School Violence
Violence in schools has always been a problem but having younger siblings and cousins I have heard a lot of stories making me worry that it is getting much worse. When I was in elementary and middle school I didn’t really even know violence was much of an issue. I knew children sometimes bullied others, but that was about it. Now it seems that bullying has turned into fighting, brutal beatings, and even stabbings/shootings. I believe this to be mostly societies fault. All the television shows, games, media, etc. portrays violence in a positive light. This is very influential for children because they see the bad guy getting the girl, the superhero killing to do good, etc. According to a study done in 2000 by CBS News, 22% of children admit they know of at least one student who carries a weapon to school daily. This is a major concern. 0% of students should be carrying a weapon in school, and the school should have a way to make sure of this whether it be a metal detector or another way to check and make sure any person entering the building is not concealing a weapon. The majority of deaths in schools has been due to shootings. In 1993 more than 17 years ago, 270 deaths occured in schools throughout the US, and 207 of those were shootings! Why were these children not stopped before this happened? These could have been easily prevented by both the school and parents. Parents should not have guns in the house that can be accessed by their children. They should be locked away. And the school should have a system for checking for items such as guns. I understand not all schools can afford this and not all parents are around for their children. I also understand that children can get guns easily outside the home, but if these two factors were eliminated I feel it would be a lot effective in lowering this statistic. According to a NCES survey 84% of schools have “low” to “none” when it comes to security, and only 2% have high security including metal detectors. Our government is spending billions of dollars on useless things when we could be putting it to better use saving our future generations from violence in their school, where they are supposed to feel safe. Our government spent $92 billion on corporate welfare, $25 billion to maintain UNUSED or vacant federal properties, $2.6 million teaching chinese prostitutes to drink more responsibly on the job (http://blog.heritage.org/2009/10/08/50-), and billions of dollars on other useless things. All of this money could have gone towards making schools safer and protecting our children. If we do not protect our future generations, then who are we protecting. They are the ones who are going to take over when our generations die off etc., but we care more about people who really won’t make much of a difference. These aren’t the only problems dealing with violence in schools.
Other acts of violence such as emotionally or physically bullying a child can cause serious damage to the target. Students who are constantly bullied and teased may end up with a low self-esteem, feelings of hopelessness or powerlessness, depression, anger issues, anxiety, and many other mental health problems. These problems will most likely travel through life with the person and can cause problems for the person even after the bullying stops. I feel that I can make a difference, even if it is just a small difference, by teaching my future students the effects of violence and just making the students more knowledgeable about the topic. Also collecting money to get proper security within the school system could help. I feel that our communities need to come together and work as one to stop school violence. And even though I know it will not go away completely, even if I help decreasing the stats I would be happy.
Resources:
http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=13057
http://712educators.about.com/cs/schoolviolence/a/schoolviolence.htm
http://law.jrank.org/pages/12100/School-Violence-Causes-school-violence.html
http://blog.heritage.org/2009/10/08/50
http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/youthdevelopment/DA7414.html
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