Violence in schools

Violence in schools: possible recommendations to reduce it.

Very often we can hear about school fights that happen in high schools or colleges that are close to our homes. This kind of information is taken by granted; it happens very often and doesn’t really concern people until it happens to them or to someone close for them.
  But the victims of the school violence are not only the people who caused or experienced it directly, but also a lot of others in whose environment such events take place.  Often it’s a mental and psychological shock and fear for lots of others who are the part of that environment where such events take place.
  Even though that officials mark that the violence rate in the US high school is decreasing now if to compare to previous decade, USA still takes on the shameful leading place in the list of the countries with high rate of school violence in the world.
  There are lots of reasons for that. First it’s because of the diversity at school, both social and ethnical, and other numerous factors, including media influence and relative access to guns and weapon. All these factors plus unstable psychics of the teenager, who often feels tensions and has psychological problems, can easily cause the violence display that often happens in public high schools.
  Most of the high school violence premises and reasons can be prevented if teachers paid more role to the kids individually, especially in junior grades, if kids had opportunity to consult a psychologists at school, and simply if media reflected the reaction on offences in different way.
It’s a very important aspect because inner world formed at the teenage years will for the most part influence the future life of the person. People with healthy psychics are more likely to be successful and have a normal and healthy life. And the task of the pedagogues and psychologists is to help and to do the best to make kids so.
 The studies made by the officials highlight the main reasons of high school violence, and the potential victims of school violence as well as they indicate the «risk» groups or those who are more likely to commit violence. The main concern of the public and officials in this serious problem is an easy existing access to guns and weapon. The surveys made in 2001 showed  the potential violence statistics in schools nation wide:
«Sixty-one percent of the respondents say they «know kids who could bring a gun to school if they wanted to.»
 Among those who said they do not feel safe at school, the percentage jumps to 74, but even among those who rate their schools as safe or very safe, 50 percent knew someone who could bring a gun to school.
 Students with a low quality of life were more likely to say that they knew someone who could bring a gun to school than those with a high or medium quality of life.
 Significantly more of those who said their neighborhoods had some or a lot of crime knew students who had access to guns than those who said they lived in safer neighborhoods.
 The more highly alienated respondents were, the more likely they were to say they knew kids who could bring a gun to school.
70 percent of rural students said they knew someone who could bring a gun to school.
 Students who live in the South were more likely to agree than those who live in the East (66 percent cf. 56 percent).
 Those who said their mothers had a high school education or less (an indicator of lower socio-economic status) were also more likely to agree with the statement than those whose mothers had some college.» (from Lethal violence in schools Alfred university report)
As the survey continues it also marks that 24 percent of asked students (nearly a quarter) agreed that they have an access to gun and could «easily get a gun if I wanted one.» Almost forty percent of the asked replied, «there are kids at my school who I think might shoot someone.»
 And twenty percent of the asked agreed that they have heard about some student’s plans to shoot someone at school. Eight percent of the students who participated in the survey also agreed that have thought once about shooting someone at school and nearly ten percents thought how to do it. Those who are likely to commit violence are mostly students with low academic performance, problems at school and in the family, also the rate of the «risk» group is higher among representatives of ethnic minorities.
  As the evidence shows, school violence is not such problem that can be solved once and forever. The issues of violence in school will take place all the time, but what can be done; will reduce the statistics and the number of events that can lead to a tragedy or tragedies. The security control is of a high importance, and the practice of putting metal detectors in the halls of many schools is a nowadays forced demand. But the whole problem will be unsolved just by using this methods: «Too much security makes you wonder whether it is safe.» «When I get up to go to school in the morning, I don’t want to feel like I’m going to a correctional facility.» -that’s what students say about this preventive measures.
  The more emphasize has to be done on conversations about violence with students during classes, that life is priceless and of the central value as well as violence won’t solve any issue, but will make it more complicated and will make the problem even worse. Students should have access to the information about the real picture of the violence rate in schools, and they have to be made think about it and first reason before they do something. The only promising practice that can bring results will be the rising the level of self-consciousness and self-responsibility among students. Teachers and parents also should think about the measures that can prevent the ground for possible violence, like to be more attentive and sympathetic to the problems of kids as well as to try them to solve them and support them in difficult moments.
  As the most psychologists suggest, the kids don’t have to keep all their thoughts and feelings inside of themselves, but should always share them with someone they can trust and rely. That is also one of the main priorities to the school counselors and school authorities to create a non-violent atmosphere at school and to do the best to spread the idea of peaceful and reasonable solutions of any kind of problems.
Another recommendations that should be taken into consideration concern mass media and gun industry. Mass media sources and television in particularity should change the broadcasting image of violence as a part of our life and be informative in the issues that have a risk of being solved through the application of power or violence. Another big concern is regulation of the gun production, sales and spread. The statistics shows that handguns are most likely to be used in crimes and cause deaths especially in the youth environment that puts USA on the top by the number of young people killed by gunfire, if to compare the statistics of the other 25 industrialized countries.
   By following this strategies the most of the public schools in the nation will be a safer and friendlier environment for the future generation that learns  there the basics and rules of social life on the hand with educational classes.