Violence In Schools

This is an argumentative essay I wrote about the violence that occurs everyday in schools.

Kori Wilkins
Megan Shepherd
English Comp. 1 (013)
11 October 2010
Violence In Schools

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention stated, “In the United States, an estimated 55 million students are enrolled in pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade. Another 15 million students attend colleges and universities across the country. While U.S. schools remain relatively safe, any amount of violence is unacceptable. Parents, teachers, and administrators expect schools to be safe havens of learning. Acts of violence can disrupt the learning process and have a negative effect on students, the school itself, and the broader community.” (CDC 1) This statement is very true in the school violence is completely unacceptable, but it doesn’t mean that there isn’t school violence all around the United States.
I am writing today to the general public, but specifically to parents, teachers and the administrative department of Oak Hills High School. I’m writing to inform you of the violence going on before and after school. There are many causes of school violence there are also many effects from these causes, but we can prevent these effects with the solutions to ending school violence. We can all agree that for every problem there is to a solution. The same goes for school violence the cause of school violence can be cured with the assistance of our administration, our teachers, and our parents. This will need to be a group effort to end the violence that occurs every day at schools all around the United States.
Many causes of school violence have been due to bullying among classmates. For example on Tuesday April 20, 1999 at Columbine High School, two students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold opened gun fire on their entire school killing twelve students and one teacher, and injuring twenty one other students. Three were also injured while trying to escape the school. Eric and Dylan intended to kill as many people as possible as quickly as possible. What could cause this kind of rage? The answer is simple, but the problem is not an easy fix by any means.
Eric and Dylan both were bullied throughout high school, and were labeled outcast by their classmates. Their primary targets were the jocks and preps that bullied them both although out high school. It was only a matter of time before they would raged out against their classmates that made every day of their life miserable. They both were struggling with who they were, and they both had a difficult time fitting in.
On April 20 Eric and Dylan went to school with all intentions of starting a massacre. They wanted to kill as many students as possible. You ask what caused them to snap? This answer is simple the bullying they received at school, and because of the bullying the effect was the massacre they had on their school. Students go to school not by choice it is a requirement and since it is a requirement they should be safe. Columbine has been the largest school shooting we have ever had in the United Sates even to this day.
School bullying is just one cause of school violence and the massacre Dylan and Eric committed on their school is only one effect from the causes. What is the solution to prevent this from ever occurring again? There will never only be one solution to preventing school violence. Every solution to school violence will vary from location and living styles. The solution will lie within the society and how they live and act day by day. The University of Michigan stated that, Bill Dedman of the Chicago-Sun times writes, “Metal detectors, SWAT teams, profiles, warning signs, checklists, zero-tolerance policies, even software to compare a student’s actions with past attacks…These approaches are ‘unlikely to be helpful, and could be dangerous’” (Dedman, 2000). All of these preventative measures, though possible, do not directly address the problem, and may only exacerbate the issues. (Dolan)
This is very true no matter how many metal detectors you have in a school, or no matter how many security guards you hire. None of these tactics solve the violence that occurs in schools. All these do is help to prevent weapons from entering the school buildings. But that’s not what we want to solve we want to put an end to school violence. We want to teach children to treat everyone around them how they would want to be treated. We want them to understand that everyone is different and we all have different hobbies, and we all dress different! They need to understand that being different is beautiful, and that there is nothing wrong with showing individuality.
I attended Oak Hills High School and a measure our school took to prevent bad behavior in school was by starting a program called Highlander Sweep where all the teachers would stand out in the hall between class switching and they would watch for unacceptable behavior. They looked for anything from texting while in school to public display of affection. When the final bell rings for class all the teachers would go into their classroom and shut the doors, and any students out in the hallways without hall passes were to report to the auditorium where they were wrote up and if they were wrote up more than two times the third write up resulted in a Friday school.
This tactic actually was very effective it made students more worried about getting to class than hanging out in the halls and picking on one another and socializing. It also lowered the amounts of fights in school. With all the teachers standing outside their doors it really made students behave better in fear of getting a Friday school or having their cell phones taken away which also resulted in a Friday school. In a Friday school you must report to an assigned classroom and sit for two hours. You can work on school work or homework anything you want but you must sit silently with no cell phone use. This was just some ways my high school used to prevent school violence and bullying.
Many people don’t feel as though there is violence/bullying going on in your children’s school, but I can insure you there is. Many parents never even know their child is being bullied. This is why it is very important to look for the signs. My Childs safety website stated that, “Loss of interest in school and extracurricular activities, frequent complaints of illness to avoid attending school, sudden decrease in academic performance, has few or no friends with whom he/she spends time with, unexplained bruises, scratches, and cuts, seems afraid of going to school, riding the bus, walking to school, or taking part in organized activities with peers, takes long or illogical route to school, seems sad, moody, or depressed, loss of appetite, trouble sleeping, anxiety or low self-esteem, are all signs of bullying (What Are Signs Of Your Child Being Bullied).
The prevention lies within how the society is, and where the school is located. It depends on what social norms are in that location. The solution for school violence will not be the same in Ohio as it is in California, because we live two totally different lifestyles. Living in California is a lot more expensive than living in Ohio; it’s also totally different climates which causes different styles and ways of living. Although you may think this plays no effect in school violence it really does. Kids being bullied in California won’t be being bullied for the same things kids in Ohio are being bullied for.
The causes of school violence can be anything from a child being bullied to just them struggling in a certain subject. The causes of school violence are endless, as are the effects. We will never be able to completely prevent school violence but we can treat the problem and lower the amount of school violence. As parents, teachers and even school administrators always remember to look for the signs we listed above. Those may not be all the signs children have when being bullied or even struggling in school, but those are the most common ones. The best way to prevent school violence is with your help. Together we can lower the amount of bulling that occurs in schools all around the United States.