In Defense of Cyberbaiting
February 16, 2012
Topics: School Discipline;
In general, when people hear about cyberbaiting, their initial response is disgust and anger that students can be so horrifyingly mean to their teachers. Cyberbaiting is when a group of students, often an entire class of them, persistently harass, disrespect, and disobey their teachers.
After a long time, sometimes over several weeks, the teacher eventually loses his or her cool, and completely snaps. In some cases they threaten or physically harm their students, in other cases they simply rant and rave around the room, shouting incoherently. Invariably someone is filming the whole thing on their smartphone, and the video gets uploaded to the internet. The teacher may resign or get fired, or be forced into a demotion.
However, not all cases of cyberbaiting are quite so clear. What if the teacher is verbally abusive everyday? Every student in the world has complained about their teachers dozens of times, and most parents and administrators simply ignore these complaints, assuming that the student is being immature. In 99% of the cases, the student probably is being immature.
But what about the cases in which the teachers are either abusive, or allow bullying to go in their classrooms uninterupted? What should students do then?
Having a camera phone to record the class may be a good way for students to protect themselves from bad teachers.
What do you think? Do you think cell phones and video recorders should be allowed in schools? How would you punish classes that abuse their teachers? How would you prevent teachers from abusing their students?
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#1 from michelle on February 29, 2012 at 10:41 am
i feel that doing that is just wrong. being a teacher is one of the hardest jobs requiring alot of sacrifice on their behalf students should not tempt there teachers and record them loosing there cool. recording devices should be banned from class and students should be punished by doing some volunteer work in the school. the teachers should just be warned