Cyber Bullying

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Anyone willing to share which side of the screen (or both you've been on)

I've been blessed to work in Academia close to 17 years.

Here's a letter received from the District Para Educators earlier this week.
Hi "Dr. Laugh"

It was brought to my attention that several paras would enjoy hearing another one of your presentations. Would you be available during 1st hour on February 14th? Someone suggested the topic of bullying (in the workplace, school setting, media, home,...and its effect on us)

Of course, treats will be provided! Please let me know if you would be interested and available.

Have a great weekend!

C.

What a great question.

You may find this site run by Gary Namie Ph.D. interesting: http://www.workplacebullying.org

Things don't look that good for social media. I avoid it myself, because I learned all about 3D bullying back in the public schools. Applying computers, the internet, and social media to bullying would work just like applying Lotus and Excel and computers to accounting.

The CDC seems a agree. Among other things the youth suicide rate is up almost 300% in a few decades, to about 2.1 per 100,000 per year. Not exactly an enormous number, but for every successful youth suicide, there is untold misery and unsuccessful self-harm incidents.

In public schools, there is a "liability avoiding" culture that refuses to discuss this, beyond symbolism. I wrote a letter to my local school superintendent regarding suicide prevention programs, and received no answer. They stonewall and use slogans, but don't want to talk about real efforts. That's the message I'd give you, to take back to your local schools.

Thank you for the link and food for thought.

During preparation for this I continue to learn.
I'm deficient in area of Computers. In fact it was a few weeks ago, a student educated me on what a faraday box is.
That's the area that phones and other are kept during investigations.

On a lighter side I learned of "lost phones that drop out students back pockets into our toilets.

That's hilarious, where so many phones end up. I managed to do that at home, once. A phone launched out of my pocket, and made a perfect trajectory for the toilet.

Have you ever noticed how much a student who suddenly is without a phone has a reaction similar to an alcoholic about to start the DT's?

SWT - DT's and missing phones.

SWT = smile while typing.

YES.

I used to be the boss of a small, unimportant department in a software development company. I was friends with an undiagnosed aspie in another department. I happened to know, from my position AND from being friends with him, that he was able to produce days worth of impeccable programming in unbelievable time. I saw him do it many, many times. We would pay a contractor to something for weeks, the contractor would mess it up, and I would go to my friend and ask him to fix it for me. He would spend his lunch time and fix it, "under the table." There is no way we could have paid him what he was worth. He was smarter than all of us. He told me once his IQ was tested at 175 and I believe him. He was also well-liked, despite being quirky. Many people there were quirky, either from being on the spectrum themselves, or from being from another country.

He received an official warning from his boss once telling him that he needed to stop using his phone so much, he needed to be nicer to people, he needed to pay attention in meetings (he didn't look up from his phone during meetings, but always listened), he needed to stop being negative, he needed to be more of a team player, and he needed to stop taking two hour lunches. He took those lunches because he was out of work and needed a break away from the people at work. This sometimes happened when we had high performers and it was common to look the other way if they snuck off.

My friend brought me this letter, crushed. Left a copy of it with me. Shortly after that they also shortened the cubes in his area so he was in an open room the size of a cafeteria, facing the room, with an idiot lady in front of him who I knew he didn't like. He stayed for awhile after that, but ultimately left the company.

I think the real problem was his abilities, not his autistic behavior. He made everyone else look useless. And they were, next to him. All the other departments loved him- we didn't even know the other people in his department. Why bother, when we had this genius over there?

I still have the letter and it's one of the main bases for my research.

Dr. Laugh, I can scan it and send it to you if you want. Let me know.