From Dr. Phil to anyone looking to make a name for themselves when railing against the Internet the one subject they all like to pick on is cyber-bullying and how it is destroying our children. However they aren’t the only one’s in our school systems that are having to deal with what can be the traumatic effects of cyber-bullying.
A new study out from Plymouth University in England has some pretty bad news on this front because they have found that more than a third of teachers have been abused online. While the majority of abuse, 72%, is coming from students it seems that parents can’t stay out of it as 26% of them are abusing teachers online.
“This parental abuse is something we haven’t come across before,” said Prof Andy Phippen, the author of the report.
A total of 35% of teachers said that they had been victims of online bullying — 60% of which were women.
Most of the abuse comes through chat on social networks, but there are many people setting up Facebook groups to target certain teachers. There are also cases of videos being posted on YouTube and reatemyteacher.com has always been a popular venue for abuse.
After being the victim of cyber abuse from a parent using social media sites, one headmistress suffered a breakdown and was left feeling suicidal.
Another teacher was treated for depression and suicidal thoughts after a social media-induced questioning from police.
via TechVibes
One parent, who runs an abuse blog aimed at teachers, didn’t see anything wrong with what they were doing, and according to one teacher this is just something that they have to “live with”.
Sorry but this is totally wrong. How can you possibly expect the teachers that are trying so hard (and yes there are some) to teach our children to give their jobs 100% when they have to face crap like this.
