Eliza Byard is the Executive Director of GLSEN.
"There is a lot of conversation these days about the ways that technology enables bullying to take place anytime anywhere through cyber bullying and again, what’s critical there, is that students bring to those situations the values and the abilities and the predispositions that they learn in other parts of their lives. There is no magic technological solution to cyber bullying. It is a dynamic that plays out in a different venue from the same base in terms of relationship dynamics. It, we see, over and over again, that anti LGBT language plays a key role in many, many cyber bullying incidents. People are being called faggot they are being alleged to be dykes. These are the weapons of choice that play out not only in classrooms but online. But the critical tool that adults need to provide students with - the critical, the factors of resilience are the ability to engage in genuine, authentic conversations with their peers that allow them to break out of the culture of fear and become part of a healthy community in dialogue with each other across lines of difference. That is going to take place sometimes with no adult presence, but it cannot take place without adult modeling and a foundation laid in practice, with adults in the community that students then take with them into all other parts of their lives."