School Violence Blog Post #2
Choice C
As I go through college learning what it takes to become a teacher, this week we were presented with the topic of classroom violence and the effects it has had on the education system in this country.
Once I am done with learning what it takes to become a teacher I hope to find a job educating students from 8th-12th grade. My reasoning behind this is because once I got to 8th grade it seemed like the teachers enjoyed their jobs much more. My thinking on why this was the case was most likely due to the fact that the teachers could engage in intelligent conversations with their students. Around 8th-12th grade in my eyes is when you are no longer teaching babies, you are now teaching young adults.
The issue of school violence scares me due to the fact that I would never want to see any of my students getting hurt or even killed. This is a horror story that unfortunately some teachers have had to deal with in their careers. My thinking is that the classroom will be affected by too much worry of violence making it harder for the students to learn what they need to learn. When reading the article “A majority of U.S. teens fear a shooting could happen at their school, and most parents share their concern” by Nikki Graf we see just how intense the situation of school violence is by the title alone. “Overall, 57% of teens say they are worried about the possibility of a shooting happening at their school, with one-in-four saying they are very worried.” (Graf, 2018) These numbers are sad to see as students should not be fearing for their lives while at school. The only things that should be on a child's mind while at school is what they are learning and having some fun with their friends. School should be a fun and safe environment for students to grow up in. These terrible thoughts that seem to be running through students' minds are most likely taking a toll on their learning as how could anyone focus on lecture with the thought of a gun man running into the classroom is a possibility.
Now that we know students are scared of the possibility of violence in their school, how can we prevent it? While reading the article “Fast Fact: Preventing School Violence” by the CDC we were presented with the idea of how to combat violence in the classroom.
The strategies and approaches in the technical packages are intended to shape individual behaviors as well as the relationship, family, school, community, and societal factors that influence risk and protective factors for violence. They are meant to work together and to be used in combination in a multi-level, multi-sector effort to prevent violence. (CDC, 2021)
With government organizations making strides to try and solve this problem it does ease my mind slightly. This quote shows that their plan is to basically hit the violent tendencies at the source during child development. I find this fascinating as it is an interesting way in which people can try and stop these events from happening again. Another way that I personally think can help stop these events such as “school shootings” from happening is tightening gun laws in this country. While I do not think guns should be banned in this country I do believe they need to make it way harder for an individual to get access to one.
An article I found on my own that does a good job at explaining the dire circumstances of school violence in this country is “What is School Violence” by: Sanjana Gupta. In this article Gupta brings up some of the causes to why these events happen
“These are some of the risk factors that can make a child more likely to commit school violence:5
Poor academic performance
Prior history of violence
Hyperactive or impulsive personality
Mental health conditions
Witnessing or being a victim of violence
Alcohol, drug, or tobacco use
Dysfunctional family dynamic
Access to weapons
Delinquent peers
Poverty or high crime rates in the community” (Gupta, 2022)
All of these reasons above are negative experiences that could make the child lash out in violent ways in which they hurt fellow classmates. The best way in which we can help is by eliminating these issues and trying to make the affected child's life better.
During my watch of “Bowling for Columbine” , the documentary provided to us for this week's lesson, it brought up a lot of important information on the events that took place on the tragic day. Columbine High School needs to be an example for what horrors await us if we do not do anything about school violence. This documentary made me really think about what my mindset would be like if I was put into a scenario like that. I hope that we can find an effective way to put an end to school violence, because I never want to have to experience something so tragic.
So in conclusion as a future educator the threat of school violence could possibly affect my classroom due to students worrying about it and not focusing on what I am teaching them. Obviously another problem that could arise is an actual life threatening situation happening in my school, this would obviously be the most drastic and awful scenario. All of these possibilities really make my mind think to hard as I should just try and focus on giving my students the best education possible
References
Graf, N. (2018, April). A majority of U.S. teens fear a shooting could happen at their school, and most parents share their concern. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/04/18/a-majority-of-u-s-teens-fear-a-shooting-could-happen-at-their-school-and-most-parents-share-their-concern/
Moore, M. (Producer & Director) (2002). Bowling for Columbine [Film]. United States: Dog Eat Dog Productions/ YouTube https://watchdocumentaries.com/bowling-for-columbine/ ORhttps://youtu.be/wScIMiWT_dw
Preventing school violence. (2019). Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/youthviolence/schoolviolence/fastfact.html?CDC_AA_refVal=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cdc.gov%2Fviolenceprevention%2Fyouthviolence%2Fschoolviolence%2Findex.html
Gupta, Sanjana. “What Is School Violence?” Verywell Mind, 24 Jan. 2022, www.verywellmind.com/school-violence-types-causes-impact-and-prevention-5216631.
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