This interview was similar to the interview with the school principal, but two new and disturbing factors clearly emerged. Firstly, the high occurrence of a sexual nature in cyber bullying, and secondly, educators are cyber bullied or falsely accused of sexual misconduct by learners.
Theme 1: The occurrence of cyber bullying in the school
This LO educator confirmed that cyber bullying in schools is a very serious problem, and that it happens more often than realised. The LO educator stated that “I think very serious, I think cyber bullying takes place more often than what we realise. … I think Facebook has a huge impact on our children”.
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A number of examples of cyber bullying in the school was given. There is a girl in the school that was identified as a cyber bully. She regularly posted personal things about other girls on Facebook. Another girl in the school teased girls for not having sex with the bully’s male friends; she sent WhatsApp messages to those males to discuss girls in her class openly. The one victim was so badly affected she couldn’t focus in a class where she sat close to the cyber bully.
Another case at the school involved “outing” as a form of cyber bullying. One grade 11 learner had an affair with an older married man. Another learner saw them together, took a picture and “outed” them by sending the picture to a newspaper. This instance of cyber bullying may fall under the definition of outing as cyber bullying. A picture was taken with a cellphone, and then the picture was made public (although not electronically) to spread the victim’s secret. This instance of possible cyber bullying raises an interesting question that will require more research into the means that can be used to cyber bully learners. Will mass communication, such as the radio or newspaper, also fall in the definition of cyber bullying?
In a case of “sexting” at the school, one girl sent an explicit photo to her boyfriend; he sent it to his friends. This is a perfect example of the dangers of sexting, and the reason why sexting along with cyber bullying should also be regulated in schools. The sexual nature of cyber bullying is quite alarming to the LO educator. She also observes that cyber bullying often results in physical altercations. “Everything is sexual, everything is sexual … . It very often does, I’ve had girls in my office for smacking each other”.
Examples of learner-on-educator cyber bullying were also given. One educator was falsely accused by a learner for sending pornographic pictures and messages to learners. The child phoned a radio station posing as a concerned parent and shortly afterwards child protection services showed up at the school and started an investigation. The educator’s laptop and phone were confiscated by the South African Police Services. The situation was extremely traumatising for the educator, and the educator had to get therapy. This educator still struggles and gets nightmares. Another example is where a learner started rumours that an educator was asking the female learner out on dates. The learner even went so far as to photo shop the image
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of the educator onto pictures. A case of sexual harassment was brought against the educator, investigated and eventually dismissed.
The LO educator believes that “cyber bullying is very debilitating for the children” and that the
use of social media impacts negatively on a learner’s quality of learning:
The LO educator is of the opinion that victims of cyber bullying often become bullies; it is a way of lashing out at other learners. She believes that “they become bullies … they sense the fear; very often because they know the emotion, they know the impact. I think it is limited … sometimes it is a lash out”.
Learners don’t see their actions as cyber bullying. They believe that because they have the right to freedom of speech, they can say whatever they want, when they want to say it:
They don’t see it as bullying. They see it as part of their personality …freedom of speech. We can say what we want, how we want. Bullying is in their nature, cyber bullying has just given them a more powerful tool to affect others. Learners have a false sense of security that comments they make on Facebook will not be found out. They have this false sense of security that comments they make on Facebook will not be found out.
On sexting, the LO educator states that the danger of sexting is that “learners don’t know where to draw the line between appropriate and inappropriate behaviour”.
It can be argued that inappropriate behaviour increases the opportunity for cyber bullying by means of outing, blackmail or extortion.
The LO educator also confirms that cyber bullying contains a group element, “cyber bullying becoming a group attack is not intentional; it is more a wolf pack mentality”.
Theme 2: How is cyber bullying regulated by the school?
The LO educator confirmed that cyber bullying forms part of the LO syllabus for grade 9’s, and as the head of LO in the school, the LO educator specifically focuses on empowering learners to deal with cyber bullying. Learners are taught to block cyber bullies and that “what others say about you doesn’t concern you”.
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The LO educator believes that educating learners on cyber bullying is not always successful as learners don’t remember what they are taught, “they forget, they don’t remember”.
The LO educator referred to how parents and learners were called in to resolve specific instances of cyber bullying, but did not want to comment on the disciplinary process, as the LO educator was not involved personally.
Theme 3: Specific problems that the regulation of cyber bullying presents to schools.
The LO educator agrees with the statement that cyber bullying is more difficult to regulate, as it is much harder to track an instance of cyber bullying to the source of the bullying. She said that “I think it is true … it is very difficult to control cyber bullying …”
She commented that cyber bullies are also much more subtle than traditional bullies. With cyber bullying it is also harder to limit the access that bullies have to the victim. Learners can hide the evidence of cyber bullying easily, or simply deny that they sent the message by saying things like “That’s my number, I didn’t send it, I left my phone somewhere”.
The LO educator mentioned a specific incident as an example where a female learner lied about being at a school activity. She briefly attended the school activity, and then slipped away to meet a boy for a date that she arranged via WhatsApp. When her educator and parent wanted to see the messages on her phone, it had already been deleted. This is not strictly an instance of cyber bullying and the fact that the LO educator used it as an example of cyber bullying is evidence of how educators sometimes misunderstand the nature of cyber bullying.
The LO educator also believes that parents are just not interested to assist with the problem of cyber bullying, as parents themselves spend too much time on their phones rather than to talk to their children, and this sends the wrong message to children. She is of the opinion that learners do not have the confidence in their parents to tell them that they are being cyber bullied.
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Children also make use of cellphones to lie to parents. For example, children take pictures of them with friends at home, send the picture to their parents and then go out. Although this example once again cannot be seen as an instance of cyber bullying, it is an interesting observation, and future research should be done on this.
The LO educator believes that the term bullying is very broad and not covered adequately. “The term bullying is very broad, and we don’t cover it effectively”.
The LO educator is unsure whether the problem of cyber bullying in schools can be addressed adequately, as it is a vast problem and very contextual:
I don’t know how we are going to be able to put laws in place against cyber bullying, I think the term bullying is very vast, what might be offensive to one person might not be offensive to another. Context varies; the way children are raised varies.
The problem with how bullying is regulated in schools is that schools address the results of the bullying and not the cause of the bullying.
From this interview it emerged that there are different forms of cyber bullying currently taking place in the school, including learner-on-educator cyber bullying, harassment, flaming, denigration, impersonation, outing and sexting. The severe consequences for victims of cyber bullying were once again confirmed. The sexual nature of cyber bullying was emphasised strongly during this interview. It is also interesting to note that cyber bullying may cause physical violence between learners. Although there is some form of education for learners regarding cyber bullying, this is not sufficient, and learners often forget what they have learned, or do not listen.