Bully Pulpit

From today's Times.

"The [New Jersey] law, known as the Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights, is considered the toughest legislation against bullying in the nation. Propelled by public outcry over the suicide of a Rutgers University freshman, Tyler Clementi, nearly a year ago, it demands that all public schools adopt comprehensive antibullying policies (there are 18 pages of “required components”), increase staff training and adhere to tight deadlines for reporting episodes."

Great. Now teachers are the anti-bullying police. Like we have nothing better to do with our time.  Never ceases to amaze us how politicians one daytrash teachers as feckless incompetents beholden to corrupt unions only to turn around the next day and declare us the front-line defense against a potentially lethal plague of bullying.

As one who in his youth was far more likely to be bullied than bullying, the Solipsist has no sympathy for those who exploit the weak or torment those deemed unsatisfactorily "normal."  We agree in principle that schools should be safe-havens, inasmuch as we agree that people in general and children in particular should have an expectation of physical, mental, and emotional safety wherever they are.  Certainly, when a teacher (or, really, anybody) witnesses an egregious instance of interpersonal cruelty, he has an obligation to intercede.  This law, however, goes too far.

"Each school must designate an antibullying specialist to investigate complaints; each district must, in turn, have an antibullying coordinator; and the State Education Department will evaluate every effort, posting grades on its Web site. Superintendents said that educators who failed to comply could lose their licenses."

An "antibullying specialist"?  "Antibullying coordinators"?  Whatever happened to after-school specials?  Back in our elementary-school days, we received the standard set of instructions: Bullies are essentially cowards and/or insecure; the best way to deal with a bully is to stand up to him (or, in the case of certain cousins, her--you know who you are!).  Whether this advice is inherently sound, we don't know: We were always too scared to follow it.  Nevertheless, this wisdom has survived through the ages and would seem to be sufficient for 95% of bully-related incidents.

Bullying is hardly a new phenomenon.  What has changed is the level of media saturation in society, as well as the technology bullies can employ.  This Jersey statute seems to us an overreaction to a few heinous but ultimately isolated incidents.  A 13-year-old girl commits suicide after receiving a series of vicious posts from an online "friend."  A college student kills himself after his roommate "outs" him online (the case mentioned above).  Interestingly, this law would probably not have prevented either of these cases: the Clementi incident because it happened at a university, the case of the 13-year-old because it was actually the PARENT of another child who was doing the "bullying."  How will these new mandates imposed on already overwhelmed school faculty and administrators prevent such actions.  And is effectively criminalizing standard schoolhouse dynamics really in anybody's best interest?

At the risk of sounding like a red-state family-values type, we think that anti-bullying efforts begin--and for the most part should end--at home.  Let parents teach their children well the morals and values of civilized society.  Leave teachers alone to teach the rest.

Image from The Santa Clara County Library