Position Statment/Warnings Signs of potential dangerous behavior

Dangerous Minds

A Position on Dealing with Potentially Dangerous

Students in the Public School System

p I : Position

The attack against students and teachers at Virginia Tech in April of 2007 by a severely disturbed student named Cho Seung Hui have led professionals in the education system to become increasingly aware of the danger of allowing students with emotional problems to go untreated In this I intend to discuss why these attacks occur . I will also address the issues of what this school systems stand should be on violence perpetrated

by members of the student body . I also intend to discuss several positions taken by school systems in the past and why these approaches have failed in many respects . Finally , I intend to propose a potential method by which our school system can deal with troubled students while balancing the best interests of the school system with those of the students

II : Literature Review

The of violence in the schools has been of great interest to researchers in both education and psychology since the Columbine School Shootings in 1999 . The main focus of current research seems to be controlling school security so that these incidents may be avoided . The primary problem with this zero tolerance approach is that it does not look at the psychological needs of the students that commit these crimes

According to Newsweek (April 30 , 2007 ) gun violence , genetic predisposition , depression , and the overwhelming culture of violence in Western Society have been given as the reasons behind school shootings There really does not seem to be one separate reason why these shootings occur . Instead it is a combination of all of these reasons , nature and nurture combining to create an explosive situation such as Columbine There is very little that an educator can do to help students solve many of these problems . A person 's genetic pattern , or emotional issues cannot be resolved in school . What teachers can do is to teach children how to make rational decisions , and to avoid solving their problems with violence

According to the Newsweek article (April 30 , 2007 ) these school killers tend to evidence some common behavior patterns . These include failure to take responsibility for their actions , depression , anger , and suicidal thoughts . These shooters tend to be male , and when caught alive report that they have been the victims of bullying . Many blame this on both the nature of modern society and the lack of adequate gun control laws . In a May 2007 report by US News and World Report it was stated that although guns were not allowed on the Virginia Tech campus , state gun control laws made it fairly simple for Hui to obtain a gun . The reference check did not reveal that he had been found a danger to himself and others by the family court system . Stronger gun laws are not necessarily going to resolve this problem since many school shooters do not obtain their weapons legally

Many of the journalists that have written articles...