Montana's Board of Public Education decided recently to require all school districts to adopt policies addressing bullying at school. This is remarkable for three reasons:
Such a requirement is even considered necessary.
The issue is controversial.
We send children to public school with the expectation they will receive a decent-to-good education. Essential to that purpose is ensuring schools provide a suitable environment for learning. Among other things, schools need to be warm enough and adequately lit. They also need to be relatively safe.
This is not new thinking. While competent educators have always policed school bullies, the issue received broad attention following the 1999 shooting at Colorado's Columbine High School, amid speculation that the massacre was conceived as payback for schoolyard taunts. No one who is, by now, unaware of or indifferent toward the problems associated with bullying should be working at a school.
It's surprising that all schools don't already have anti-bullying policies. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1999 that a Georgia school district was liable for damages for failing to address harassment of a fifth-grade girl by another student. Common sense should, of course, reduce the need for a written policy. But this is modern America, and lack of written policies can and will be used against you in a court of law. Adopting a formal policy and enforcing it can provide a little liability protection. Schools also tend to be bureaucratic institutions, and adoption of formal policies are the way bureaucrats provide meaningful direction. All this makes the need for the board's new requirement a bit surprising.
A June 2005 discussion paper on anti-bullying policies prepared by the Montana Healthy Schools Network and the state Office of Public Instruction said it's “uncertain how many Montana school districts have a policy that prohibits bullying, intimidation and harassment.” There's further proof that there are too many separate school districts in the state. It would be surprising if the number is large - or, for that matter, if enforcement of the Board of Education's new accreditation standard will actually result in schools taking anti-bullying measures they wouldn't otherwise take. For the record, according to the Montana Youth Risk Behavior Survey, the number of students who said in 2003 that they felt threatened by other students was 3.4 percent, compared with a national average of 5.4 percent; 10.3 percent said they'd had a fight on school property in the previous year, a 40 percent reduction over the previous decade. Somebody's doing something right out there.
So, why the controversy?
Much of that has to do with the unfortunate bureaucratic penchant for definition, driven somewhat by the notion that if you spell everything out in sufficient detail, subjective judgments can be avoided. Some people think anti-bullying policies need to describe what constitutes bullying, including among the examples various acts of hostility based on sexual orientation. This particular example is upsetting to some people. There also are people who bend over backward seeking opportunities to apply codified legitimacy to culturally unsettled matters of homosexuality. Friction over this issue is what derailed a an anti-bullying bill in the Legislature last year. In any event, it's unnecessary. It's a mistake to attempt to specifically define and enumerate acts of bullying and harassment, since any such list is going to be ridiculously long or woefully incomplete. Bullying and harassment are manifestations of hard-wired human behaviors involving aggression and power. It's the behavior that's the problem, not its particular focus.
This isn't that complicated an issue. Schools hardly are the only place in society where bullies are confronted. If a policy is required, one that simply declares that harassment of others is prohibited and won't be tolerated surely will suffice. What matters most is how well educators maintain discipline, not the precise wording of the policy that says they should.
|
 |
 |
Add your comment now! Write your comment in the form below.
(Email address is for verification only. If you'd like to email a story, look for the link above)