Q: I’m a middle school teacher. I was worried that we’d have issues when the district required students to keep their cameras on while Zooming, and sure enough, it’s already a disaster. A boy in one of my classes took a screenshot of another student in the class picking his nose and posted it on social media with a mean comment saying “and that’s why he has no friends.” And the boy was tagged! Pretty cruel. Another student reported this to me a few days later. She’s a good kid. A kind kid. She didn’t think this was right. Obviously it isn’t! I’m upset but don’t have much recourse. I don’t make the camera policies. The girl who told me doesn’t want me to say she reported the bullying, so my hands are tied. How can I make sure this doesn’t happen again?
A: Your hands are not as tied as you think they are. The second your student posted that photo and comment on social media, he lost control over who might see it. That means you can protect the girl who reported the post and also call out the boy for shaming his classmate online.
There are two separate pieces to this — your school district’s anti-bullying policy, if one exists, and the kind of culture you’d like to create in your online classroom. On the district front, you can suggest that the girl make an official report. Often, students are able to fill out a bullying report form without revealing their identity. The district can then investigate and impose any appropriate consequences. You can report the incident to your administrator as well.
The second piece, which you have a bit more control over, relates to how students conduct themselves in your online classroom. You’re right that this boy’s aggressive behavior is going to impact everyone. Who will want to engage actively in discussions when the threat of humiliation is constantly hanging over them? None of your students will feel psychologically safe. They will worry that a wrong answer could get beamed out to the world, or that someone will capture them doing something physically off-putting and share it online. With classmates like that, I’d be surprised if anyone was willing to turn their camera on again.
Start by asking the girl for permission to bring the issue up in class. Let her know you won’t reference her. Because the comment was posted publicly, you can simply say you heard it from “someone in the community.” I’d check in with the boy, too. Let him know that you’ll be talking about what happened with the class, but that you won’t name him. He still may not want to be present, so give him a heads-up, ask him if there’s anything in particular he’d like you to say (or not say), and give him the option to skip that particular class.
When you do bring it up, explain to the students that you’re disappointed and that it’s unacceptable, and let them know about the consequences for bullying. You also could ask the students to participate in a class discussion about the pros and cons of posting photos or comments related to kids’ actions in class. Pose questions such as, “Why do you think someone would do that?” “What are some things you might want to ask yourself before posting anything damaging about someone else online?” “What do you secretly think about the kids who do mean stuff like this online?” “How does it change your experience of the class, knowing that someone could post a humiliating photograph of you at any time?” “What do you think is a reasonable consequence for this kind of behavior?”
Middle schoolers are smart and sophisticated enough to think this issue through, but they’ll need you to launch the discussion and ensure it stays constructive. Whatever you do, don’t ignore it or wait for it to get better on its own. It won’t.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Phyllis L. Fagell
Phyllis L. Fagell is the school counselor at Landon School in Washington, D.C., a therapist at the Chrysalis Group in Bethesda, Md., and the author of the Career Confidential blog. She is also the author of Middle School Matters and Middle School Superpowers, available at https://amzn.to/3Pw0pcu.
