Day 2 of the NCAB conference was, I’m pleased to say, as rich and thought provoking as the first and I’ve come home with a head full of ideas, questions and things to follow up.
The key message for me from today was around the need build respectful relationships at all levels – with teachers, students, parents and the wider community. Regardless of whether we are talking about online or more traditional forms of bullying, approaching the issue by teaching (and modelling) ethical behaviour provides the foundation for the communication and respect needed.
The keynotes of the day were by Professor Ian Rivers and Nina Funnell and were both filled with relevant information that challenged my ideas and made me consider how some of these issues fit into my school environment.
Professor Rivers speech raised important points about the experiences of bullying for lesbian and gay youth but also about the role of bystanders in the culture of bullying. Building the social skills of the 60% of students who are bystanders and empowering them to take action can have a huge impact on the problem and help change the culture.
Nina Funnell spoke of sexting, although noted early on that this is not a term used by youth themselves when they talk about this activity. The statistics provided were surprising – the biggest group of people participating in sexting are actually gay adult males, not teen girls as the media may have us believe and that teen girls and boys actually participate at similar rates. This wasn’t the only point that challenged my thinking. I’m not sure that I’ve given much time to the topic of sexting prior to this keynote – I teach primary school students and (possibly naively) didn’t think it was something that I needed to give much thought to. I hadn’t thought about sexting education programs and how the ‘just don’t do it’ message was similar to the abstinence programs that are acknowledged not to work nor had I thought about the fact many schools are limiting conversations about sexting to cybersafety programs when they also are needed in broader conversations of relationship, sexual health and wellbeing. A final message that really did resonate was to be careful not to demonise either the technology nor the young people involved and I liked the idea of teaching ethics surrounding the issues rather than just the legal consequences of the action.
I attended a seminar by Associate Professor Marilyn Campbell and Dr Barbara Spears on students’ perceptions of how their schools deal with bullying which had interesting findings to present and made me question how my school’s students might answer the question. In particular, it was disturbing to see how students who were bullied online had a more negative view of how the school was handling it and raised questions about what to do to improve the situation.
Dr Michael Carr-Gregg and Elly Robinson were next with a stimulating discussion on parental involvement in addressing cyberbullying. The message, again, was one of building relationships, this time with parents and providing them with the tools they need to set boundaries for and support their children. Resources such as the Bullying no way site and ‘Take a Stand‘ app were given to help start that conversation. Dr Carr-Gregg reiterated that honesty is the best policy and encouraged schools to be upfront with parents – bullying happens in every school so talk about what you’re doing, what parents should watch for and what they can do to ensure it’s being tackled as a team effort.
The final seminar I attended by Rosalie O’Neal and Dr Matthew Dobson of ACMA spoke of the results of recent research on the current trends in young people’s use of social media before providing a range of resources. If you haven’t come across ACMA’s amazing and comprehensive set of resources for teachers, students and parents before, stop reading and go now!
Day 2 and the conference as a whole ended with a panel of experts including youth representation addressing audience questions and some hot issues. Fantastic to see youth voice but not quite representative as none were users of social media which meant we didn’t really get the insight I had hoped for.
I’m left with lots of great resources, topics to ponder and ideas to help move my school, students, staff and parents forward. However I also made some great connections during the conference which raises another point that was at the back of my mind throughout. During 2 days of tweeting, I caught up with several people I follow on twitter and who, while I know their opinions and ideas shared with the world well, I have not previously met them in person and, really, know nothing about who they are. There was much talk during the conference of the ‘randoms’ that students have on their social media accounts and the dangers that this outer circle of barely acquaintances can bring. I’m not for a minute suggesting that we don’t need to teach students the importance of reigning this in and the potential dangers that unknown people can bring, particularly when starting out in an online world and before developing an appreciation for the whole picture. But I want to make sure we don’t also cut students off from the amazing possibilities of interaction that the online world can bring as a result. If I restricted my own social media use to only people I’d previously met in person, I would have missed these rich opportunities for discussion and networking. So I’ll end by reminding readers, as the conference constantly reminded me – technology and social media has its positives too.
a macgirl in a pc world 
Thanks so much for your great wrap up. Family commitments prevented me attending but I loved following the twitter feed and the generous updates.
I enjoyed reading your reflections Gillian. Human connections are a vital piece of the fabric of society, for sure. Once, these connections were made over the village well, over a cup of tea, the back fence or in the school yard. Today, we have cyberspace! And isn’t that grand! I hope others may see the positives that the web has to offer and not cower away from social media. How are youth meant to learn, if not by making mistakes? As adults we should be providing supportive environments in which to learn the etiquette of “cyber world” just as in the past we modelled how to chat to a neighbour at the village shops. The difficulty being, not so many parents jump into their offsprings world as often as they should.
Also, as a teacher I see this is an integral -> “Building the social skills of the 60% of students who are bystanders and empowering them to take action can have a huge impact on the problem and help change the culture.” Very difficult but we need to keep at it! Confident and resilient kids are able to assist those that may not be blessed with a stronger sense of self.
Thanks for the comment Jeannette and for the dialogue via twitter. I guess one of the challenges is to convince fellow adults of the power of connections made through the online world so that they are in a better position to understand and support young people 🙂