.
If Alex were bullied in school, someone would be bound to see it or news would eventually make its way to a faculty member or school administrator. If someone were to bully Alex outside his home or inside by one of his siblings, all Alex would have to do is call for a parent who will diffuse the situation and protect Alex from the trauma of bullying.
In cyberbullying, however, the forms of communication make it difficult for Alex to seek help. If someone sends him a hateful message, he may feel like his parents are powerless to stop it as they can’t do anything about it. Since this is outside of school hours, he may also believe that the school has no power to do anything said to him online. It’s even possible that Alex’s bullies use anonymous accounts.
Effects of Cyberbullying
Just because it’s happening online doesn’t mean it won’t have any effect on a student. In fact, it can have long-term consequences on the victim, including a lower self-esteem, depression, suicidal tendencies, and emotional damage.
If Alex faces frequent cyberbullying, you may find that his demeanor at home and school can change drastically. He becomes more scared, frustrated, angry, and depressed, and because this is happening online, he might think he has no outlet to deal with his bully. Unlike a bully at school who can be reported and who Alex doesn’t have to see outside of school hours, Alex can see the taunts of a cyberbully each time he opens his social media accounts.
In worst cases, a victim of bullying may be driven to commit suicide. In 2012, a 15-year old girl named Amanda Todd was driven to kill herself due to the cyberbullying. Her bully followed her for years, sending compromising photos of her to everyone in her school and blackmailing her. Eventually, Todd was driven to kill herself by hanging after suffering anxiety, depression, and panic disorders. Prior to her suicide, she practiced self-mutilation and tried to commit suicide once by drinking bleach, but was rescued.
At this point, you’ll want your students to understand the severity of cyberbullying. Those who are experiencing cyberbullying need to understand that this isn’t just something they can continue to tolerate. On the other hand, those that are aware that they bully others need to understand how far the effects of their bullying can go.
For the Bullied Students
Why Do Cyberbullies Bully?
Your lesson plan must start by answering with the “why?” portion, especially if you’re teaching younger students. Often, we’re told that people are supposed to be nice to each other, so you have to explain why some students in their school (or even in your very classroom) are being excessively mean.
You have the free reigns of providing students with an answer you see fit. However, you must never answer in such a way that bullying is justified. If the victim is a girl and the bully is a boy, you can’t just dismiss the boy’s action and say “boys will be boys.” It’s time to end the mindset that a boy’s actions towards a girl should be accepted because “they secretly like her” or because he’s much rowdier than girls are.
In general, bullies exist because of an imbalance of social or physical power, among other factors. A “jock” may have more physical strength, and his act of physically harming a weaker student asserts his dominance over students who relate more with the victim that the jock’s own peers.
One way of explaining bullies is using animal analogies. If you look at other animals like monkeys, you can see that there is a social hierarchy there. Monkeys fight for power or position, and for a monkey to assert their dominance, they have to appear more physically and verbally more intimidating than others around him.
Some people seem to portray this behavior as well, even though it’s not necessary in a civilized community. By asserting their dominance through their actions, they’re getting the message that they’re someone you shouldn’t mess with. However, there are some people they cannot bully to assert their dominance – such as faculty, staff, and people within their circles – so to assert their dominance and avoid looking insecure, they find someone significantly weaker in terms of physical or social status.
Cyberbullying is just a byproduct of bullying throughout the years. Why stop in the playground when the internet now provides easy communication to anyone? Because of this, bullies can now bully even more efficiently any time of the day. They may even bully a victim anonymously, thus avoiding the consequences of getting caught all the while degrading their victim’s will.
Recognizing Cyberbullying Tactics
Your students can find cyberbullying through texting, social media, gaming, or any virtual place where communication is possible. It’s not always limited to the messages sent to your students, but also other people who send or write about nasty comments online about your student.
There are times when your student may have a friend or acquaintance with just mean-spirited humor, but there’s a fine line between joking around and cyberbullying. Make sure your student watches out for the following tactics and some examples:
When the bully post comments or rumors that are hurtful or embarrassing (e.g. Billy tells everyone that Alex can’t afford to study because he’s too poor)
Telling someone to kill themselves (Billy tells Alex he is a waste of space and should just die)
Posting mean pictures or videos (Billy uploads a photoshopped photo of Alex on a fat naked man’s body)
Posting hateful names or content discriminating a person’s identity (Billy making fun of Alex for being ugly)
Creating a webpage dedicated to mocking someone
Leaking a person’s private information available to the public (Billy gives away Alex’s phone number, credit card numbers, etc.)
Sharing compromising photos of any person (Billy sends a nude photo of his ex-girlfriend)
These are not the only ways cyberbullying happens; you’d be surprised how creative bullies can get when they want to bully their targets.
Show your students the effects of keeping silent. If you’re exposed to cyberbullying for a long time and nothing is done to stop the bully, you may not realize it, but your mind reacts to the bullying accordingly, slowly changing your personality.
A student may be emotionally distraught after accessing the internet. They then project their negative emotions towards the people around them.
They suddenly become more secretive with their friends and families about what they do online. They may also start withdrawing from social gatherings in school or within the family.
Their distraction may cause them to perform poorly in school.
When they get texts or messages, they tend to get nervous (Is it Billy? Is it my mom?)
What Children Need to Know
While social media is neither a part of the school or the home, a child’s well-being is the responsibility of both parents and the school. A child needs to understand that their parents and school authorities have the power to stop the bullying even if it is virtual.
We’re in an age where we’ve become so dependent on technology that you can’t tell your students to just avoid social media to stay away from the bullies. Don’t make your student believe they have to adjust and the bully gets away scot-free and continues to stay on social media.
The first thing your students have to understand is that bullying is not their fault. The fact that they have a bully says more about the bully than the student. Let them know that talking to a teacher or parent is the first and most responsible thing they can do.
While lesson plans on cyberbullying may be a bit outdated, the legislation I mentioned means that schools have provisions on cyberbullying and handling it. Some stricter schools may even get the help of local authorities to track down anonymous bullies.
A bullied student must also learn how to handle the bully or bullies. It may seem like a good idea to fight back, but what your child should do is keep a record of these messages or posts which can be used as evidence against the bully.
For the Bullies
On the other side of the bullying resource is for students who are bullies, whether they know it or not. For some, teasing and mean jokes may be harmless fun. But what is fun for them may already be distressing for the person who becomes the victim.
Peer Pressure
It’s actually possible that your student has become the bully, whether they know it or not. Herd mentality is very prevalent in schools, which is people, even if they know they are doing something wrong, may continue to act that way because they’re influenced by the way others thing and are pressured to act the same way.
Let’s say that Billy continues to bully Alex. He makes snide jokes about Alex in class, some of which make the rest of the students laugh. Billy continues to bully Alex online, publicly and for everyone to see. Chuckie is a classmate who begins to see that people are partaking in ridiculing Alex. So, he thinks there’s no harm in being in the joke and joins in. Chuckie thinks this is all just fun and games, when really, he’s actually become a bully himself.
Recognizing You Are the Bully
We all think we’re the heroes of our own stories, so it’s difficult for some people to accept that they are the bully. Encourage your students that it’s never too late to do the right thing, and if a student realizes that they’ve committed cyberbullying, the best thing they can do is apologize and actively make sure they never do it again.
This is the best case scenario. However, in more severe cases, there are some bullies who are actively aware that what they are doing is wrong but they continue to bully their classmate. In some cases, these children are actually a product of their own problems at home and at school. Because they cannot project their anger at the root cause, they’ve decided to take it out on their weaker classmates. Talking to a counselor can help them understand whether or not that have unresolved anger issues or need an outlet to divert their strong negative emotions.
In other cases, a child may bully others as a result of entitlement. In such case, you may need the help of their parents to enforce rules. Restricting their social media use or internet use only for academic purposes can help them understand how they need to be responsible when communicating with others online.
In all cases, though, never let a bully’s actions go unpunished. Your student may be a genius, a gifted athlete, or one of the best students you know, but never let that be the reason that they get away scot-free. Otherwise, it will be hard for them to understand the consequences of their actions as they’re given a pass for their negative traits.
Tips for Teachers
Teaching these lessons to your students is pointless if they think you are unwelcoming or unwilling to help them should they ever come to you for help. Make a habit to stress that you are always willing to lend an ear and will act appropriately when they report cyberbullying.
Sometimes, you may need to be the one who approaches your student and ask what is wrong. Often, they may not tell you what is bothering them. Do not force them to tell you, but at the same time, don’t give up when you know something is wrong. Allow them to feel safe in your presence; chances are, they’ll eventually admit what is really bothering them.
In serious cases, be ready to contact your student’s parents or guardians. If you feel like they’re likely to do something drastic to stop the bullying inform school authorities immediately.
Cyberbullying is a serious form of bullying that makes your students feel unsafe, whether at home or in school. Teach your students the right way to deal with cyberbullying, and remind those guilty of cyberbullying that their actions can drastically harm their classmates and schoolmates in the long run.
In the modern world, many aspects of our society have been successfully integrated into the digital landscape, from commerce and business to entertainment and politics. While the implications of this can be either positive or negative, what is clear is that younger generations will have to go through this cyber filter in order to take part in the world around them.
This poses a few risks: first and foremost being the attitude-changing powers that anonymity gives, particularly for younger people. If our future generations have any hopes of becoming moral, ethical, upstanding adults in the brave new world of technology, they must learn what it is to be a digital citizen.
What is a Digital Citizen?
According to researchers like Karen Mossberger and T.H. Marshall, digital citizens are people “who use the Internet regularly and effectively”. In short, digital citizens are people who use information technology, particularly the internet, to engage themselves with the world around them. Digital citizens wield technology appropriately in order to broadcast their opinions, interact with people from around the world, and present new ideas and concepts to one another.
Digital Citizens use information technology and the internet efficiently, extensively, and regularly. This includes, but is not limited to, the use of blogs, social media, online journalism, and video creation. While there is no hard and fast rule as to when exactly a person becomes a digital citizen besides constant internet activity, the accepted start of digital citizenship is when a person learns how to use technology in an ethical manner.
Notable sociologist T.H. Marshall first put forward the concept of citizenship being divided into three concepts: ascriptive hierarchy, liberalism, and republicanism. Within this framework, we can see digital citizenry as a byproduct (or, alternatively, as an effect) of the promotion civic duty, participation in political systems, and the propagation of equal opportunity. Because of technology’s innate ability to democratize access to information, and thus effectively democratizing civic participation, digital citizenship becomes an accessible, if not a necessity, option for all members of society.
Engaging the Youth
In recent years, teenagers, young adults, and even children as young as 6 were all reported to spend more time using the internet than watching television. While parents are rightfully concerned as to how this might affect their children’s cognitive abilities, a study by Ellen Wartella, a researcher from Northwestern University and considered to be a leading scholar in the impact of media in the development of children, found that even teenagers are concerned about the effects of digital technology might have on their physical and mental health.
Much like the 90’s, the youth are considered to be the most ideal test market for new digital content services for the next generation. First-wave social media sites like Friendster and MySpace came into prominence during the infancy stages of the internet age and made it easier for the youth to access the internet and to participate with others on the internet.
By 2010, sites like Facebook and Instagram gave the youth even more power to engage with the world around them. As of 2015, teenagers were reported to be spending almost 10 hours a day on the internet, primarily browsing social media sites. The birth of the smartphone era made the internet even easier to access, and advances in manufacturing processes made the technology even more accessible to everyone.
Because of the prevalence of the youth demographic on the internet, and partly because they adapted to the technology so easily, tons of research are spent annually to study young digital citizens in order to discern their activities, habits, fields of interest, values, and even emojis and internet slang. In America, almost 95% of youth aged 12-17 are online, with 80% of those teens being regular users of social media. It’s come to a point where social media presence is no longer an option, but rather a prerequisite to participating in online activities, and is essentially a kind of “passport” to digital citizenship.
While digital citizenship should be taught at a younger age, teenagers aged 15 and up to their young adulthood at 22 is the time when most young people will start developing a sense of their place in society. It is here where young people develop three distinct attributes: civic attachment, civic skills, and civic literacy, all of which contribute to efficient civic engagement, an attribute that will be reflected in their political views once they reach full adulthood.
As a reading-intensive medium, the internet can present many challenges to having young people of all abilities to access and participate in. Classic educational subjects like reading comprehension are necessary for young people to take full advantage of the internet. Unfortunately, this isn’t reflected in many of our government’s websites, where the content requires 11th grade reading comprehension, despite the fact that many people in our country have the comprehension level of 8th grade and below.
The first part of engaging the youth and turning them into morally-upright digital citizens is to instill in them a love for learning and the basic skills necessary to survive a digital landscape that is not only rife with content, but also websites that seek to mislead and distort truth.
Teaching Digital Citizenship to Students
In as much as educators are tasked with teaching students of all grade levels how to be good members of their community, educators must also teach students how to be positive members of the digital community. Digital citizenship lessons are a great way to integrate positive values into students early on, something they can bring to the digital world to elevate it.
Depending on the grade level, digital citizenship lesson plans should incorporate activities that address different aspects of behavior, as well as making it age and comprehension level appropriate. Here is a sample digital citizenship lesson plan for high school students and a sample digital lesson plan for middle school students.
Here are some ways that you can introduce digital citizenship concepts to your students.
Incorporate Digital Citizenship Issues in Daily Lessons
To ensure that your students retain lessons about digital citizenship, it’s important to incorporate them into your daily lesson plan. Through practice and repetition, the values and responsibilities of digital citizenship become second nature to your students, regardless of their age or grade level. With so many schools now connected to the internet, as are many aspects of our everyday life, talking about digital citizenship on a daily basis will be easier and won’t require any extra effort or time on your part.
For example, during student presentations, you can insert a few ideas regarding intellectual rights and copyrights, especially if they’re using media like YouTube videos or Facebook posts as citations. Depending on their age and comprehension level, ask them about whether or not stealing a post on Facebook can be considered plagiarism, and ask them to defend or support their position. Create discussion groups where the topic is about the rights of media creator’s vis-à-vis social media platform terms and conditions. Alternatively, for lighter activities, you can also ask them to create “modern” adaptations of historical situations, i.e., what kind of statuses would George Washington post, and what Benjamin Bache might reply to it.
To teach responsibility, respect, or empathy, ask your students to create online profiles of people from history or literature. Have them interact with people in character, and ask them to respond to comments and criticism in the same way they feel their persona would. Especially for historical figures, this would help them understand the person from entirely different perspectives, and show them that one man’s hero might be another man’s villain.
Review Online Comments and Discuss Them With Your Students
More and more teachers are utilizing information technology like YouTube videos in their lesson plans, whether it’s exploring a scientific theory, mathematical concepts, literary figures, or historical situations. But this can be expanded even more to teach digital citizenship to your students.
After your video is over, scroll down to the comments section and read the comments. Pick out a few negative comments and discuss them with your students. Use guide questions like, was the comment appropriate or necessary? Was the commenter being hateful? Why do you think they would comment something like this? Do you agree with their position? If yes, why? If not, why not?
Of course, ensure that the comments you choose to discuss aren’t highly inappropriate nor abusive, unless you’re confident that you can discuss it logically, and without triggering anyone in your class. However, if you feel your class is mature enough to discuss this, address it and highlight the idea that proper digital citizens do not engage in that kind of behavior.
Study Stories about Cyberbullying and Brainstorm Solutions To Them
Perhaps one of the most important digital citizenship lessons you can teach students is about cyberbullying. No matter the age, your students might have encountered cyberbullying already. It’s a dark side of this kind of democratic access to technology: it gives negative people a platform to speak as well. What’s worse, the anonymity gives negative people an outlet for their hatred.
You can start by asking your students to read a story about cyberbullying and ask them to write reflection papers that explored what they thought about the whole situation. Ask them to stand in the shoes of the victim, and ask them how they would feel if it happened to them and what they could do to stop it in the future. However, make sure you vet the story that you’ll be asking them to read to ensure that it isn’t too graphic or violent.
Especially with older students, this exercise might potentially trigger any anxieties they might have. Teaching this aspect of digital citizenship to high school students can be difficult, considering that some of them might be going through the same thing. Stories with tragic endings might upset some of the older students, but it might also be a good way to address their emotions in a healthy and accepting space, and is also a great opportunity to explore ways to avoid cyberbullying in the future. Ensure that you consult with therapists and other child development experts in figuring out the healthiest way to do this.
Regardless of age group, however, discussing cyberbullying as an unacceptable aspect of digital citizenship is necessary. Teach them empathy by asking them to reflect on what it would be like to receive that kind of abuse online, particularly if you notice that they’re beginning to be careless with how they interact with their peers online.
Digital Citizenship is Digital Responsibility
Digital Citizenship requires a degree of responsibility that many people might be aware of. Especially for young people, it’s doubly important to teach digital responsibility to students so that they can become adult digital citizens that have positive values they can use to elevate society as a whole.
This wasn’t true in the early days of social media, where it was less a bastion of free speech and knowledge and more the Wild West where people mercilessly attacked one another for the smallest infraction of thought, taste, or any other reason that could be thought of. Now, however, our society is shifting towards a digital mindset, and with that shift, a civility in cyberspace.
As an educator, it’s your responsibility to create digital citizenship lesson plans that are appropriate for all your students and something that reminds them of their role in shaping a digital future that is morally upright and ethically responsible.
