Schools And Communities example essay topic

In today's society I find that with every passing day things appear even more chaotic and outrageous than the day before. Not one day am I able to go home and look at the newspaper, read a magazine or watch the news without seeing some senseless act of violence that has devastated a community or nation. These deeds of horror have filtered down to our youth, and it is no longer safe to send your children to school or allow them to play on the playground. Not too long ago I was watching the news, and heard of a seven year old girl being shot in the head by a classmate who was angry with her for not playing with him the previous day. That is ludicrous! Another incident was an instance where a man went into a day care program (ESP) and shot a teacher and first grade student, killing them both.

Were you aware that in the past six years 173 brutal deaths in United States schools have occurred? Fifty percent of children nine to seventeen are worried about dying young and thirty-one percent of children twelve to seventeen know someone their age who carries a gun! The largest school massacre was on April 20, 1999 in Littleton, Colorado, at Columbine High School were fifteen people were mercilessly slaughtered. After Columbine a wave of "copycat" reactions spread out to schools and communities everywhere. Only after this did a decisive movement sweep through the nation asking, "What can we do to safeguard our schools?" Why does it take a tragedy for our society to realize we have a critical problem? There have been numerous suggestions on what to do to make our schools more secure, but still children continue killing peers or themselves and disrupting the learning environment.

I do not like the idea of having to go to school in a prison anymore than anyone else, but if I have to choose between dying in a classroom or giving up the luxury of wearing what I want or doing as I please you can bet your last dollar I am going to choose my life. Yeah, mesh back packs, prayer in school and r inky-dink security systems will help; however they will not save lives or defer someone from just prancing into a school and taking out the people in the cafeteria. I feel that a more forceful approach like uniforms, identification cards, more security officers, built in metal detectors that you are unable to go around, closed classrooms, assigned parking for students and faculty and surveillance cameras in every room, hall in the building will get the job done more effectively. There needs to be more communication between the faculty and students. The administration should know what is going on in the building at all times. I think the main key though is awareness; most people have not the slightest idea of what is going on in schools, their children's lives or in their community.

Statistics show that adolescent teens typically spend three and a half hours unsupervised everyday, which is eleven hours less than was spent with children in the 1960's. Furthermore, a 721 percent increase in minutes spent by news broadcasters covering homicides from 1993 to 1996 has been reported, and a 300 percent increase in teen suicide since 1996 as a result of a 1000 percent increase in depression among children since the 1950's. How many people do you estimate know those statistics: not many! We as a nation, need to do four things: give kids something to do after school, make sure children have proper child care early in life, help schools identify troubled kids early and provide counseling for them and lastly prevent child abuse and neglect. I do not think that video games, nor television shows and movies could influence a person enough to go and kill someone else. However, I do believe that family pressures, such as the absence of one parent or the pressure from "bullies" at school have the potential to resolve into a dangerous end.