Editor's Note-February 2011: She called him Mr. Beasley.

She called him Mr. Beasley.

I don’t know what his real name was. In fact, I didn’t know him at all. He was in my school’s special education program, which was really just three or four kids tucked away in an unused room attached to the chapel. Back in the 1970s, developmentally disabled students didn’t go to school with non-disabled kids, so my school’s program was somewhat of an experiment — an outreach encouraged by the school’s church sponsor.

Nobody ever told us that we couldn’t talk with the special education students, but our teachers certainly didn’t encourage it, either. Indeed, they acted as though the special education kids didn’t exist.

Which is perhaps what made him such an easy target.

Each day at recess, or whatever we called it in the 6th grade, she sought out “Mr. Beasley”. And each day, she found new activities for him to do: fetching a ball; repeating a difficult phrase; untying his shoes and forcing him to retie them. And all the while she would humiliate him to the delight of the “regular” kids, who would point and laugh. The boy didn’t seem to understand what was happening; he was so thrilled to have a new friend that he gladly followed her directives and laughed right along with his tormentors.

I still remember the sick feeling I got inside when I watched her tease that boy. Yes, I asked her to stop —yelled at her, even— but it didn’t do any good; in fact, it made it worse. The odd thing was, she wasn’t ordinarily a mean girl. One day, on the bus home from school, I asked her why she picked on the boy. “Everyone thinks it’s funny,” she shrugged.

Translation: When they were laughing at him, they weren’t laughing at her. Offense as the best defense.

That this could have happened in a tiny religious school —where daily Bible reading, weekly chapel, strict teachers, and corporal punishment were supposed to keep us all on the straight and narrow— speaks volumes.

Bullying is pervasive. And it’s not just “bad” kids who do it, either.

The 2009 National Youth Risk Behavior Survey, conducted by the Centers for Disease Control, found that one in five American teens had been bullied in school. For children in middle school, that number is around 50%.

But here’s the most frightening statistic: 85% of bullying happens in front of witnesses, including adults, according to a Houston Chronicle article written by U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

The tragic deaths of five students from around the country, including 13-year-old Asher Brown of Houston —all of whom killed themselves after being taunted mercilessly about their sexual orientation— has thrust bullying into the national spotlight. It even prompted President Obama, in an Oct. 21, 2010 speech, to admit considering suicide himself after being the butt of “jokes and taunting” as a young adult.

The seriousness of the situation spurred the U.S. Departments of Education, Health & Human Services, Justice, Defense, Interior and Agriculture to join forces for a national “bullying summit” in Washington, D.C. last August. The two-day meeting focused on research, policy and programs to combat bullying. It ended with an appeal by Kevin Jennings, assistant deputy secretary of the U.S. Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools, for a comprehensive national effort to address bullying during the 2010-2011 school year.

Since then, the government has launched the It Gets Better Project (www.ItGetsBetter.org), for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender kids who are the victims of bulling, and www.BullyingInfo.org, a clearinghouse of information about bullying.

Both of these are fine efforts. And I applaud the government for drawing the public’s attention to the seriousness of bullying.

However, these programs will do little to erase the problem. Because the government isn’t raising our kids. We are.

We parents are the single most important barrier to bullying. It is up to us to teach our children how to be respectful of different skin colors, religions, body sizes, sexual orientations, mental abilities, and all of the myriad diversity that comprises the human race.

Of course, that means we must model this behavior ourselves. And therein lies the problem.

Until we adults eschew the bullying nature of our public —and all too often our religious— discourse, we have no hope of encouraging our children to do the same. We simply must treat each other with respect and compassion. Our children are watching. And emulating.

I do not know what happened to “Mr. Beasley.” One day, he simply didn’t appear for recess and I never saw him again. I can only hope that one of the many adults who witnessed the heartbreaking “teasing” —and yes, there were several — finally and firmly intervened.

When it comes to bullying, it is what every single one of us should do.