Review the information available here http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/youthviolence/schoolviolence/
make sure to go beyond that page as there are several links to follow.
First, why would this information be on the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's website?! How does this topic relate to their mission?
Generally review and reflect on the site as you have for previous assignments. In addition, address the following questions: Who do you think should be the target of prevention strategies? Why? Knowing what you know about violence from a theoretical and scientific perspective, what recommendations would you give to a local school that was concerned about preventing school violence?
I thought this website was very informative. I do not search the web very often, but I wish I would have used this website both professionally and for educational purposes previously. I read a lot of information on the website and was side tracked reading about other information that I am interested in and need more information on. (That was just a side note, now I will focus on the assignment..:-) )
I believe that the information presented regarding school violence was on the website because one of the main focuses of the website is prevention related issues. Obviously school violence is an identified concern that is in desperate need of effective prevention programs. This topic is directly related to the mission because of this reason. The website appears to focus on presenting issues and has worked to develop and provide education on appropriate and effective prevention strategies. Immediately the website provided statistical information regarding school violence. I believe this is a very important first step to identifying prevention programs. If a resource can identify why an issue is in important and the significance of it, it immediately increases awareness of the issue and can help lead to prevention programs. By identifying the statistics it also educates the reader on the prevalence of the issues and encourages the need for prevention programs which directly corresponds to the mission of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
I believe that victims should be identified as part of a prevention program, but according to the research and other research I have read, it would probably be more effective to have the perpetrators the target for the prevention program. Many of the perpetrators of school violence have been victims themselves in one way or another so I feel that by making them the target for prevention strategies you can address more than one issue at a time in the most effective manner. I feel that prevention strategies focused on the perpetrator would be the most effective in reducing school violence primarily because they are the individuals that are causing the identified issue and are the ones in most need of change, in one way or another.
If I were going to make recommendations to a school to prevent violence I would suggest that they focus on respect. I just read chapter 15 in the text and it directly corresponds to this question. The specific recommendation I would make to the school is to identify and reflect on the role of respect within their school setting. This would encourage the school to not soley focus of the perpetrators of the violence and the consequences that should be enforced, but would also challenge them to address the morals and values being presented within their school setting.
This website is a very beneficial and informative source of information regarding a variety of topics. I had already researched much of this website for my expert topic of youth violence. I feel that including the issue of youth violence and school violence on the CDC website ties into their injury prevention and control area of research directly. Youth violence, including school violence, has become a very relevant and more researched area of research over the past two decades, especially within the past decade. Having a website with information available on this topic allows for a higher awareness to the issue and possibly the chance to prevent or decrease its likelihood.
Prevention strategies are ideal versus intervention strategies, because it would be awesome if youth violence could be prevented before it even occurred. Unfortunately, that is often not the case and intervention techniques are necessary because youth have already succumbed to violence. In order for prevention strategies to be the most successful, it is necessary for teachers, members of the community, parents, administration staff, and students to all be involved in the process. The website explains that successful prevention techniques reduce risk factors and increase protective factors. Risk factors can include individual (mental disorders, emotional problems, behavioral problems, etc.), family (harsh discipline, low parental involvement, parental SA, poor family functioning or supervision, etc.), peer/social (delinquent peers, gang involvement, social rejection, etc.), or community (decreased economic opportunities, poverty, low community involvement, disorganized neighborhoods, etc.). These are the factors that prevention strategies attempt to decrease in order to decrease violence. Protective factors can include individual (negative attitude towards deviance, academic success, involvement in social activities), family (connectedness, shared activities, appropriate supervision, open communication), and peer/social (prosocial relationships, school commitment, and social activities). These areas are what prevention strategies attempt to increase in order to decrease violence.
This strategy for decreasing violence is appropriate and beneficial because it addresses several areas instead of focusing on primarily one area. As discussed in class and other readings, often productive strategies and theories include the focus on several areas of an issue in attempts to address more and have increased results. Utilizing a multidimensional approach is something that appears to have higher success rates and allowing for a better understanding of an issue. The CDC appears to use this kind of approach, addressing the individual level, family level, community level, and peer/social level. These are closely related to the dimensions we initially categorized at the beginning of the semester. Focusing on aspects from each of these areas related to youth violence/school violence (or any societal problem) allows for a broader perspective and allows the lens in which we see the problem to view more aspects related to the problem. With such a complex issue as youth/school violence, it is necessary and our responsibility to look at the issue with a multidimensional approach in order to address the problem successfully in attempts to prevent or decrease its likelihood.
The CDC is part of The Department of Health and Human Services. The CDC’s mission includes the prevention of injury and fostering safe and healthful environments. This involves talking about school violence and youth violence. This website has so much content. Even the violence prevention section has a ton of information and links. The CDC has a public health model for violence prevention. Step 1 is to define the problem, step 2 is identify risk and protective factors, develop and test prevention strategies, and step 4 is assure widespread adoption. There is also a socio-ecological model for prevention and violence prevention strategic directions. Different types of violence are discussed. The CDC’s youth violence prevention strategies page provides links to and brief descriptions of prevention programs. Again, there in a lot of information to take in if you read each of the link’s content. This website is kind of hard to navigate through just because of the overwhelming amount of links. There are links to links to links and it feels never ending trying to read about a topic and it can be hard to find the information you are looking for.
The school violence prevention section provides individual level strategies, relationship level strategies, community level strategies and societal level strategies. I think these distinction of levels is a good way to organize strategies but not necessary. The main thing to remember about violence prevention in schools is educate about and model the type of behavior you want to see.
I think the main target of violence prevention strategies should be children and students. If techniques for avoiding and dealing with violence are taught early and reinforced throughout their school aged years, they will be more likely to internalize what they are taught and carry that on to adulthood.
A school wanting to prevent violence should attempt to develop secure, healthy attachments for the students and make sure the school is a respectful environment. This means the teachers and administrators should be caring and listen to students and also show respect to the students. Part of creating a respectful environment in the school means teaching the students what respect is, why it is important, and how it is shown. Within that, they should be taught about self-respect and disrespect. This should continue throughout different levels of schooling. Teachers should also be told the importance of intervening in a situation between students where they see disrespect. Children should be taught how to express themselves verbally in a nonaggressive, respectful way and also be taught the importance of listening to others.
I believe that topics like school violence are on the CDC’s website for two big reasons. One, the CDC doesn’t just measure diseases; it measures all sorts of violent activities in the U.S. Second, things like bullying can be like a disease; once someone starts doing it, other people jump on the bandwagon. Also, let’s face it, school deaths may be down, but bullying hasn’t gone down. I wasn’t able to find stats on whether it’s increased as much as the media would like to have us believe, but it definitely hasn’t decreased. Overall, I liked the site. It was easy to find information and everything was organized into nice, neat little categories. I think it touched base with a lot of the important stuff: it discussed what school violence is, the stats on it, risk factors, and prevention techniques. It probably could have had a little more information; it didn’t take me very long to read through what they did have. Other than that, though, I really didn’t have any complaints. I think that both the bullies and the bullied should be the target of prevention strategies. The CDC didn’t talk about it too much, but if we could get the bullies to stop their behavior, than it wouldn’t be a problem. On the other hand, if we get kids who are bullied to stand up for themselves, then it will give them confidence and there is the possibility that the bullies will leave them alone. We definitely need to reach kids whose home life shows them to be at risk for violent behavior. However, that is not always easy to do. If I could give recommendations to a local school about preventing violence, I would tell them to encourage “tattletelling” for important offenses. I would tell them to create an atmosphere of trust and would definitely tell them to make sure they are hiring teachers that care about their students. If the teachers don’t care, the bullies are going to take advantage. I would tell the school to have policies in place that deal with both the bully and the kids they are bullying (though not at the same time.) I think there is a real need for school psychologists who can help a bullied child step up and gain confidence in themselves and speak up for themselves. Also, a school psychologist needs to be able to help a bullied child get down to whatever their real issue is and help them resolve it. While all those steps are great, the most important thing is to get support from the community and especially the parents. It is very important to get the parents on board with whatever the school is planning to do, because if they are on board, they are much more likely to encourage their child not to bully and to stand up for themselves. Also, parents are the ones who (are supposed to) know and love their child the best. If they know what the school is doing and why, they can try and implement same ideas into their home. It all starts in the home, so I would try and get the school to make that the biggest priority.
This website is very informative and helpful when providing information pertaining to health issues in the United States such as environmental health, healthy living, traveler’s health, workplace health and safety, and injury, violence and safety. I have read through this site before for previous classes but I was unaware of the elder maltreatment section it it’s violence section. This will definitely be beneficial to my expert topic elder abuse.
I believe that school and youth violence is on the CDC website because the website lists prevention of other health issues in the younger generation such as teen pregnancy, STD’s, suicide, and intimate partner violence. The website also provides a few PDF’s that are used to describe some prevention strategies for school violence. One of the PDF’s offered describes how to set up an intervention for a school community that could potentially include school violence (which is basically every community). It mentions that you should describe the problem and then pick the participants. The participants mentioned were the general population of children and adolescents, at-risk or high-risk children and adolescents, young children (10 years or younger), parents and other family members, other influential adults such as teachers or coaches, and finally the general population. If I had to pick from that list I would definitely target young children, at-risk or high-risk children and adolescents, and parents and other family members. I think that children ten years and younger need to be a target for school violence because in our present society children are starting activities meant for older children and adults at a much younger age. The earlier we start offering knowledge of school violence, the better the chance that they will use other outlets of letting out their anger or frustration, or completely dodge their anger completely. At-risk and high-risk children would benefit from an intervention and are a target for school violence because they are probably more prone to violence compared to other children in the school system. My mother works with high-risk children at my hometown elementary. It seems as though whenever I go to visit her at work or stop by to volunteer, there is always some sort of violence going on. I have seen the violence and have heard stories of 2nd graders throwing chairs, cussing, spitting… you name it. They are more prone to violence at school with other classmates because they lack the respect for themselves, their elders, and their fellow classmates. Some of them have psychological issues, and those could possibly be explained by being born with the issues, or being influenced by environmental factors such as their parents and their home life. This leads me to the other group that could be a target for school violence, the parents and the family. The parents can either help the situation or hurt it. I do know that some of my mother’s students come from bad families and home lives, which makes it hard not to blame their family for their problems. Those problems at home could follow the child to school which could make them take it out on their classmates.
My recommendations that I would give to a local school for prevention would be to describe the problem, identify the target audience, select a setting appropriate for their audience such as a gymnasium or a youth activity center. Then I would set a goal or objective but make sure they are measurable and attainable. I think that setting up a presentation for the target audiences I have mentioned earlier with someone who has been through school violence such as a school shooting will definitely affect the students and influence them not to act out. I also think that setting up a “pre-intervention” before an actual intervention after the problem has started will also help a school because the students will be able to see that school violence is not necessary.
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When you hear the words “school violence”, one certainly does not think about the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. However, this is an important topic that fits well with the mission of the CDC: prevention and public health. As pointed out by the CDC website, school violence is a subset of youth violence that is part of the broader public health problem. Often times, children and young adults who have committed school violence are victims of abuse and neglect both in the home and in school. Therefore, it is clearly a major public health concern that needs to be addressed by organizations like the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
I was incredibly surprised at the plethora of information on the CDC website and how much legitimate scientific research is used to support their youth/school violence prevention programs. They provide information on all of the organizations the CDC supports or helped to create/implement, along with links to these resources where more detailed information about the programs they’ve helped fund and create can be found. I was also surprised to see that they provide actual assessment tools that assess violence related beliefs, behaviors, and influences, in addition to several publications concerning school-related homicide and other forms of youth violence within school contexts.
It was also clear to me that the CDC fully understand the importance of establishing a multimodal approach to prevention that involves community-wide efforts where school and community leaders and families work together to both implement and sustain violence and suicide prevention. Given that school violence is a public health problem, everyone needs to be involved in its prevention; everyone should be the target of prevention strategies. Thus my recommendations for local schools on how to prevent school violence would involve the participation of several entities including businesses, educators, school administrative personnel, parents and family members, and students themselves. Local businesses can play an important role in funding prevention programs. Meanwhile, educators and school administrators in particular can aid in their implementation among the school system. Support in the implementation and in sustaining such programs lies in the hands of parents and families as well as the students who participate in such programs. When it comes to societal issues such as school violence, it is critical that we cover all our bases in order to establish the best form of attack. I would also recommend using some of the assessment materials provided by the CDC and the research literature to help evaluate prevention programs once they have been established. Obviously, we need to have a definitive way to measure and assess the efficiency of prevention programs. Success will not be obtained over night and therefore it is important to pinpoint any flaws within prevention programs earlier in the game to ensure a more effective and successful prevention program.
With all that said, this was one website I definitely book-marked!
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Personally, I have no idea why anything related to violence would be located on the Center for Disease Control website. The only reason I can speculate as to why this would be is because they might consider school violence a disease in itself that is spreading, at least from a theoretical point of view. School violence can be seen as a type of disease that is 100% preventable if we just use the right methods to prevent kids from being violent.
Overall, I found this particular website highly informative. There were many interesting charts and graphs that they provided that gave a great deal of information to the reader. The most interesting thing that I found on the website was the page "Behaviors that Contribute to Violence on School Property". This gave interesting data on students.
The website defines school violence as "a subset of youth violence, a broader public health problem. Youth violence is the intentional use of physical force or power by a young person, between the ages of 10 and 24, against another person, group, or community, with the youth’s behavior likely to cause physical or psychological harm." Based on this definition, I think that the website gave a lot of information that helps illustrate just what school violence is and what we should do to change it. There is a lot of content on the website that includes examples of school violence, where school violence occurs, and many many different statistics that help illustrate just how big the problem of school violence is and what exactly is going on when they talk about school violence.
Personally, with prevention and intervention programs, I think that there should be an equal amount of concentration on both the victims or potential victims and those who commit, or are likely to commit, acts of violence.
It does not seem reasonable to concentrate on just the victims or those who caused the violence. If we concentrate just on the victims and what we can do to help them, then we cannot be sure that the act of violence would not repeat itself. That, and we could be overlooking an important problem or issue that we could help the person who caused the violence get through. If we only concentrate on the person who caused the violence, then we won't be helping the victims who might be going through a traumatic time in their life. Because of this, I think it would be beneficial on concentrate on both sides.
Personally, I think the best thing to do would be implementing a strong set of prevention programs early on would be one of the best suggestions. Early elementary especially (like first or second grade) should be the time when we really sit kids down and talk about how to prevent violence.
I would also suggest that they talk more about the resources available and make the kids know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they will be safe if they go to someone for help. Victim or abuser, kids should know that there are ways they can get help and that things would be better in the long run if they did.
Another suggestion that I would give would be not making the kids who do or would potentially commit acts of violence and aggression feel like criminals. Let them know that what they are doing is wrong, of course, but that there will be less consequences for them if they confess to what they do when they do it and sincerely apologize to the victim.
A final thing that I would suggest to implement in prevention programs is encouraging the students to get to know each other on a deeper level and talk to people that they would not normally talk to. There is a show on MTV called "If you really knew me..." and the entire show focuses on bringing segragated schools (no matter if they are segragated by race, economic status, or cliques) closer together. Students are forced to sit in groups with people they might not normally talk to and then they have to tell everyone in the group something that they don't know about each other. At the end of the show, you can tell that the vast majority of the students are sincerely making an effort to change their ways and gained a new respect for each other.
I feel that most schools should go through this. Of course, this kind of thing should wait until the students are a fair bit older, like in junior high and high school, but this should be a key element to add to prevention programs. Most violence occurs because the students do not know about each other. If they learn more about each other, then things become more personal and people think twice about making fun of them or doing horrible things to them.
The final suggestion I would have in prevention programs would be increasing the amount of communication between parents and schools. Communication seems to be going down the tube and most parents only find out about what is going on at school from their children. If there is more communication between parents and teachers, then it would be easier to identify problems a student may be facing at school. Of course, there are a lot of students to have to watch, but there is no excuse for a lack of clear communication between parents and teachers. Simply by adding this, there would be a greater chance of decreasing the amount of violence in schools.
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I believe this information is on the sight because different forms of violence can lead to many different health issues, both psychological and viral. For example physical violence could cause infections from cuts or internal damage, sexual assault/rape can lead to STD's, bullying can lead to psychological health problems, and the list goes on.
I believe high schoolers should be the main target of prevention strategies, because it's better to stop a problem early at the root than try to change it later when it has grown. If prevention is instilled into kids early on in high school then it won't be so important once they mature into adults while in college. I feel it should be brought to their attention in elementary and middle school, but high school is when they'll really soak in information and attempt to apply it.
I would tell a local school that they should have an assembly twice a year for the entire school that focuses on violence in schools, what it can lead to, and ways to work as a team to prevent it from happening or getting out of hand if it does happen. Also to add to that, assign certain class periods a few times each year for the teachers to speak on school violence and prevention so it stays fresh in their memories. Along with these prevention strategies, it's not a bad idea to make the rules on bullying or any form of school violence more strict. My dad's middle school had a bully prevention week that got recognized city wide for it's success and how well the kids worked together to prevent bullying. If everyone works as a team this can be successful.
As I've mentioned in class before, I'm the mommy to a bullied child. I downplay it in class often, and have some fun with retelling the story of Charlie hitting a girl bully, but it really has been a struggle for my family in the past.
I liked all the great information on the CDC website. It's not shocking to read that children from unstable homes or who do not have the attention from their parents in the home tend to be the one's who are more prone to be violent towards others. Here at my house we are currently lookin to move to a bigger house, and one of the main considerations we have is the kinds of kids that my kids will encounter at school... I'm moving to escape bullies essentially. I know bullies are in every school system, but I feel as if the schools my kids are going to attend if we stay here are over run with bullies. I've had conversations with the teachers here who also feel as if they themselves are the targets of the same bullies, and we don't even want to discuss the parents of a specific few of these kids. We have had the opportunity to be verbally harrassed and threatened by one of the kids parents because we went to the principle after a third grade child tried to burn my son with a lighter he brought to school (so many things wrong with that situation!). I feel as if the CDC's proposed idea of promoting programs focused on reducing bullying before it happens, not just on punishing bullies after the fact, makes alot of sense. As the web site states, "Public health approaches focus on preventing violence before it starts and have been proven to be effective in reducing youth violence." I would like to see more pro-active approaches in schools in the future.
I think there has been a bigger push in the past few years to reduce school violence not because there is more violence in schools (as the CDC website confirms) but there is a greater accessibility to weapons. There is also a greater focus on these sorts of violent crimes in the media making it seem as if our youth are becoming more violent. I do worry that with the ever increasing number of families struggling financially due to the economic downturn this is causing more stress at home and parents who are consumed with personal struggles to pay bills, balance work schedules, and create an enriching home envirionment. We may find that more children are living in homes with situations thought to cause them to be at higher risk to behave violently. This is not a school problem, this is not just a home problem, this is a societal problem. Just like the saying, "it takes a village to raise a child", we have to be more willing as a society to take these children under our wing and give them the resources to develop healthy well adjusted ways of being. I like your question on why the Center for disease control has information on school violence, violence is not a comunicable disease. however, violence can sometimes be prevented, and when it is it promotes healthy development. Victims suffer more than just bumps and bruises. We often see lasting psychological damage which affects a person for years after. if we reduce violence, we can improve the health of many individuals for years and years to come. Healthy-ness is always a good disease to spread around.
It may sound crazy, but that kid with the lighter... he comes over to play sometimes. He's usually hungry, so I feed him. I chat with him about school and video games and books like Harry Potter. He stopped picking on Charlie and I like that, but even better he got a few other boys to leave charlie alone too.
First of all, I want to applaud this website for having both a great cause, and an excellent layout. Right off the bat they catch the reader’s attention by displaying the shocking graph that displays the rate of students who carried weapons/got in fights in a short amount of time before the survey was taken. It really makes you think about what a large problem this is in our society…and it also makes you want to dig further into their site! I also really like that the forms of maltreatment and violence are organized into separate categories and provide detailed definitions for each; as I feel that this topic often gets bundled into one large “umbrella” of violence. Looking at each individual factor really helps the public to understand the severity and the variety of violence within schools.
I also really enjoyed that the site provided so much information about each topic. Links to information on prevention, risk factors, publications, consequences, and many others were provided on each separate topic. I think that this is where we can tell that the Center for Disease Control organized the site; as it has a very “diagnostic” way of reading. But other than that, I am a bit surprised to find this amount of socially-related information on a site for the CDC. I also think that this may pose as somewhat of an issue…as people may start to think of school bullying and violence as more of a “disease” rather than a behavior related incident. At the same time- public awareness is crucial in situations like this, so really any information on the topic is probably helpful... especially good, educated information that is provided by this site.
The site states that their overall mission is to (in general) keep the public informed of public health concerns. Educating the public on topics of school violence, therefore, would definitely fall into this category. Knowing the hazards that are involved when someone fails to notice the warning signs or recognize the risk factors can greatly decrease the number of school violent issues. In a situation such as this, it’s all about prevention. Recognizing that this is a serious problem gets us one step closer to finding more preventative solutions. I think that this is the hardest part of an issue such as school violence, as many would just like to believe that children are always innocent. Understanding that this is not always the case can really help us to find more solutions to this problem.
The CDC's mission is to protect people's health by providing them with information, tools, and monitoring on a variety of health issues. School violence is very much a health-related issue because not only does it encompass a variety of issues regarding physical health (i.e., physical injuries that directly stem physical attacks on a person) but it also affects the psychological health of a person.
The CDC's website was incredibly informative (perhaps that's why I incorporated some of it into my expert topic project). The school violence fact sheet was incredibly alarming to me. For whatever reason, people generally assume school violence only refers to school shootings or physical fights (I'm guilty of this too). However, school violence also includes bullying, rape, robbery, and all other forms of violence. It is completely unrealistic to believe that our schools are immune to certain acts of violence. After all, members of our youth are able and have committed these acts out on the street. These same youths also are present in our schools so it only makes sense that the school systems would have to deal with these same acts of violence but only on a smaller scale.
As far as prevention strategies, I think they should be aimed at all students. As it stated on the CDC's website, "universal, school-based prevention programs have been found to reduce rates of aggression and violent behavior among students. These programs are delivered to ALL students in a particular grade or school..." By exposing all students to the prevention strategies, it allows the students to gain an understanding about each other and their behaviors. The programs also allow for a level of consistency in people's (both staff and students) behaviors thus making it easier for students to develop and choose appropriate behavioral scripts to use in specific social situations. Through this consistency, the climate of the school becomes more positive and caring which, as we learned from our text, also lowers the levels of aggression and violence.
If I had to give a recommendation to a school about how to prevent violence and aggression, I would tell them to adopt the PBIS program (yup, that's my expert topic making its way in this blog). The PBIS program is a school-wide, universal program that provides schools with the frame-work on how to effectively and efficiently implement the best evidence-based strategies to help decrease challenging behaviors. By evidence-based, they mean strategies that are empirically supported. By decreasing the challenging behaviors and implementing 3-5 universal behavioral expectations (such as being respectful, safe, caring, a team player, etc)it changes the school climate into a positive environment that is more conducive for learning. Because not all children will respond to the general-level strategies, the PBIS program utilizes a multi-tiered approach which allows for staff to recognize and appropriately respond early to students who may need additional support. Additionally by having a positive school climate, students who are on the upper level tiers have greater success on overcoming their particular obstacles because they are not made to feel socially rejected or ostracized by their fellow peers. As Dodge discussed in Chapter 9 of our text, chronic peer rejection has been empirically found to exacerbate children's aggressive behavior problems.
This information is on the CDC website because their mission is to promote health. As discussed in my Health Psychology Class, health is not solely the absence of disease and includes psychological health. Health is defined as being the overall well-being of an individual. School violence can cause both physical and emotional injuries.
While I think it is important to include violence prevention in all schools in America, I think it is crucial to target the high-risk urban areas where gangs and urban violence are extremely prevalent. In several cases of these schools, many of them are comprised of non-white students who come from low-income families. (This is speaking especially from first-hand experience after going on a church missions trip to urban Chicago schools and daycare centers.) When children come from a violent home, they are more prone to act out violently, as discussed throughout this class.
In advising a local school to prevent violence, I would stress the importance of parental involvement with the children. This was something that we discussed toward the beginning of the semester in regards to aggression. From studies, we have learned that children act more aggressively when parental involvement is low. Another thing I would emphasize is the importance of promoting strong social ties between all students. This could include classroom bonding activities for the children to engage in. This would also likely break any racial tension at an early age and prevent intergroup violence in schools.
I think school violence is such a prevalent problem that it is definitely something that should be addressed. A big part of the CDC is to protect children from diseases and injuries, and in this case, the injuries could be caused by their own peers. That is why I understand why this information is on the CDC website. We all want to protect our children and give them a better future. So if there is something we can do to step in to improve their outlook on life as well as improve their behavior, we should do it.
I think if we focus only on the victims, then we are instead only dealing with intervention. If we want to step in and change students’ aggressive feelings, we need to instead focus on prevention. Those that need to be prevented are obviously the perpetrators themselves. Strategies to diffuse situations and prevent violence need to be taken to develop a more peaceful future for our children.
One of the big suggestions is to focus on respect; toward themselves, each other, and authority. I am not a huge fan of the whole 6 Pillars of Character that are in our schools today, but one that I do support is the Respect category. If we instill it young and consistently reinforce it, I believe we can create a better generation. Showing kids how to treat each other in frustrating situations and modeling better coping techniques can give them options rather than lashing out.
Part of the development of building Respect is to respect the children themselves. We all know from our own past that growing up is difficult and we need guidance along the way. It is the responsibility of the teacher to implement their policy of treating their students well and listening to their needs. If they model a proper way of treating others, it is more likely that their students will do the same. We can create a better generation for society by starting early and teaching them to simply respect each other. That one step may just prevent further Columbines from happening.