Courtesy Titles

When people say sir or ma'am what do you think? Do you say “Wow, that kid shows respect”? Courtesy titles have been a debated issue in schools. In Louisiana schools have already started making students say sir or ma'am. I believe courtesy titles are not the right way to go if you want a student to show respect. It may be a sign of respect but a lot of the time people say it without. I have many plain as daylight reasons why courtesy titles should not be enforced on children in school.

To begin with students or anybody may use a “respect” title and not mean it. To me respect is earned and having someone call you sir or ma'am doesn't mean they have given you any respect. People can say a lot of things and only mean a small portion of them. Say it's the first day of school and you have all of these new teachers. You're not going to trust them 100% or respect them 100% because you're not sure how they are going to treat you. What I mean by this is that real respect is 100% getting to know someone. So when you force a student to say “yes sir” your not gaining an ounce of anything from that student but the “sir”.

My next argument is that courtesy titles are in the past. When have you walked downtown and heard anyone say sir or ma'am? My guess is never. This is a perfect example of how these titles are in the past. Today people show respect thought the common head nod or shaking hands. These are much more realistic to the day and age we are in, 2007. Now I am not saying that to say sir or ma'am is wrong to say but I believe that today there are better ways to show respect that are more in our day and age.

Finally my third argument is a three in one deal. For starters there is the free speech part of the issue which in my opinion is real weak, but the right is still there. Students have the right to say what they want to a certain point. The punishment for not calling a teacher by sir or ma'am in Louisiana is very minor. I believe that some students will take advantage of this by not saying sir because there is no punishment for it. In return this only creates headaches for the school officials. Finally I believe that teachers should make their own rules about what they want to be called. I know people who don't want to be called sir or ma'am because it makes them feel old. The government shouldn't make laws that control what schools can do.

In my opinion courtesy titles should not be enforced. They make no sense in the world we live in today where there are many other ways to show respect that are less old fashioned. I will agree that it is still ok to use courtesy titles I just believe that it should not be enforced in a school environment.