Looking back to the challenges faced in the past eighteen months or more and renewing hopes for a New Year are some sort of cultural routines. There are others, like myself, who take a moment or two to reflect on the good and bad events of the previous year. This is paired with a positive outlook for a new future full of zeal, good health, and everything else that makes for a happy life.
However, I decided to shift gears and look into something troubling that is rapidly developing and spreading like wildfire. Cyberbullying of educational institutions, and professors is on the rise. Bullying has always occurred, but because of the Internet and social media platforms, it has become more prevalent.
Students are taking advantage of social networking’s features to propagate their dislikes, name-calling, grievances, and gossip, whether true or not. This ‘liberty of opinion and expression’ in the digital sphere, as well as high-speed bullying dissemination, is, even more, engaging with the self-delete message feature.
Bullying of students, instructors, and administrative staff has escalated in educational institutions around the world, particularly since the introduction of online studies as one of the impacts of the pandemic.
Grades and assignments are two of the most common reasons for cyberbullying. For example, a student’s expectation of a high mark is based on the completion of an assignment, regardless of the quality of the work delivered.
The pressure to high grades can erode the quality of students’ learning while also impending their capacity to deal with real-life situations. In short, they become incapable of dealing with stress, deadlines, or delivering good or high-quality work. And more, they reinforce bad habits as a way of life. Known as ‘the entitlement generation’, students believe that ‘trying hard’ should result in a good grade.
Another issue is egocentricity that Mary McKinney addresses in the article “Coping with ‘Oy Vey’ Students”. Some of the demands and complaints are said to be: “I had to miss the class”, “I was sick’; ‘help me please miss’; “I have so many personal concerns that I couldn’t study.” I didn’t cheat!” “You’re not going to give me a zero, are you?” “Plagiarism? I didn’t even see the website!” I could add to the list ‘Don’t you help a sick student?’, or threatening to go (and really going) to the head of the department or the dean if the lecturer doesn’t react positively to the requests. It is more like students are attempting to outsmart the lecturers by using foxy persuasion and manipulation techniques. There are cases of students losing good opportunities as a result of their tweets, status updates and other online postings.
Richard Vedder, an expert on the economics of higher education, once claimed that students don’t see the benefits in learning when they can search and find immediate answers on the Internet. This gives rise to the idea of students as consumers, in which they believe that their schools – or even society- owe them something. It also reinforces what they have learned from shopping: the client is always right.
Unfortunately, many eager-to-learn-students who have talent and enthusiasm are overshadowed by those who feel entitled and attention seekers. Teachers end up having less time to work with students who want to improve themselves – and that is a serious educational setback.
Teachers and lecturers deserve better recognition than they currently receive.
Educating future leaders, academics, engineers, and doctors should be considered one of the professions on the verge of extinction. The social media madness is putting any desire to teach to the test. Who wants to be disrespected or even challenged by students who believe their viewpoints and opinions are just as valid as an expert? Values are at stake.
