PSA+Project

Purpose:
The purpose of this lesson is to reinforce the anti-bullying messages of prior lessons with a special emphasis on preventing cyberbulling by creating public messages for the students to use to foster a school culture that disapproves of bullying in general and cyberbulling specifically. The lesson will be interdisciplinary and use a variety of mediums to create public service announcements (PSAs).

Background:
//Why does this matter?// Bullying is harmful to students and school culture. Cyberbullying is a more recent form of bullying using technology for the bullying interaction. About one third of teens who use the internet say they’ve been victims of a form of cyberbullying (Pew Research Trust, 2007). Cyberbullying is a problem for schools because in a recent survey, 30% of students who had been cyberbullied, said it happened at school (Cyberbullying: Q&A, 2007) and cyberbullying is one of the most prevalent forms of harassment of middle school students (Chibbaro, 2007, p. 65).

//Kinds of Cyberbulling (Willard, 2006, p. 56)://
 * Flaming – directing angry and vulgar language against another, akin to fighting online
 * Harrassment – repeatedly sending offensive, rude, and insulting messages
 * Denigration – sending or posting cruel gossip about a person to damage their reputation, akin to “dissing” someone online.
 * Impersonation – breaking into someone’s e-mail or social networking account, posing as that person, and sending messages to make the person look bad or get him or her into trouble.
 * Outing – sharing someone’s secrets or embarrassing information or images online
 * Exclusion – excluding someone from an online group
 * Cyberstalking – sending messages intended to threaten or intimidate someone

//What can be done about it?// Nancy Willard, an expert on the use of technology to commit social aggression, recommends encouraging student engagement in influencing their peers to disapprove of cyberbullying behavior. The cyberbullying research center ( [|www.cyberbullying.us] ), suggests that one of the best prevention methods for cyberbullying is to foster a positive school culture, a culture “of respect and integrity where violations result in informal or formal sanction.”

//How does this approach fit into Middle School Philosophy?// Freire says that “people teach each other, mediated by the world” (p. 231), which means that students will learn from each other’s behavior in their increasingly online world. If educators can raised the problem of cyberbulling in their online world and make them aware of its implications they are more likely to feel the urgent need to stop and prevent cyberbullying and be responsive to resolving the problem. As Freire says, “students, as they are increasingly posed with problems relating to themselves in the world and with the world, will feel increasingly challenged and obliged to respond to that challenge” (p. 232). So in addition to making students aware of the problem they also need to be made aware of why it is relevant to them and why it is relevant to them now. As Dewey says, “learning for a remote, possible future knowledge use doesn’t work; students need to understand and connect the learning to the “now”, why it is relevant “now” (p. 49). Thus Dewey would argue for teaching students about how cyberbullying is making their fellow students feel and about direct consequences of violating the middle school code of conduct should students get involved with cyberbullying, but he would argue against discussions of how inappropriate postings or cyberbulling could effect a student’s chance to get into college, college is years away, it is not “now”. Finally, the approach used in this lesson allows for the students to come up with their own messages and work through their own words and reflecting their youth culture, it avoids “adult-speak” (Fullilove, p. 311) and uses Fullilove’s good prevention message model: it reflects the teen’s world through their own eyes, it portrays the choices – both good and bad, and provides some scripts for negotiating safe outcomes (p. 314).

Learning Objectives:

 * 1) Students will be able to state in their own words why bullying and cyberbullying are unacceptable
 * 2) Students will be able to state in their own words what to do or say if they are targets of bullying/cyberbullying
 * 3) Students will be able to state in their own words what they can do if someone else is being bullied/cyberbullied.
 * 4) Students will be able to identify ways to prevent bullying/cyberbullying.
 * 5) Students will understand the power of a culture of respect for others
 * 6) Students will demonstrate how a variety of media can be an effective means of transmitting a message

Procedure:
//Exploratory Classes: (duration 12 class periods) develop and complete an individual or group anti-bullying PSA// Day 1 - Exploratory Teacher. Days 2-12 - Exploratory Teacher.
 * Students will view some of the videos and read some of the song lyrics produced for Bullying Awareness Week
 * Students will review the ABCs of Cyber Bullying for Students
 * Students and teacher will review the concept of a PSA/prevention message: emphasis on accurate representation of problem from teen perspective, reminds teens that they have choices, suggests a choice that is reasonable and positive.
 * Students and teacher will discuss possibly ways to use the exploratory media to convey an bullying/cyberbullying prevention message. Examples: art (e.g., posters, iron-on t-shirt designs), computer technology (e.g., videos), music (e.g., songs, raps or soundbites), home arts (treats for tolerance bake-sale, no bullying bags)
 * Students will decide if they want to work in groups or individually and inform teacher
 * Students will inform teacher about anticipated focus of project and resources needed
 * Grading rubric will be distributed and discussed
 * [[file:PSA Rubric.doc]]
 * Students will work on PSA projects
 * Students will keep teacher informed on progress, complications and resource needs
 * Teacher will monitor and note progress and help students refocus as necessary
 * Exploratory Teacher will grade the PSA projects

All completed, final products will be displayed around the school: hung on the walls and in display cases (art work), sold during lunch period (treats for tolerance, no bullying bags, and iron-on t-shirt designs with proceeds going to teen suicide hotline), posted on the school intranet (internal) website (videos, MP3's), and played between classes and before/after school (raps, soundbites). The videos will also be shown before all school events such as assemblies, concerts, curriculum nights and at PTA meetings.

Resources for Lesson:
[] there are examples of songs, videos and other anti-bullying messages created by students in Canada for a "Bullying Awareness Week".

[] an a-to-z list of ideas and strategies for combating cyberbullying

References & Resources:
Chibbaro, J. S., School Counselors and the __Cyberbully__ : Interventions and Implications. Professional School Counseling v. 11 no. 1 (October 2007) p. 65-8

__Cyberbullying__ : Q&A with Nancy Willard [Interview with N. Willard]. The Prevention Researcher v. 14 no. supp (December 2007) p. 13-15

Dewey, J. __Experience and Education__, Simon and Schuster, New York, NY, 1997

Freire, P. //From the Pedagogy of the Oppressed// in Brown, E.R. and Saltman, K. J., eds. __The Critical Middle School Reader__, Routledge, New York, NY, 2005

Fullilove, R.E, Barksdale, W. and Thompson Fullilove, M., //Teens Talk Sex: Can We Talk Back?// in Irvine, J.M., eds. __Sexual Cultures and the Construction of Adolescent Identities__, Temple University Press, Philadelphia, PA, 1994. Willard, N., Flame Retardant [ Cyberbullying ]. School Library Journal v. 52 no. 4 (April 2006) p. 54-6

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