A little more than a decade ago, the assistant principal at Brandywine Jr./Sr. High School gathered all of the females in the freshman class to watch the film “Mean Girls,” with the intent of teaching us a lesson.

We were forced to watch the movie, which focuses on high school bullying, because we had a string of fist fights break out in the hallway. While the fights were of course acts of bullying themselves, the deeper issue was the growing problem with gossip that was inciting the brawls.

Back then, the most powerful tool used to torment classmates was a person’s tongue. Whispers in the hallway seemed to spread like wildfire, and the only way to put out the flames seemed to be to start another fire.

Today, the weapon of choice is much more powerful and has the potential to reach infinitely more people, and therefore causes infinitely more damage.

In 2015, the most damaging way to harm a classmate doesn’t come from students’ mouths. It comes from their thumbs.

Parents of students at Niles High School have received two letters in recent weeks about issues stemming from some Twitter accounts set up with the purpose of harassing students in the school district. Although they aren’t new accounts and have been passed down through several classes, the tweets were offensive enough that someone finally reported them to an administrator.

Quickly after the letters were sent out, many parents and students came to the defense of Niles Schools, asserting that a very small minority was responsible for tweeting those messages. Many pointed out that neighboring school districts have similar accounts.

I don’t know about anyone else, but those facts don’t make me feel better about the situation; they make me feel worse.

When verbal gossip was the main issue young people had to deal with, the rumors typically stayed within the school limits. When students use social media as a platform to amplify the rumors and trash talk, the reach is virtually endless.

Anyone with a Twitter account (or anyone who Googles a specific Twitter account) can see the posts, and while it is possible to delete tweets and shut down Twitter accounts, the damage is done as soon as a tweet is sent, and sometimes the effects of the cyber bullying has the potential to change a child’s life forever.

Maybe parents are right; maybe it is a very small number of students participating in this behavior — but the fact that so many people are aware of the history of these accounts and the popularity of them in other districts shows that countless people knew about the bullying and did nothing about it.

As adults, it is our responsibility to teach young people that this behavior is unacceptable. Niles administrators are taking steps toward shutting the sites down and punishing those involved, but I think we can all agree that more can be done to prevent these incidents from happening in the first place.

Whether they want to admit it or not, young people (even teenagers) follow in the footsteps of their parents. If you use your Facebook account to make fun of another person, the young people on your friends list will likely think it is OK.

If you post comments on statuses bashing another human being, the adolescents who see your comments will think that’s OK, too.

And if you fail to report bad behavior you witness like this, your children will be reluctant to do the same.

It is time we stop putting Band-Aids on the problem and placing blame on the few bad apples that allegedly ruin the bunch. Our society as a whole can do a much better job of letting youth know that we do not tolerate violence in any form — physical or verbal.

The next time you log into a Facebook or Twitter account, or comment on a website, I urge you to think about how you would want your children to act in the same situation.

Rather than placing the blame on a few bad apples, think about what you can do to prevent that decay.

 

Ambrosia Neldon is the managing editor at Leader Publicaitons. She can be reached by phone at (269) 687-7713, or by email at ambrosia.neldon@leaderpub.com.