P.S. 200’s substance-abuse prevention counselor, Deborah Dana, started yesterday’s weekly third-grade class about bullying with a question: “What do we mean by a ridicule-free zone?”

The students, who sat in a classroom that has a “caring being” – a blob-like outline with acceptable behavior written on the inside and unacceptable behavior written around the perimeter – and a “peace place,” a corner where they go to think or write for 5 minutes when they’re upset, wagged their hands in the air, begging to be called on.

Among the answers they offered up: “no fighting,” “no putdowns,” “no bullies,” and “no cursing.”

The lesson ended with the students lining up to sign their first names to a “Constitution of Caring,” including such vows as “We agree to be honest” and “We agree not to bully,” which had emerged from a class brainstorming session. As the youngsters signed, they belted out the words of the song “Don’t Laugh at Me,” the basis of their anti-bullying curriculum.

The school’s principal, Phyliss Bullion, said that when she started in the job four years ago, she spent hours each afternoon dealing with the bullying problems that cropped up during lunchtime.

“Students were literally lined up outside my office,” she said yesterday. “It was overwhelming. We knew there had to be a better way.”

Three years ago, the school implemented a peer mediation program, an after-school detention program, and the Don’t Laugh at Me program. Now, Ms. Bullion said, students help their peers resolve problems, the building is almost 100% bully-free, and she has to see only two or three students a week in bullying controversies, compared to about 20 previously.

Today, the chancellor’s senior counselor for school intervention and development, Rose Albanese DePinto, is to testify about bullying in response to a City Council subpoena. Ms. DePinto is expected to reiterate the Department of Education’s intention not to implement the Dignity for All Students Act, because department lawyers say it is illegal.

Although the department is refusing to implement the anti-bullying measure enacted last year by the council over Mayor Bloomberg’s veto, education officials say the schools have been doing plenty to combat bullying and harassment.

“We’ve always had programs like this,” the director of student placement, youth, and family services in Region 3, Ginay Marks, said. Ms. Marks, who oversees the Region 3 anti-bullying program, said it is helping to give children an alternative to harassment and violence by teaching them to step back and think about their behavior, modify their social skills, and discuss problems with their peers.

Asked about the legislation, she said: “I think simplistic knee-jerk reactions are not the answer. We need more of a long-term approach than a quick reaction to a situation.”

Similarly, Ms. Bullion said: “I do not think that this is something that needs to be legislated. Then you’re looking at a cookie-cutter solution to all of the problems. … It never works when you do a one-size-fits-all approach.”

Chancellor Joel Klein’s press secretary, Jerry Russo, said anti-bullying programs are being used throughout the city, even though the department has not implemented the new law.

This year,1,550 teachers at 423 middle schools are being trained in the Don’t Laugh at Me program, he said. In the fall, 80 teachers from 19 high schools were trained in the Becoming an Ally program, an Anti-Defamation League initiative to help teachers identify and interrupt the cycle of bullying and violence.

Another 900 teachers are to be trained in that program in the coming school year.

The senior associate national director of the ADL, Caryl Stern, said the city’s schools have long been doing more than schools in other parts of the country to combat bullying and violence.

The league’s A World of Difference Institute has been providing anti-bias training to city teachers for 16 years, she said.

The chairwoman of the council’s education committee, Eva Moskowitz, said she is glad the education department is seeking to address a major problem. But she said, “I’m a little skeptical that the day before a hearing they’re trying to do a big song-and-dance.”

She said the education committee had multiple hearings on bullying as it was crafting the new law. She said plenty of people could share harrowing tales of bullying but no one mentioned any anti-bullying initiatives. Ms. Moskowitz also said she wants to find out at today’s hearing what the department is doing to fight bullying and what, if anything, it has done to implement the new law.

‘Don’t Laugh at Me’ Song Works Wonders
Lyrics by Steve Seskin and Allen Shamblin

I’m a little boy with glasses, the one they call a “geek”
A little girl who never smiles cuz I got braces on my teeth
And I know how it feels to cry myself to sleep

I’m that kid on every playground who’s always chosen last
A single teenage mother tryin’ to overcome my past
You don’t have to be my friend but is it too much to ask

Don’t laugh at me; don’t call me names
Don’t get your pleasure from my pain
In God’s eyes we’re all the same
Some day we’ll all have perfect wings
Don’t laugh at me

I’m the beggar on the corner
You’ve passed me on the street
I wouldn’t be out here begging if I had enough to eat
And don’t think I don’t notice that our eyes never meet

Don’t laugh at me; don’t call me names
Don’t get your pleasure from my pain
In God’s eyes we’re all the same
Some day we’ll all have perfect wings
Don’t laugh at me

I’m fat. I’m thin. I’m short. I’m tall. I’m deaf. I’m blind.
Hey aren’t we all?
Don’t laugh at me; don’t call me names
Don’t get your pleasure from my pain
In God’s eyes we’re all the same
Some day we’ll all have perfect wings
Don’t laugh at me

Don’t laugh at me