"Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me."

So goes the childhood ditty. Unfortunately, we now know that this is a myth ? physical wounds heal but the emotional scars from teasing, name-calling and exclusion can last a lifetime.

Name-calling knows no political, social, racial or religious boundaries. Children are called names because they are too short, too tall, wear glasses or braces, happen to be Black, White, Christian, Jewish, Gay, Lesbian, or Muslim, and on and on. Last week was "No Name-Calling Week" across America, an effort to target middle schools. 5,100 educators from 36 states registered to participate, up from 4,000 in its inaugural year in 2004. This growth is exciting and phenomenal, for a variety of reasons.

It is important to set the record straight. I would have to agree that a "No Name-Calling Week", though a good start, is by no means enough. My hope is that such an effort isn't merely a one-week affair. What is required is an on-going never-ending effort, and one week is barely enough even to raise the requisite amount of appropriate awareness. Not only do "names hurt forever", but also name-calling tragically can escalate to more severe forms of harassment. Far too seldom do we pay any attention to such matters until we have a preventable suicide or a "school shooting". The research overwhelmingly indicates that we need to pay attention to name-calling it has a chance to escalate and hurt others in unspeakable ways.

The Secret Service, Centers for Disease Control and Harvard researchers have all looked long and critically hard at what the school shooters tell us: from their prison cells and their graves. We now know that there are five necessary but not sufficient conditions that they all share. This is information that can help us all mitigate the circumstances that lead to such tragic and final results.

All of these "shooters" were teased and called names mercilessly and maliciously; this "teasing" escalated over time. They all tried desperately to get help from adults who supposedly were there for them and sadly, were not. They all had layers of personal problems; from depression and anxiety to family issues that none of us should ever have to endure. The fourth thing they all shared, and this is so instructive for those of us who work to create safe places for children, was that they all attended schools in which the boundaries for acceptance were narrow and their differences were too great. All of these kids were too "different" and strange for the school culture in which they existed. Finally, they all had easy access to guns. We may not be able to change their accessibility to firearms or the fact that their personal and family situations are lacking, but we impact the other three areas. The fact that they experienced name-calling and other appalling acts, that adults weren't there for them and that the perimeters of acceptance were narrow is not only useful information but also a loud and very clear wake-up call. Just because name-calling is commonplace does not mean that it is also acceptable. It is not. Seemingly innocent instances of name-calling escalate. The earlier we catch it, the more likely we are to stem the tide of violence in schools that all too often ends in tragedy.

I dream of a day where no matter where children learn, live and play that they can move freely without enduring name-calling and that instead of calling others derogatory names, when someone does engage in name-calling, students simply say "we don't do that here".

There is no excuse any more that there are no viable strategies to diminish name-calling. There are. Adults just need to learn that body of information, just like they learned math, science and social studies. The ultimate remedy is to create "climates of respect" where it would be inconceivable that anybody would hurt another with name-calling, teasing, exclusion and other bullying behaviours. And, if anyone believes this is unrealistic, or worse still, an inappropriate mismatch for our toxic and uncivil society, let me just end by saying that our schools and other youth serving organisations have an obligation to model the best that society has to offer, not perpetrate the worst. We're all models ? we might as well be good ones.