Here's some ideas for my paper:
Virginia Tech. The University of Texas. Columbine High School. Red Lake High School. Far beyond a random listing of schools, these top a list compiled by US News and World Report last April. Unfortunately, unlike many lists, earning a position at the top of this one is not a prize any school desires to win. Of the ten deadliest U.S. school shootings included in this list, six occurred during the last ten years and five took place in elementary, middle, and high schools. Violence in American public schools is an epidemic, with fights, gangs, and weapons at school becoming much more commonplace. School administrators are left with the responsibility of keeping students safe, but no foolproof way to curb school violence has been found. However, this does not mean that numerous solutions have not been suggested, including the idea of requiring school uniforms in public schools. What are the consequences of requiring students to wear uniforms on levels of school violence?
Let’s first try to understand what causes violence in schools or even violence in general. People committing violent acts are angry at someone or something. So what do kids in public schools have to be angry about? As much as students complain about mean or unfair teachers, school violence usually involves students hurting other students. Why would a kid be angry at a fellow classmate? A lot of it seems to stem from jealousy. Never is the desperate desire to fit in with peers as evident as it is with young students, especially during their middle and high school years. For many kids, being accepted and having lots of friends is as important, if not more important, than learning things in school. It makes sense that feeling alienated may make a student angry. And who do they direct that anger towards? Inevitably it is often the students whom they hold responsible for leaving them out.
2 comments:
This may be more of a function of attending high school in the multicultural and socially laissez-faire environment of Portland, but I have a hard time identifying with the picture of a high school where a few individuals feel excluded by a specific group.
While the shootings you cited were often the work of estranged individuals, those individuals were not involved in gangs, fights, or the like.
The majority of the violence that I personally observed of friends, acquaintances and other students in the high school was related to drugs, depression, race and/or gang involvement, rather than social estrangement. (Fortunately the experience was entirely second- and third-hand.)
And there was very little attention to these incidents compared to those at affluent, predominantly "white" schools. Even where violence included a shooting, or a student's death there was no national attention. There may have been passing mention in the city newspaper. Why? Apparently because it was just too common to report on. Even though such incidents were relatively rare, I guess that it was "only to be expected" of a poorer school.
It seems to me that there are two distinct audiences/situations here: first the general violence that has been going on for decades in the poorer areas, and second is the more recent, more organized and more deadly violence in more affluent settings.
Apologies for the length of this comment. I'm afraid that the disparity in media attention to school violence is something of a pet peeve.
I think you need to be careful about generalizing anger. It can stem from unsatisfying home life, lack of friends, anything really. Don't always assume that the violence taking place at school necessarily inolves what happens at that particular school. It could be a warped expression of anger or hurt caused by other outside factors.
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