MANDATORY MA'AM

Scoper

The great state of Alabama, first in the nation alphabetically, home to the legendary Crimson Tide and the best bowl of grits to be had anywhere in the world (I'm serious: I love grits), need not hold its head too high over this one.

Governor Don Siegelman has recently asked the Alabama legislature to consider a bill that would require students to address their teachers and other school officials with the courtesy titles of "sir" or "ma'am," as part of an effort to teach respect and improve the conduct of students. (For clarity, most of the previous sentence was quoted directly from a Reuters news article. I'm not a plagiarist.)

But I'm not sure I can even count how many things are wrong with that declaration, and the so-called "thoughts" that must have preceded it. Maybe I can hit some of the highlights.

In the first place, where's the connection between forcing a youngster (under some undefined threat of punishment) to say certain words, and getting a "better" youngster in return? Will it somehow make a kid who's predisposed to violence less likely to take a poke at a teacher (Pow! Take that, ma'am!"), or another student? I just don't see it.

What would be the appropriate punishment for a student who fails to say "sir" or "ma'am?" Detention? Writing the same sentence a hundred times on the board (a la Bart Simpson?) Will this help the kid learn? Improve his test scores? Alabama is hardly a national leader in this as it is.

Who enforces such a cockeyed rule? The teachers? Don't they have enough to do? Are they not now struggling to teach enough academic knowledge so that the students can make it to the next grade, into college or have a fighting chance in the workforce?

Every school system in the country has some sort of policy for dealing with students who deliberately disrupt the classroom or its learning environment. Whether those policies are "tough enough" is a matter for debate. But if you think one single problem in today's schools is due to the lack of "sir" or "ma'am," I can only sigh.

It's been my experience that most school kids call their teachers "Miss, Ms." or "Mister" even today. This didn't change for me until I was in my mid-20's, and ran into my sophomore high school English teacher unexpectedly. It was still "Mrs. A" until she told me specifically to call her by her first name. Now I'm wondering: is there some radical "first-name-basis movement" going on within public school classrooms that I'm unaware of?

Where are the parents in all of this? Kids who are taught a modicum of politeness at home tend to carry it with them to school, or wherever they go. I know, I know, a lot of kids come from broken homes, with absent parents, possibly with drunken or drugged-out parents, or parents who simply don't know or care. But Governor Siegelman, if you expect to change these tragic situations one whit with a "Sir/Ma'am" law, respectfully, Sir, you need to go soak your head.

Of course, if the state passes the law, maybe we'll see the formation of a State "Courtesy Police." Its agents should probably be armed. Let's face it, the only way to keep discourtesy out of the schools is "zero tolerance." (The word "Orwellian" springs to mind here, but I'll not dwell on it. You've either read "1984" or you haven't.)

I can imagine this scenario already: "Unruly student expelled for telling teacher to 'cram it up your fat ass, ma'am'!"

I don't mean to come down so harshly on Alabama. This sort of silliness could happen anywhere (and indeed, according to Reuters, Louisiana enacted a similar law last year, with punishment powers given to school boards. But this web site didn't exist then.)

This probably won't mitigate my earlier sarcasm, but it's good to be concerned with whether American youngsters are getting the most they possibly can out of the schools, that they graduate with diplomas that have real meaning, that they can make their way in an increasingly complex world, and that "pursuit of happiness" is not just a hackneyed phrase.

But there's no going back to the "Leave It To Beaver" era. Without the rose-colored glasses, it was a time when blacks were invisible, when women who didn't want to be housewives could be secretaries, nurses, teachers or telephone operators but little else, and when you might have abandoned a longtime friend for fear of being labeled a Communist.

Of course, back then, kids almost always said "Sir" and "Ma'am."