Where Is the Humor?

When I first read this story, I had to reread it because I thought surely I hadn't read it right the first time. Mind you, I went to grade school in a Catholic school (back in the '60s) when it was not uncommon for a nun to wrap your knuckles with a brass ruler if you held your paper the wrong way while writing. (And being left handed, I was always holding my paper the "wrong" way.) And I also remember one incident where one nun drew a circle on the chalkboard, grabbed a student by the front of his shirt and made him stick his nose in the circle and stand there for the rest of the class because he made a smart aleck remark while she was talking. But this incident is totally different.

For one thing, this was not an attempt at any sort of corrective action. Getting my knuckles wrapped with a brass ruler made me turn my page the "right" way. Sticking the boy's nose in the circle made him think twice about being a smart aleck in her class anymore. But this child did nothing wrong! This was not an attempt to correct behavior that the teacher or the school deemed inappropriate.

Second, this is nothing short of degradation for the sake of getting a laugh. And while some people like that kind of humor (Don Rickle's springs to mind), they're adults. One is free to watch them on TV or listen to them on CDs or go to one of their concerts. But this child had no choice. He was required to be in school. And he was humiliated in front of his peers by his teachers!!! What were they thinking? Did they really think that this was okay? Do they have any concept of the emotional and psychological damage they may have done to this child?

Kids have done this kind of thing to other kids for time out of mind. As sad as that is to me, it seems to be accepted in our society that kids will be kids and kids can be cruel at times. The practice of hazing, once only common among college fraternities/sororities, has been slowly seeping into high school groups, like cheer-leading squads and sporting teams. Google "freshmen initiation" and there are 72,000 pages ranging from the humorous to the dangerous.

A recent story in the Star Tribune (MN) newspaper details the hazing of some freshman hockey players who were "convinced/coerced to strip to their skivvies and perform a few barefoot wind sprints through the snow." This little stunt involved several students being treated for frostbite.

Even more recently, a college student at a Christian university went on a ski trip with several fraternity brothers. After a night of drinking, they obtained his consent (whether it was valid consent or not remains to be seen since he was intoxicated) to brand his buttocks with the symbols of his fraternity, something he had started during spring break of last year. However, the damage sustained by this young man is so extensive he is going to need surgery to repair it. This "rite of initiation" (the politically correct name for hazing) is a new thing among predominantly white fraternities.

But others have paid with their lives for the chance to join some group. That a child would risk his/her life in order to be considered acceptable to any group is a sad commentary on that state of this nation. But that this behavior is now being initiated by teachers is utterly frightening. That there appears to have been no disciplinary action taken against the teachers is appalling.

I understand we all have to learn to laugh at ourselves. Unfortunately, children often don't understand when something is a joke and when something is sincere. (See an article I wrote called "Prescription for Poison".) Even among adults the use of degradation as a form of humor is potentially harmful, especially to those who don't have a good sense of self-worth or a health self-esteem. But for a teacher to use degradation on a student is utterly unacceptable and I wish the mother every success in her lawsuit (provided, of course, that the events transpired as claimed.)