School Violence Needs to Stop
School violence is any verbal, visual or physical act that is done to purposely harm someone. There are many types of school violence that happen during the day, like bullying, harassment, name calling, fights, and theft.
All of these happen to kids every day, and it really hurts them. The problem is that once people start the violent behavior, they have a hard time stopping the violence. Sometimes the violence hurts them so much, that the kids that are being pushed to go to the next level. Instead of talking about their feelings, they go and express it through school shootings. To begin, the kids doing the violence usually do not just randomly go around school participating in violent behavior for fun; there is usually something that causes them to do this extreme behavior.
The problems usually start at home, at school, or it is something personal. After observations, “child psychologists believe that the problems usually start at home” (Helga Schier, page 66). The factors that can happen at home are if a kid is being abused, if the parents are taking drugs, if a parent has a mental illness, or if there is an extreme amount of family stress. These actions put a lot of stress on one kid, and it is a lot to handle. Some kids cannot handle all of this stress and so they cannot figure out how to deal with it. This creates a lot of mental problems for that child, and it makes them unhappy with themselves.
They want to find a way to be happy with their life, and so they figure that negative actions will make everything better, but it will only make their lives worse. Another place that creates problems that make kids want to join in on school violence is at school. In our everyday society, “humans tend to gather in groups that define themselves by common characteristics and set themselves apart from those who do not share those characteristics” (Helga Schier, page 77). Many people are happy with their groups and their selves, but some are not so lucky. Some kids are left out of these groups and are alone. These are usually the kids who get bullied, and since they are “so easy to pick on”.
It just continues to go on and on, making this individual miserable. Overall, these kids do not deserve what is done to them each day, but they do not know that. The kids that are getting treated this way think that after a period of time, that being treated that way is just the way they deserve to be treated. This makes a child feel bad about themselves and angry with the people who treat them this way, and instead of talking about their feelings with an adult, they think that expressing their feelings through school violence is okay. We need to help these kids learn that they can get help by talking about their feelings with an adult rather than expressing their feelings through aggression. A third factor that makes students want to get involved in school violence is if they have some sort of personal problem.
Personal problems include “abusing alcohol, carrying a weapon, gang action, wanting to hurt others, lacking communication, or if they are mentally ill” (Tish Davidson, pages 34-35). The student usually wants to keep these factors a secret. When they keep it to themselves, they have no way to get help. This is not safe for the child because then they create emotions that they did not want to feel and then they are forced to deal with it alone because if they tell someone, then their secret would be out. When the student keeps the emotions inside, it becomes very overwhelming.
When it becomes too much to handle, the child wants to get rid of the emotions by doing things that are unnecessary, like school violence. In addition, when someone engages in school violence, it affects a lot of people. The people who are affected the most are the students at school. When violence happens at school, like bullying, harassment, or school shootings, it hurts the victims’ future. The school violence that is done to the victim creates a lot of mental stress. The victim will always remember the incident, they are stuck with it forever.
This can affect their school work, and every day of their lives. “A study in Chicago shows that kids within 10 blocks of a violent incident have a decrease in reading scores.” (Glenn D. Braunstein page 1). If the student continues to do poorly, they would not have as bright of a future as they did before the incident. The school violence makes a huge impact on the person doing the violence too.
The person doing the violence wanted to make them feel better, but doing the violence only made them feel worse. Then they will have to deal with the punishment and gossip that comes afterward. School violence also affects families of the students. If there is a school shooting, families are going to have to try to live with the fact that their child was killed just because some kid decided to carelessly go around school shooting people. The family of the shooter has to live with the fact that their child committed a crime and damaged school property.
School violence has no good to it, it only creates more problems. In conclusion, many people see school violence as minor, but it really is a big deal. School violence is rather easy to prevent. Parents can be supportive of their child, and approaching their children with calm reasoning will help too. The people who can do the most help are the students.
If a student witnesses any sort of violence, they need to report it to an adult, it will make a huge difference in the future. Many schools are starting a program called peer mediation. Peer mediation is for the benefit of students by students. Students receive training to be able to help settle another student’s problems. They learn not to take sides, but to listen to each side and find an agreement.
If we work together, we can make a safer learning environment for the future generations to come.
