Cyberbullying Can Happen to Anyone, Even a Social Worker?

Cyberbullying can happen to anyone. I began my teaching career as an adjunct instructor seven years ago at a college in my community. I absolutely love teaching and take great pride in seeing students achieve academic success, especially when they may not have known they were capable. While I enjoy teaching immensely, my students know that I will push them to do their very best; I require regular attendance and class participation.

I became aware of a website called "ratemyprofessor.com", a few graduate students actually told me about it. Nearly a year ago, I became the victim of cyberbullying at the hands of a student. Prior to my cyberbully experience I would visit this website to monitor student feedback once or twice a semester, I rather enjoyed the comments as they were pretty positive. I never thought I would become a cyberbully victim.

 The comments my cyberbully posted were relentless, blatantly untrue and extremely hurtful. Yes, even though the comments my bully posted were untrue, I couldn't help but wonder if the students reading these comments would believe them to be true. I found myself becoming increasingly embarrassed and almost consumed by the thought of my colleagues reading these statements. My cyberbully posted over 20 comments in just a few months; he poorly attempted masking his writing style. His writing skills and comprehension were very poor, and I actually felt badly for him. I love technology, and couldn't believe my reputation was being "slammed" in such a public arena as the result of a disgruntled student. 

As the semester progressed my visits to the website had become daily fearing what the student would say next. I eventually decided it wasn't mentally healthy for me to hide in the shadows and fear my student cyberbully. Afterall, I am a social worker! I had been victimized in cyberspace, but refused to be bullied in the real world; his behavior in the classroom became more bizarre and his mental health questionable. He was not passing the course (he would fall asleep in class and was often inappropriate during class discussions) and it was important to me not to change the way I engaged him. I challenged his inappropriate behavior in class when warranted and gave him the grades he earned on assignments regardless of how his posts escalated.

After the semester, I contacted ratemyprofessor.com the old fashioned way, I mailed a letter to their Office of General Counsel. I provided them the name of the student and asked that all posts from his IP be removed. Surprisingly, approximately 1 week after sending my letter all of the negative comments posted by my cyberbully had been removed; shortly thereafter I received a letter from the website's legal department informing me of the outcome.

I am pleased this personal case of cyberbullying ended as it did, my professional self esteem was restored along with my teaching reputation. I take comfort in knowing my cyberbully was confronted by the website and that as an educator and social worker I remained true to my professional values and ethics. It is not always possible to directly confront a cyberbully and cyberbullying can occur among children and adults.

As a result of this experience I learned that cyberbullying can happen to anyone, even a social worker.