Purpose and Introduction

 

This is a bullying, cyberbullying, and cyber-behaviors curriculum, designed for use by grades 6 through 12 (middle and high schools).  The Curriculum is divided into 28 Lesson Plans, each of which is intended to be conducted in a 20-minute period of time.  The intention is to enable schools to use the Curriculum either during Advisory Periods (which are often about 20 minutes long) or during regular class periods.  

 

The Curriculum utilizes very short videos (15-25 seconds long), and guided discussions. Each lesson plan has a video and a Teacher's Guide.

 

Topics and Concepts Addressed In the Curriculum

  

L1: Bullying affects everyone in the environment – not just the target. 

L2: Gossip and rumors are fun but it's easy to take it too far. 

L3: Misunderstandings frequently happen when someone is joking or being sarcastic.  This is especially true with digital communications.

L4: Posting embarrassing or humiliating photos of other people isn't cool. 

L5: Private settings on FB don't make it really private – others may see stuff you post.

L6: It’s important to be civil to peers, even if they are not friends.

L7: Texting or posting may feel private or confidential, but it’s neither.   

L8: Don’t go digital when you’re upset. You might just make the problem worse.

L9: Kids and parents over-use the term "bullying.”

L10: Talking to friends and adults about bullying problems doesn't always fix the problem, but support can still be very helpful.

L11: When you’re mad, talk instead of text (texting can escalate your feelings).

L12: Online, it can be hard to judge sarcasm.

L13: Don’t jump to conclusions if a digital message seems angry. Sometimes it’s a falsely exaggerated emotion. 

L14: One friendly remark can help a target a lot.

L15: Bullying gets more digital as kids get older.

L16: It's easy to forget that anything you put online can possibly get around.

L17: Social networks aren’t interested in keeping your information private - they actually want you to reveal your information (so it can be sold).

L18: Can you keep a copy of a Snapchat photo? [1]

L19: Your IP address reveals your physical location, even if you believe you're anonymous or untraceable.

L20: Technology makes it easy to keep in touch with friends.

L21: Social media can be inspirational and a source of support.

L22: Misunderstandings online, and how easy it is to misunderstand what people mean.

L23: Emotions escalate online. Communicating through pictures and text can sometimes make feelings become more intense.

L24: It's easier to be careless about what you say online.

L25: Going without social media.

L26: Sometimes social media feels private, even when you know it's not. 

L27: Liking and commenting.

L28: When pictures are fun, and when they're not. 

 

Activities

 

This is a discussion-based curriculum for grades 6-12 in the areas of bullying and cyberbullying.  

 

• Each lesson begins with the group watching a short video (10-20 seconds long).  These videos involve older teens introducing and briefly commenting on topics or issues.  

• After viewing the video, the teacher/adult leads a discussion utilizing the Teacher’s Discussion Guide for that video.  Each Lesson has both a Video and a Teacher’s Discussion Guide.  

• Students do not receive any materials.  

• Each Teacher’s Discussion Guide features: 

• A one to two sentence summary of the topic or issue

• An Guiding Question, which the Teacher reads aloud to the students (either verbatim or not).  This Guiding Question is designed to begin the conversation.  

• Comments we anticipate you are likely to hear from students.

• Common misconceptions about the topic or issue that you may hear from students, and how to correct these misconceptions.

• Follow-up comments and techniques to facilitate conversation and discussions with the students.

 

[1] Snapchat is an app where you can send a picture and have it delete itself after a set period of time (e.g., 1 minute).  Users tend to use snapchat for photos that they otherwise wouldn’t take, believing the app to be completely impervious.  (It’s not.)