Читать книгу The Story of Rosemary Buttons - Gregory J. McKenzie - Страница 6

The very next day Ms. Temperance called a year meeting. In attendance was both the Pastoral Care Officer,Mrs. Parsons, and the Vice Principal, Mrs. Buxton. The girls in Year Nine immediately knew that something important was happening. Their Year mistress started as she always did, then got straight to the matter at hand.

"I want to clearly state the school's policy on cyber bullying. We have a zero tolerance for any girl engaging in any act of cyber bullying. Mrs. Buxton and I will be very harsh on any girl found to be guilty of this act. Letters are being passed around to take home on this matter. If any girl in this year is being targeted in this way, we want you to see either me, or Mrs. Parsons."

After some more procedural matters, Ms. Temperance dismissed the girls to go back to their lockers in preparation for the start of their next period. Rosemary filed out with all her classmates. She was thankful that she had already been to see her Year mistress about her problem. Like all the other girls in that meeting, Rosemary knew that the class bullies would be watching to see who ran off to see their Year mistress. The talk around the lockers was the usual teen talk of fourteen year old girls.

Rosemary heard girls say to their Fam (what oldies would call a BFF)

"Bruh TBH I'm weak...."

Then their partner in speak would reply,

"Our squad will be salty if anyone skirts off to Temper..."

As usual they would throw in the line,

"We will throw shade on them and tell them to sip tea.."

To be followed by the conspiratorial phrase,

"Keep it low key.."

Looking around they would search for any spies.

Rosemary sighed at the way of her world. It was teenagers against the oldies. She knew that she did the right thing but realized that any more help would have to come from internet searches.

Luckily for Rosemary cyber bullying had been highlighted in Australian main steam media. There was even a National Day of Action organised to have a collective show of opposition to cyber bullying. This did not stop instances of cyber bullying rising across the country but it did stop Rosemary from thinking she was alone with this social problem A search on Rosemary's smartphone told her that there was even a Government Office of eSafety Commissioner. Though this older person was female, she had insufficient resources to handle the tens of thousands of cases referred to her office. But she had been able to shut down some of the more serious cases of cyber bullying.

Ms. Temperance and the other year mistresses went into a special action committee meeting chaired by Mrs. Buxton. They decided to start a poster competition to find suitable anti-bullying slogans for school classrooms. Each year would need a slightly different message written by girls from that year. They also decided to use their cross-age tutor system to encourage older girls to get involved in student counselling of their younger tutor members. Finally they agreed to a Year Twelve girls action group suggestion. These girls who had been through all levels of cyber bullying had come up with the idea of pledge walls to advertise special girls only NO TO CYBER BULLYING events and to promote coping lessons during lunch times for younger girls. Mrs. Parsons, who was attending this special meeting as an expert observer, warned the year mistresses that cyber bullying was entrenched in youth e culture. They were told that any progress would be slow and the fight against these acts of personal attack would be protracted.

Still it helped Rosemary and many more girls in her situation when these initiatives were implemented. The support of senior girls ensured that they were eventually successful. Incidents of cyber bullying which originated from inside Rosemary's school began to drop to very low levels. Lessons on how to avoid cyber bullies helped younger girls like Rosemary avoid many future traps from these cyber predators.