Background Violence In
Schools
Violence in
American schools has increased dramatically. In looking at some recent figures
for the school year 1995-1999, there were 103,900 cases of violent crimes
reported. There were also 5,000 cases of forcible rape, 28,000 for robbery and
69,600 for aggravated assault reported.
What do we know
about violence in the school ? Chuck Hibbert tells us that “Violence knows no urban, suburban, or rural
limitations. It can happen anywhere”. Urban schools suffer most from violence.
Many of these schools serve neighborhoods troubled by violence and gang-related
crime. According to him also, “violence
is conflict between two individuals that results in physical altercation”.
Most agree that
youth violence is a major problem in American society. According to, Journal of American Medical Association,
December 2001, “between 1994 and 1999, there were 220 school associated violent
events resulting in 253 deaths – 74.5% of these involved firearms. Handguns caused almost 60% of these deaths.
In one year, more children and teens died from gunfire than from cancer,
pneumonia, influenza, asthma, and HIV/AIDS combined (Children’s Defense Fund).
Violence at school
is too much. Many adults worry about the negative effects of violence in schools.
Charlot expands the concept of school violence using a three-level
classification :
(a)
Violence : hitting, physical
injury, sexual violence, thefts, crimes and vandalism;
(b)
Incivilities : harassment, rude
language, disrespectful behavior;
(c)
Symbolic or institutional
violence: understood as the students’ feeling of pointlessness about staying in
school for many years; learning viewed as an unpleasant obligation, that forces
young people to study subjects and contents that do not arouse their interest;
the impositions of a society incapable of inserting the young into the labor
market; the violence of power relations between students and teacher. Also
viewed as violence is the denial of professional identity and satisfaction to
the teacher, and also the fact that they are forced to endure students’ absenteeism
and indifference.
One of today’s most serious problems in schools and in
society is the growing culture of violence. In order to link the development of
spirituality in school. Counseling to the facilitation of conflict resolution
and the reduction of violence. In these case I agreed with Daya Singh Sandhu, “clearly, school violence is on the rise,
and teacher, parent, administrators and communities are increasingly feeling
the need to take action to prevent violence. As the pressure to develop
programs increases, schools are increasingly turning o school counselor for
leadership and guidance”.
According to Denise C. Gottfredson, “schools have great potential as locus for crime prevention”.
School teams of administrators, teacher, and others school personnel were
responsible for implementing the program.
Warning Signs Initiative
Educators and
schools boards across the nation are trying various
measures to improve school safety. So a number of different strategies
are being tried in school to help youth accurately identify potential signs of
violent behavior. In this article, the American Psychological Association (APA) and Music Television (MTV) joined
together to launch warning signs a youth anti-violence initiative.
Warning signs is
part of APA’s public education campaign, entitled Talk
to Someone Who Can Help, that stresses the important of counseling
or Psychological services and good mental health. (Peterson & Newman, 2000)
Another strategies
to help youth identify signs of violence behavior were
more than 500 anti-violence forums held throughout the country and
view of real school violence’s by video. Experts also provide information on
the sign that youth display that may lead to violence.
A number of school
have develop program that focus in building students
self-esteem and developing
social skill to improve themselves. The role of the school counselor, as
that concern adult, becomes an important function for the counselor in linking
spirituality with violence prevention today’s school face unique set of
demands. They are expected to provide an education in basic skills to a large,
widely varying student population while
at the same time preparing their students for a technologically
sophisticated work force. (Sehechty, 1997)
The warning sign
guide designed by MTV is an appealing brochures that
is intended to help youth recognize potentially dangerous thoughts,
feelings and behaviors in themselves or peers, both with regard to violence
directed outward as well as violence directed toward one’s self. The goal of this warning signs initiative program has
widely expanded practitioner involvement
at the national and community levels to
help prevent youth violence.
Objective Of The Study
This study were designs to use of the warning signs
program as widely
expanded practitioner involvement at the national and community
levels to help prevent youth violence. Secondly, the goal of this study to
conduct of effectiveness of warning
signs in educating young people in a high- risk, urban community about the
signs of potential violence and notice of this signs.
Methodology
This study used two
types approaches; the pre-intervention questionnaire
and post-intervention questionnaire. Participants in this study attended an urban, vocational,
public high school located in New York
city
This approach
delineates four prongs of influence in the outcome of potential violence among
youth : (a) personality traits and behavior, (b) family dynamics, (c) school
dynamics , and (d) social dynamics. Traits and Behavior prong were assembled by
the researchers into six general themes
for aid with analysis and additional future research design : (a) coping/anger
management, (b) narcissism, (c) behavior signs, (d) depression, and (f) rigidity.
After two months,
participants again completed the questionnaire assessing their awareness of the
warning signs of violence and the actions needed to prevent aggression in each
of the seven targeted areas. The descriptive nature of the responded, data
analysis was largely qualitative. Students
responses to questions about what they can do to prevent violence in
others or themselves.
Conclusion
The warning signs
program in this study were very importance. The students in this study identify
a lots factors to carry out youth violence.
The value of violence prevention
programs must be addressed through
multifaceted interventions that
target the community, the family and the school system itself (Fink, 2001).
Several violence prevention program have integrated
components focusing on the
promotion of virtues and development
culture peace. The culture of
peace presupposes the fight against in equalities and social exclusion, as well
as respect for right and citizenship. School may be privileged places for the
fight against violence, provided their staffs include respected professionals, with
proficiency pedagogy. According to, Werthein,
2001, “ the culture of peace try to solve
problems through dialogue, negotiation and mediation, in order to render war
and violence unfeasible”.
The importance
of a meaningful understanding of
children’s attitudes toward aggression is a critical component in effective
violence prevention.
Implication For School
Counselors
Counselors, as
leaders through professional development, can work with teacher and others
school staff to understand and accept the development and expression of
students identity. Programs must be implemented long term and must not only
address student behavior and personality traits, but family, school and social
components as well. (Moffitt, 1997) Pallone
& Hennessy, 1996; Widom, 1995).
Counselors should
pay some attention of children. They need to provide alternatives to violence
for problem solving to encourage more
frequent, open, and genuine communication between students and the adults who
care for them at home, at school and in community (Gaughan, 2001).
School counselors
also are being asked to rethink their role. They must begin to actively
advocate for comprehensive violence prevention initiatives. Many writers have
encouraged them to see themselves as educational leaders, students advocates
and social change agents. (Clark & Stone, 2000). The findings from this
study also have important implications for the design of school counselor
preparation programs.
In addition, this
study’s might serve to facilitate meaningful parental involvement in reducing
youth violence and promoting their healthful social and emotional development.
There fore, school counselor training programs need to include
competencies for spirituality in counseling to prepare school counselors to
provide successful violence prevention programs.
References:
Fink, P.(2001). Problems
with and solutions for school violence : The
Gaughan,E.,
Cerio,J., & Myers,R.( 2001). Lethal
Violence in schools: A national
survey final report. Alfred , NY :Alfred University
Gottfredson D. C.
(1994). The School-based promotion of
social competence
: Theory, practice, and
policy. In R.J. Haggerty, N.Garmezy, M.Rutter,and
L.Sherrod(eds.),Risk and Resilience in Children: Developmental Approaches. Cambridge : University
of Cambridge
Moffitt, T.E. (1997).
Adolescent-limited and life-course-persistent
offending :
A Complementary pair of
developmental theories. In T. Thornberry (Ed.),
Developmental theories of crime and delinquency (pp.11-55). New Brunswick , NJ
Peterson,J.L.,
& Newman, R.( 2000). Helping to curb
youth violence:
The APA-MTV “Warning Signs
“initiative. Professional Psychology : Research and
Practice, 31(5), 509-514.
Sandhu,
D.S.(2000). Foreword. Special Issue :
School Violence and
Counselors. Professional School
Sehechty, R C.(1997).
Inventing better schools: An action plan
for educational reform.
Stone,C., &
Clark,M (2000). School counselors and
principals : Partners in support
of academic achievement. NASSP Bulletin, 85(624), 46-53.
Werthein, J. (2001). Juventude,
violencia e cidadania. Brasilia
Journals
Applications of
Classical Conditioning (2006, February 19). Exploring Psychology
Journal of
American Medical Association, December 2001. Reterieved from
Websites
Violence in Schools (2006,
February 21). Warning Signs Initiative:
Reterieved from http://www.academon.com/lib/paper/20515.html
Violence in Schools (2006, February 21). Warning Signs Initiative: Reterieved from http://www.academon.com/lib/paper/12700.html
The Challenge of School Violence (2006, February 21). Warning Signs
Initiative: WebLesson . Reterieved from http://www.crf-usa.org/violence/school.html
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