The recent Johnston County School Board Policy proposal for removing the terms “Gender Identity” and “Sexual Orientation” from the list of behaviors which are prohibited and characterized as “unreasonable or unfavorable” treatment of others based solely on race, ethnicity, sex, pregnancy, religion, age, or disability is very specific, very political and not particularly helpful in terms of running schools.
Honestly, “bullying” is an overused word. Its overuse does not mean it doesn’t happen, or that it shouldn’t be dealt with. Our culture holds it as an archetype. Stories tell of schoolyard bullies who are inherently larger, not very smart and need to be stood up to. How many stories end with the bully punched in the mouth and sent home crying? The schoolyard bully is without a doubt of one the most recognizable characters in American children’s stories. Of course, life doesn’t always have storybook endings.
As an educator, I can attest that the word, perhaps because of its widened use, is overused. Forcefully arguing does not necessarily make a person a bully. Competing wholeheartedly isn’t inherently bullying either. Losing an argument or not wanting to compete doesn’t fit in the category of being bullied either. Today’s society, or at least a great deal of the online world is blunt, rude and given to trolling. That could be bullying depending on the context. It’s also true that with online bullying, the victim can’t just turn off or swipe away an aggressor. The bullied student can’t get others to turn off the digital noise or stop the character assassination they may receive.
It is true that policing language can be awkward and even a way to curb debate or squelch actual questions. That way behavior can fit the group or the group’s goals, which often are at least indirectly defined by common agreed upon terminology. That means schools, churches, businesses can develop their own ways of speaking and also their own vocabulary which serves as guard rails against driving off the prescribed path that each group wants to travel. However, of the places mentioned, none have the level of diversity a public school does.
It’s also true that real debate and argument finds its way into any community and those communities will as a result, come up with boundaries which are agreed upon for what is out of bounds and what is deemed harmful to the individual and the community itself. Boundaries in various contexts can be agreed upon even when they are not observed outside of that context. Parents may teach their children particular values, but when their children become adults they will need to be able to agree to disagree if or when their children decide to live in a manner that is different from how their parents raised them.
So what of the Board Proposal? The Board is examining a very specific omission. As a result, it will have to defend the automatic inclusion of the rights extended to other labels and why that would still be inherent after the specific label has been erased. That sort of move is complicated, with or without the endless debates. Of course there is such a thing as heavy handed language policing, but that is easily identified in any community.
That doesn’t mean that the following discussion is easy. Who doesn’t have relatives who sometimes say things that could be, or even are offensive. And, how many have felt the deep sorrow over the loss of the same relative while sitting at a funeral. The love for another person isn’t consistently found in their perfect views. People are complicated, and we all have to learn from those who see the world differently.
Learning from them may or may not change our views.
Turning on the laptop or scrolling through our phones will divide us, and make us suspicious of those we are told are out to get us or our children. Life is painful enough on its own. Over the course of a lifetime we all will live with regrets and even suffer betrayal. Do our children at times need to toughen up and learn to deal with their own conflicts without the adults rushing in to make everything ok? Of course. Are there parents who are screaming into the echo chamber of their social media that the government won’t co-parent their children while hovering like a hungry hawk over their kids’ teachers and coaches? Of course.
Changes in policy are sometimes needed and terminology does matter. However, the reactionary pattern is not going to do anything other than spur the wrong kind of conversations. We could just leave this policy alone. Perhaps the real bullying, and the things we call bullying would be better dealt with by returning to the business of parenting, teaching and being a neighbor, rather than spending yet another meeting making sure that the language has changed by bending to the latest political wind.
John Cabascango
John Cabascango is veteran public school teacher and author of Off the Rails: Evangelicals, Power and Politics and Throwing Moses Under the bus: A High School English Teacher Looks at the Ten Commandments
Prior to Hillary, the policy was fine before adding terminology to include more than 2 genders. Further, school administrators and teachers are paid to teach STEM. Nothing else. The home is the sole place to teach morals and values. Not the “village”.
The language must be removed from the policy so that people can adhere to the truth. With it in there, speaking the truth is punishable.
The situation is this: In the event a student is truthful, and correctly and objectively calls another student by their biologically observed gender (ie: the pronouns used when referring to a person’s sex: he/she) and the other student is “offended,” this policy language punishes the student who told the truth, and compels the student and ALL students to play along with other student’s deluded fantasies. This practice must end.
There should be no punishment for a student calling a male “he” or a female “she”, regardless of what the other student wants to pretend to be.
This is not harassment or bullying. It’s adhering to the truth and reality. If students are punished for adhering to such obvious truths in their speech, then there is nothing stopping any student for claiming to be anything and everyone else must follow lock-step inline.
This degradation of society must be combated, and stopped cold in its tracks. Enough.
It is the official policy of the United States that there are two genders. Men/boys are male and girls/women are female. That’s the truth, and we must abide in truth, for that is love.