Instructor/Professor’s Name
Course
Date
Violence In Public Schools
Perhaps, one of the most pressing concerns affecting not only the educational sector, but the entire society, is the rising violence in schools. Indeed, there’s no question that school-related violence is one of the gravest threats that any government will have to face. In fact, the U.S. is just one of the dozens of countries plagued by this social ill. With easy access on guns and knives, schools—students and teachers, specifically—have been placed at a more precarious condition. Thus, it is no longer surprising if shooting spree, sexual assault, and stabbing incidents continue to headline the newspapers around the world. Such is the alarming rate of violence in what was once considered the haven of safety and sanctuary of morality that parents, students, and policymakers have to brave. In general, violence in U.S. schools, plus the government’s failure to prevent—let alone eliminate—even in the presence of new initiatives specifically intended for this purpose, has turned out a huge cause for concern that needs to be addressed no sooner than later.
No student or teacher for this matter should ever suffer from violence inside the classroom, playground, school cafeteria, or even while on his way to or from school. But the truth does not speak of the same. As the rate of school violence continues to escalate year by year, so does the disruption of the learning process, degradation of the students’ and teachers’ morale, and the spread of fear not only in the school but in the community in general. Aside from the immediate negative impact, school violence could also give birth to youth violence, which could stem to more diverse concerns in criminality, peace and order, and public health and safety.
In this paper, we will try to delve the degree of school violence and how dangerous it is not only to wither the integrity of the U.S. school system,
References: Anderson, M., Kaufman J., Simon T.R., Barrios L, Paulozzi L, Ryan G, et al. School-associated violent deaths in the United States, 1994-1999. JAMA 2001; 286 (21):2695-702. Bergstein J.M., Hemenway D., Kennedy B., Quaday S., Ander R. Guns in young hands: a survey of urban teenagers ' attitudes and behaviors related to handgun violence. Journal of Trauma. 1996 Nov; 41(5):794-8. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. School-associated student homicides-United States, 1992-2006. MMWR 2008;57(02):33-36. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Temporal variations in school-associated student homicide and suicide events - United States, 1992 -1999. MMWR 2001;50(31):657-60. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance—United States, 2007. Surveillance Summaries, June 6, 2008. MMWR 2008;57(SS-4). Garbarino, J., Abramowitz, R. H. (1992). The ecology of human development. In J. Garbarino (Ed.), Children and families in the social environment (2nd ed., pp. 11-33). New York: Aldine de Gruyter. Kachur, S.P., Stennies, G.M., Powell, K.E., Modzeleski, W., Stephens, R., Murphy, R., et al. School-associated violent deaths in the United States, 1992 to 1994. JAMA 1996;275(22):1729-33.