Violence in the public schools

Name

August 29 , 2008

Violence in the Public Schools

School has , until recently , been a safe place for children . Parents didn 't worry about their children encountering gun and other weapon violence when they dropped them off at school . Children weren 't scared of attending school nor were they afraid of any specific students . Times have changed with the recent increase in violence in public schools This increase poses many threats to students and parents across the country and much has been done in to eliminate these events from occurring

in the future

School violence often stems from the effects of bullying and imitation A small minority of students who are constantly and relentlessly bullied resort to extreme displays of violence when they reach their breaking point . The instances of school violence have increased because of the amount of media coverage these events garner and the level of imitation other students are led to . Students who have the characteristics to incite violence at school see the exposure that others before them have received and realize that they too can become famous ' by resorting to violence . Imitation was widely reported after the events of Columbine High School in Littleton , Colorado in April of 1999 (Kotinsky , et al 994

The events on April 20 , 1999 at Columbine High School was the third most watched news story of the 1990s (Kotinsky , et al , 994 . An increase in reported threats of violence was recorded in the days directly after the Columbine tragedy (Kotinsky , et al , 994 . Students who had been bullied to their breaking point around the country resorted to violence as a result of what they had seen in the media reports . These violent actions didn 't result in the kind of consequences as Columbine but they were a result of imitation . Bullied students witnessed the Columbine shooters receiving celebrity ' status and decided to try the same thing for themselves . The idea of imitation is a dangerous threat to schools across the country and the media needs to craft their stories accordingly (Kotinsky , et al , 994 . As proof of this phenomenon Pennsylvania Emergency Management Association (PEMA ) reported a significant increase in reports of school violence in the days right after Columbine . From day 2 to day 50 , there were 354 reports of school violence as compared to the one or two reported in previous years . Of these 344 reports , 120 (33 .9 ) occurred on days 8 , 9 and 10 . One hundred ninety-eight (55 .9 ) occurred before day 10 and then decreased until day 50 (Kotinsky , et al , 996

Fatal violence only represents a small portion of the consequences of violence in public schools (Brener , et al , 440 . Many adolescents have resorted to carrying knives and fighting on school grounds (Brener , et al , 440 . This type of behavior poses a risk because of the threat of possible physical injury . The trend towards discussing violence in public schools has become more focused on multiple victim school associated violent deaths (Brener , et al , 440 . Again...