School is in, and bullying is out.
How do we know? The Legislature tells us so:
"The governor shall annually issue a proclamation setting apart the fourth Wednesday in January as No Name Calling Day ..."
A lame joke, you think? I wish. I'd like to hear such a proclamation read at halftime of a Celtic-Lakers game, after everybody has had a few beers. But it's not. This is straight from the Statehouse website. It is essentially the opening line of the new, anti-bullying law that is blanketing the state's schools.
Bullying has been outlawed. There is even a special day to celebrate it and brighten up the darkness of January.
Apparently, nobody in power realizes how absurd this is. I can't wait to see whoever is governor next Jan. 26 try to make this proclamation with a straight face.
It has what sounds like a lofty purpose: "... to increase public awareness of the devastating effects of verbal bullying, to encourage students to use positive dialogue and pledge not to use hurtful names on this designated day, to promote tolerance and respect for differences and to reaffirm the commitment of the citizens of the commonwealth to basic human rights and dignity."
For how many decades have we been droning on about tolerance, respect, human rights and dignity? We think if we just put it in another law, everything will change? I can practically hear the kids saying, "blah, blah, blah ..." and then coming up with "hurtful names" for the other 364 days of the year.
Before anybody gets into too much of a lather over my cynicism about these efforts to curb what can lead to devastation and even death, this is not an endorsement of bullying. Bullying is wrong, and everyone involved in the lives of our youth — parents, guardians, teachers, coaches, school officials and others — should do what they can to eliminate it, starting with their own behavior.
I know the misery of being the target of such cruelty. I was a bit young for my grade and small for my age. Besides that, I have a last name that offered irresistible opportunities for mockery. When I was in seventh grade, at the former Memorial Junior High School in Beverly, a few much larger kids would follow me home at least a couple of times a week and pick fights with me.
But this bureaucratic solution, which goes on for dozens of mind-numbing pages, is not going to stop bullying. It may make it a bit more subtle, but it could very well make it worse.
It takes a problem that can and should be addressed with common sense, and lards it up with definitions, programs and policies. It seeks to codify every idle word, facial expression or gesture that might come from students. It offers a tortuous list of every possible place where bullying will be forbidden, every method or piece of equipment that could be used to bully someone or simply create what someone might consider to be a "hostile environment."
It is filled with mandates for plans and training, for reporting, for investigating, for disciplining. It is clogged with phrases like "emotional harm," "reasonable fear of harm" and "seriously alarm or annoy."
Do legislators — many of them attorneys themselves — realize how much wiggle room there is in those phrases? Do they know how many billable hours can result from arguing over whether a student's fear is "reasonable," or if he or she had cause to be "seriously annoyed"?
Do legislators really think they can outwit teens when it comes to how they treat one another? They can outlaw whatever they want. The kids will find a way around it, beyond the language of the law.
As plenty of victims of bullying have noted, some of the cruelest treatment is simply being ostracized. Is the law going to force one student to say hello to another? To eat lunch with another? To invite them over on the weekend? To like them?
There are a few things the law will do — none of them very useful. It will impose another blizzard of paperwork on schools. It will make teachers, administrators and staff spend more time on "professional development" and "training" — time they might otherwise spend on, you know, teaching the kids about literature, math, science and social studies. And it will open an entirely new niche for lawyers, representing either "perpetrators" or "victims" of bullying (those words are among those that get official definitions in the law).
All this to feed the delusion that you can legislate human relations, since there was not a single dissenting vote in either house of the Legislature. That is no surprise. Who wants a campaign opponent saying, "Sen. Jones supports bullying in our schools!"
But you can't. It's as delusional as thinking a law will stop siblings from fighting or insulting one another.
Bullying will never disappear. But there are ways adults can reduce it, and they don't involve legislation, plans or paperwork. Set an example. Don't be a bully yourself, to kids or other adults. Kids learn what they see.
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Taylor Armerding is associate editorial page editor of The Eagle-Tribune. He may be reached at 978-946-2213 or at tarmerding@eagletribune.com. Read him daily at The Soapbox, the Eagle-Tribune blog at blogs.eagletribune.com/soapbox
