Promoting Respect & Responsibility

by Jessica Robertson

For more than four decades, Peter Yarrow, a member of the famed 1960s folk group Peter, Paul and Mary, has advocated for social change. But in 1999, at the annual Kerrville (pop. 20,425) Folk Festival in Texas, Yarrow stumbled upon his most ambitious brainchild yet: Operation Respect—a non-profit advocacy organization aimed at combating bullying among school children.

"My daughter, Bethany, took me by the hand to hear songwriter Steve Seskin perform "Don’t Laugh at Me." "Everybody was overwhelmed and in tears, including myself," says Yarrow, recalling his reaction to the song that chronicles first-person accounts of ridicule. "Bethany said, ‘Dad, you gotta bring the song to the group.’"

Two months later Peter, Paul and Mary performed the song, which says, "I’m that kid on every playground/Who’s always chosen last/A single teenage mother/Tryin’ to overcome my past," at a meeting for the National Association of Elementary School Principals. An association leader approached Yarrow and requested to use the song in the classroom. "Peter, the ultimate organizer and activist, said, ‘You’ll have more than a song, you’ll have a program," says Chic Dambach, president and CEO of Operation Respect. "That’s where I came in."

Yarrow, with the assistance of Dambach, former president of the National Peace Corps Association, launched the New York City-based Operation Respect in September 2000.

According to the American Association of School Psychologists, 160,000 children in America stay home from school each day due to fear of verbal or physical abuse from peers. "Bullying is an epidemic in the nation," Yarrow says. "If we can establish an environment where the kids feel it’s important for them to make decisions about what’s right and wrong, fair and unfair, then we have the possibility of kids taking responsibility for their actions."

Dambach says his motivations for joining Operation Respect were personal. "My 13-year-old son has medical difficulties," he says. "Because of the medication he takes, he has physical problems . . . One day I was taking him to school and he said he didn’t want to go. He’s a straight-A student, a tai kwon do champion with a great personality. I thought, ‘How can this be?’ I was just torn apart. We have to stop this."

The heart of Operation Respect is Don’t Laugh at Me, or DLAM, a curriculum devoted to developing children’s character. The project uses music and classroom-based activities to teach children how to respect themselves and one another. Among the exercises is "The Torn Heart," where students are given a pretend heart. With each negative comment that’s made, a piece of the heart is torn off to show children that just one putdown can hurt another’s feelings.

Today, Operation Respect reaches 12,000 schools in the United States and other parts of the world. According to the organization’s 2004 annual report, DLAM has helped raise grades and test scores, and lower suspension rates by creating comfortable learning environments.

Kristie West, a curriculum secretary for the Urbana Board of Education in Urbana, Ohio (pop. 11,613), and mother of two, happened upon DLAM at a PTA convention. She was impressed with Yarrow’s presentation, and in 2002 helped launch the program in her school district.

"The DLAM program is causing kids to think more about their actions and reactions," West says. "They are learning everything has a consequence. Any kid that we can save from bullying is worth it."

Casey Evans, a seventh-grade student at Urbana Junior High, says that Operation Respect has made a difference at her school. "The program works because teachers talk about bullying and how it can hurt those that are being bullied," Evans says. "Some of the bullies at our school would come up and push you or tease you about what you wore, but they don’t do that anymore. I feel a lot more confident when I go to school."

Visit www.dontlaugh.org or call (212) 904-5243 to learn more.

Jessica Robertson is a freelance writer in Brooklyn, N.Y.

first appeared: 11/6/2005