Blame Of School Violence On The Parents example essay topic

721 words
Violence in School Settings In the past few years school violence has become some what of a trend. In the period from 1996-1999, 17 school shootings have occurred in the United States. Educators, parents, and students everywhere are questioning why is this happening, who is to blame, and what can we do to stop it. I have researched this topic and come across many theories and suggestions. Some people suggest that we downsize to smaller schools, others place blame on parents and society, and then there are those who feel before we can stop it, we must learn how to deal with it. Violence in schools is now another thing parents fear when their children are at school.

One way that has been brought up to stop this violence may be to downsize to smaller schools. I agree that this is a wonderful idea. In a smaller school setting students and teachers would feel more comfortable. They would be able to have a more personal student-teacher relationship and quite possibly close parent-teacher relationships too. This could be an answer to our problems however, it would raise a few other issues such as money, more teachers, more school buildings, etc...

So I feel that there could be a better way. People have also placed the blame of school violence on the parents, society, and also music. I agree with parents being at fault to some extent. I feel that parents should recognize anger in their child, and if they don't sense that something is wrong then they aren't spending enough time with their child. I know that they aren't able to control their child's every move, but to some extent they could help to prevent some of them. Parents have to teach their children right from wrong, not just once, but repeatedly.

I also think that having a close and open relationship with parents is crucial to a child especially, when they are growing up. In the instance with the two Columbine boys who when on a shooting spree at their high school in April of 1999, I believe that the parents were somewhat to blame. Those boys were planning and preparing in their own homes. They cam from upper class families, and their parents were probably too involved in their work to have a good sense of what their children were doing. On the other hand, I would not place blame on society or especially not music. Society does not raise our children the parents do.

And in regards to the music they are just lyrics and if the child is taught what is right and what is wrong then they should know better. People place a lot of blame on the singer Marilyn Manson saying that he influences kids to do these things. I disagree with that. He is an entertainer, not a preacher. And it is a person's own choice to take what he, or other entertainers, say literally. A final theory that I have come across is to teach our administrators what to do incase of a violent act.

There are special workshops that schools can set up for this and example of one is "Non-violent Crisis Intervention". This course teaches how to maximize student and teacher safety protection. I think it is a good idea for teachers to know what to do incase of an attack. Before we can stop all of these crimes we are going to have to face some of them and we should be well prepared to do so. I have always felt strongly about this topic. It scares me that violence has moved from the streets to our schools now.

School is supposed to be a safe place for children to learn and grow, not fear their lives. However, I know it is not as simple as downsizing to smaller schools, and placing blame on people will do no good at all. We have to learn how to confront theses children and deal with them in appropriate manners, possibly make examples of them to others so we can start working on ending this horrible trend.