No Name-Calling Week: Kudos And Controversy

As part of a nationwide effort to focus attention on an age-old problem that continues to plague our schools, this has been declared "No Name-Calling Week" by a number of organizations. But not everyone is happy with the idea:

Using a young readers' novel called "The Misfits" as its centerpiece, middle schools nationwide will participate in a "No Name-Calling Week" initiative starting Monday. The program, now in its second year, has the backing of groups from the Girl Scouts to Amnesty International but has also drawn complaints that it overemphasizes harassment of gay youths.

The initiative was developed by the New York-based Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, which seeks to ensure that schools safely accommodate students of all sexual orientations. GLSEN worked with James Howe, the openly gay author of "The Misfits" and many other popular children's books.

"Gay students aren't the only kids targeted - this isn't about special rights for them," Howe said. "But the fact is that 'faggot' is probably the most common insult at schools."

"The Misfits" deals with four much-taunted middle schoolers - one of them gay - who run for the student council on a platform advocating an end to nasty name-calling.

GLSEN is unsure how many schools will participate in this week's event, but says 5,100 educators from 36 states have registered, up from 4,000 last year. Participation in a related writing-music-art contest rose from 100 students last year to 1,600 this year; the winning poem was written by Sue Anna Yeh, a 13-year-old from Sugar Land, Texas.

"No Name-calling Week" takes aim at insults of all kinds - whether based on a child's appearance, background or behavior. But a handful of conservative critics have zeroed in on the references to harassment based on sexual orientation.

"I hope schools will realize it's less an exercise in tolerance than a platform for liberal groups to promote their pan-sexual agenda," said Robert Knight, director of Concerned Women for America's Culture and Family Institute.

"Schools should be steering kids away from identifying as gay," Knight said. "You can teach civility to kids and tell them every child is valued without conveying the message that failure to accept homosexuality as normal is a sign of bigotry."

In Iowa, complaints by scores of parents about the gay themes in "The Misfits" prompted the Pleasant Valley School Board to rule that teachers could no longer read it aloud to elementary school classes, although it could remain in school libraries.

In Colorado, lawmakers last year rejected a proposal to declare a statewide "No-Name Calling Week" in conjunction with the inaugural GLSEN-backed event. House Majority Leader Keith King said he was concerned about fostering a "victim's mentality" and argued that children should be taught to ignore taunts.

In contrast, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm issued a proclamation recognizing the event, and more than 40 national organizations have enlisted as partners, including the Girl Scouts, the national associations of elementary and secondary school principals, and the National Education Association.

"People who would criticize this, regardless of who came out with it, are people with bad hearts," said Jerald Newberry, who directs the NEA's health information network.

"This is as vanilla as you get in terms of creating safe environments in schools," Newberry said. "To criticize this program would, almost without exception, be a political attack, not an attack on its content."

James Garbarino, a Cornell University professor who has studied school bullying, said harassment based on sexual orientation "ought to be No. 1 on the list" as educators combat name-calling. Such taunting has led to violence and suicides, he said.

Whether programs like "No Name-Calling Week" work depends on whether staff and students heed the lessons yearlong, not just during special events, Garbarino said. "When it's done in a mechanical, mindless way, when it's just for show, kids see the hypocrisy of it," he said.

GLSEN executive director Kevin Jennings agreed that schools should do more than hold a one-week event; he hopes to evaluate systematically whether the initiative indeed reduces name-calling. "Every week should be 'No Name-Calling Week', but having one week at least raises the visibility of the issue," he said.

One of GLSEN's most persistent critics is Warren Throckmorton, director of counseling at Grove City College, a Christian school outside Pittsburgh. His skeptical comments about "No Name-Calling Week" have been widely circulated this month on conservative Web sites.

"There's no question middle school can be a difficult place - I'm not advocating that any group gets mistreated," Throckmorton said in a telephone interview.

"But it will definitely make traditionally oriented teachers and parents and kids feel very uncomfortable, if they happen to object to homosexuality on moral grounds," he said of GLSEN's program. "If you disagree, you're hateful, you're bigoted, you're a homophobe. They're using name-calling to combat name-calling."

Another critic is Brenda High of Pasco, Wash., an anti-bullying activist since her 13-year-old son committed suicide in 1998 following harassment at school.

"The use of 'The Misfits' as a basis for this teaching puts the emphasis on the subgroup of the harassment victim instead of on the perpetrator of harassment - the bully," she said.

But Howe said critics of "No Name-Calling Week" seem reluctant to acknowledge the scope of anti-gay harassment in schools.

"Homosexuality is not a moral issue - it's a fact, and kids who are gay, or maybe just different, need to be allowed to grow up in a safe environment just like everybody else," he said.

It's too bad that such a good idea has become mired in such controversy. But then again, in my 14 years of classroom service, it's been my observation that bullies rarely pay much attention to such attempts to use "moral suasion" in order to stop them from terrorizing their classmates.

I have found that a well-implemented "Zero Tolerance" anti-bullying policy is much more effective in combatting these little thugs. And no, I don't feel much pity for the bullies. Mine is reserved for their victims.

On the web: See the No Name-Calling Week website here. ---------------------------------Entries to this week's edition of The Carnival Of Education are due tonight. Get details right here, see our latest posts over there.