Teaching Chivalry in the Classroom

By Judith Costello

Last year my 8-year-old daughter came home from the local public school with a large welt on her arm. A boy in her 2nd grade class had thrown her into the cabinets that line the back wall of the classroom. I was shocked.

In part, I was shocked to know it was a boy mistreating a girl. When I was young, it was considered so taboo for a boy to treat a girl that way that it never happened. And if it did, someone—a teacher, a parent, or another student—would have rushed to the girl’s defense and doled out severe consequences to the boy.

But nowadays, gender lines are blurred, so the fact that it was a boy and a girl tussling, rather than a boy and a boy, is hardly an issue. Girls are told they can do everything boys do. Boys then treat girls the way...