The Problem Of Violence In Schools Essay — страница 2

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what the students were planning, but did not share it with the school or police officials. Schools should pay attention to not only the major incidents like Columbine, but also to the smallest threat. Schools in Allen, Texas, cancelled the remaining two weeks of classes due to repeated bomb threats. But after parental and community outrage, officials opened the schools on a limited basis a few days later. Four boys were charged with plotting a shooting in their Port Huron, Michigan, middle school similar to the massacre at Columbine. Reaction like these should always be taken to incidents as such. It prevents the tragedies like Columbine and others from happening again. A common trend in most school shootings is that they have all occurred in communities in which people felt

safe. The perception of schools as being safe havens has changed over the past few years since the rash of shooting incidents. But the fact still remains that schools are the safest places for children. But, still, schools have always been easy targets for violence. Even though the number of violent incidents in schools is dropping, the use of firepower by students is growing. Lately, medal detectors, security cameras, ID cards, and other security hardware and systems have been finding the nation?s schools as a home. This is mainly due to the need to show students, staff, and parents that security measures are being taken. Schools should be safe enough that they there is no need for security devices as such. Although medal detectors are very useful, but they are only part of the

solution. Schools must also look at other prevention methods. Administrators have agreed that they will not find just one specific solution to the school dilemma that would be one hundred percent effective. Something that must be changed is the fact that in every incident in the last two years, the kids have spoken about their act before the committed it. And for some reason or other, adults have refused to pay attention to it. It must be changed. People listen to a cry for help when they hear it, why not this? It is basically the same thing; they should pay just as much attention to it. Safety is not a sometimes thing, it is an all-the-time thing, students should be able to go to school and feel safe. It has been said that violence on television has been a contributor to kids

committing these acts of violence. But is this really true? Sure, the violence on television is a contributor. But it is not as big a contributor as most people make it out to be. Most of the students, who do commit crimes in school, all fit basically the same profile. They were alienated, angry and had a history of emotional problems. They are students who hold a grudge. Most of these students often write about these things in advance, they perhaps signal that they are going to happen. Experts say that there is no foolproof way to spot potential killers. But, by early next year, the FBI will release a report listing problematic traits to help educators and parents identify the seriousness of a student?s threat. The report will detail warning signs in four areas of a student?s

life: 1.) Personality, 2.) Family, 3.) School behavior, and 4.) Other factors such as drugs and alcohol. This report should be very helpful to the parents and administration in controlling the safety of their school. Some of the indicators of what would make a student turn to violence are: social withdraw, excessive feelings of isolation and persecution, and a history of aggressive behavior. The question of what went wrong early on in these kid?s lives is brought up more that one. It is wondered what made them into killers where they would go out and without any conscience just kill people, their friends and classmates and then themselves. No one will ever know except for himself or herself. What steps should be taken to helping kids like this? Having school psychologists is a

good idea; they are traditionally the first lines of defense. But lately they have been preoccupied in assessing kids who need to help with learning disorders. Many schools are now adopting ?zero tolerance? policies, pulling out kids who do anything suspicious. This works, but not always. When a school expels a student for something like violent imagery in creative writing, it is an overreaction. Or the twelve year old boy in Virginia who was expelled for waiving a stapler around on a school bus; a Florida girl was suspended for bringing a nail clipper to class, and the suspension of a nine year old boy who wrote ?you will die with honor? when his teacher asked him to compose a fortune cookie message. It is all-ridiculous. There is no reason to go that far. The zero tolerance