School Violence

Teachers have a huge responsibility on a daily basis. They are responsible for the well being and safety of children in their classroom.
Teachers multi-task and wear many hats throughout the day. They are educators, colleagues, tutors, referees, and councilors. It’s not surprising when an act of violence occurs and a teacher who’s had the student who has committed the crime in their classroom say, “I’m shocked! I never noticed anything wrong”. How could they; they are so busy with everything else anything they thought they picked up on may have been brushed off.
Children in today’s society are dealing with an over abundance of violence in video games, television programs, newspapers, magazines, the internet and quite possibly family violence, that they have become de synthesized. They are so accustomed to seeing it that it no longer has an effect on them. And yet, teachers are looked to to guide and mold today’s youth into responsible young adults. Teachers have quite a competition on their hands.
Why are society and/or schools (here’s a silly thought… even parents) as whole not targeting media outlets? The media have a responsible in the upbringing of today’s youths. Why are we as a society not demanding more educational, nurturing and family oriented programs to be shown? Why, because sex, violence and drugs sell. That’s what advertisers use to sell their product, that’s what TV programs address on their shows and that’s how are children are being raised.
Children are a member of society from the time they are born. They are great observers, excellent imitators, and advanced learners when the subjects are taboo. We are kidding ourselves as educators if we think otherwise.
The responsibility of an educator today should be to provide a positive environment with open communication with their students, parents and faculty, to be trained in recognizing the small details that could lead to major issues and most importantly to listen. Listen to the students as they talk amongst themselves, observe how they interact with one another, and pay attention to the student who may be withdrawn, picked-on or ignored. You may one day find that having taken the time to do these small things could save lives.

School Violence

I believe that children are already members of society by the time they reach school. They are the vulnerable, disadvantaged parts of society. When it comes to school violence, I think sometimes teachers do overlook it. This is not done intentionally, but sometimes the signs are not always there or we miss them. It's difficult to see the signs when you have a class of 25, and there is only one of you. But is the teacher the only factor in a child's life? No, but I agree that we as educators are a huge part. I also feel it is important to think of all the components that factor into a child's life. School is not the only factor. We must remember that by the time a child starts school he/she has already been around for five to six years. How was that child raised prior to coming to school? What are the morals/values that take place in his/her household? Does the guardians of that child display violent acts?

I do believe that teachers play a role when it comes to school violence. As a teacher, we try to teach our students to become good citizens. We show them how important it is to take responsibility for your actions, use manners, use your words when you're upset, etc. We try to do this using indirect ways though; our daily rules, completing assignments, etc.
I think it is important that educators find the time to sit down with their students and talk about bullying and school violence. Teachers tend to get caught up in grading, lesson plans and tests that they tend to forget about issues like violence and bullying. I feel its important we explain that school is a community. In order for our community to be effective we must work as a team. This only can go so far though. If our students are learning differently at home, we can only hope they rise above their home life.

Teachers Role in School Violence

I do believe that one of the primary goals of schools is to produce good citizens or productive members of society. It is my opinion that traditional educators do have part of the responsibility to work with students as they are already members of a society. The question is what type of society do they belong to? When they come to the institution of the school they have already been raised and are well on a path that has been chosen for them. When I say we do not know what type of society they are coming from that is because everyone comes from a different style of home life. We do not know if they have come from a stressful environment or what kind of values or morals they may have or not have. This means that we can only do our part in instilling in them good values, morals, and the right choices while they are in our care. I believe that the productive part of being a member is part of the responsibilty of teachers, parents, and the community or environment in which the students live. As a parent it starts as the child is young and they should be responsible for telling their child that things such as hitting and name calling are not acceptable ways to act to another individual. The community that our students come from also plays a huge role because teachers have no idea what types of outside influences their students are facing outside of school. The teachers can do something about creating productive members of society. We can teach good character, life long lessons about bullying, school violence etc and work to be good role models to our students.

As much as I feel we should do more to help students along on a productive path I feel that we are in a constant war with media etc as discussed in class. From early on our students have seen inappropriate television, movies etc. We have students who watch tv where all of the violence and crime they continue to watch as part of normalcy in their daily routines. Some of our students have lived in a fantasy world of video games where they are constantly witnessing crime and violence. Our students today are also faced with the realization that are country is at war and that killing the enemy is the right thing to do. It seems to me with these examples and more that perhaps some students by time they reach school age may not be a productive member of a society. A quote that I have heard from the Bisborne Herald can simplify my exact concerns. "Children will always be the most vulnerable members of a community, and it is shameful that by ignoring early signs of trouble, society is motivated only by tragedy, empathy, or sympathy". Why is it that something bad has to happen first before anything is done in our schools about the violence? Teachers have a huge responsibility because the students are in our care for quite some time. We sometimes are their safehaven to get away from the bad and the ugly. Both teachers and parents need to be aware of how the media is impacting our students and continue to find ways to direct them or lead them down a path where the result is that they are becoming a productive member of our society.

Tug of War with Children in Society

I loved Kari's school bullying blog because she touched on the issue of self acceptance and attention seeking behaviors of students committing violent acts. I definitely feel that some students bully other children as a way of "acting out" and to deal with their own personal issues. People who torment other kids are typically experiencing a lack of control in their lives. Stressful home living and lack of attention can place a tremendous amount of stress on a child.
Are children overlooked as being apart of society? I think children contribute to society in their own way, representing a population that is often misunderstood and easily misguided by uncontrollable factors. It can be easy to forget that children are apart of our society. Schools today are sometimes the primary home for kids. At times, this may be a child's only sense of stability placing his or her teacher in the parental driver seat. In one of our earlier presentations, we discussed the issue of character education, debating the school's role in creating active members of society and the responsibility parents have in the matter. David Gribble's quote, "The truth that traditional educators have overlooked is that children are actually members of society already", holds a strong opinion toward teachers in society.
Today, educators are expected to fulfill a much larger role than the one they were hired to do...parent the children they teach. In the article "PTA Parent:Guiding Your Family's Video Game Play" they offer a list of skills to parents that can help children succeed in all aspects of life. Some of the skills include follow up consequences for misbehavior, ask children how they feel, ask questions that help children solve problems on their own and encourage sharing and helping. These are basic skills that should certainly be taught in the home and reinforced in school. I think non-educators forget how difficult a teacher's job is from day to day. Parents have a choice on how many children they want to have, where teachers are told how many they are too teach. Naturally, a good teacher will fulfill the parent role because of the time spent with children in the classroom. It becomes unfair to the teacher when children are brought to school without the basic concepts of "home training".
Again we always fall back to the question of who's responsibility is it? Schools today are taking on larger roles educating both the parent and child in some areas. The age old quote "It takes a village to raise a child" has fallen by the way side. Now, it seems like some parents have the"It's the school's job to raise the child, give the parent a break" frame of mind. The truth is children learn from their environment (home life, media types, friends, school, etc). As adults, we are responsible to foster growth and teach kids right from wrong. Today, however, the shoes are larger to fill in society because the issues are more complex than before. As an educator, are you ready to play the role?

Thoughts on Bullying... (Kari)

I believe that schools and the people that are in them are all a part of society, and schools should not be thought of as places where kids go to learn how to be a part of society once they graduate. In that regard, I don’t completely agree with Gribble’s quote that says “educators have overlooked that children are actually members of society already”, particularly in relation to school violence.

I think that schools today are more aware of the challenges that they face regarding violence issues (especially bullying) that are happening in and out of the school building. However, I do not think that they are always sure how to handle these situations; especially because each situation is unique and it often takes a lot of time to resolve. It can oftentimes be difficult to know who is involved in these situations because a lot of the bullying behaviors are done when adults may not be paying attention or even when there are no adults around (especially indirect bullying).

The reality is that schools today are typically so large that teachers, especially in high school, do not have a chance to connect with their students. This leaves students that are having issues with bullying not knowing where they can go or who they can talk to. Cliques/social groups are a natural part of the junior high/high school environment, but they are often where this harassment occurs (you don’t have to have seen the movie Mean Girls to know what I’m talking about. I really think that the movie made some excellent observations, and it was actually based on the book Queen Bees and Wannabes by Rosalind Wiseman.). It is my belief that this “social exclusion” is something that a lot of adults can also be guilty of; it just seems to be handled differently when people are older. The teen years are so critical to social development, and that is why schools should have the necessary support in place for students that are having difficulty with their peers.

Although these don’t typically happen in the elementary grades, school shootings are realities that usually occur after prolonged harassment/bullying. As Brian showed us in his presentation, there have been shootings in schools dating back to the early 1900’s, and the frequency has continued to increase over the years. I don’t think that it’s any coincidence that the media outlets (radio, newspaper, television and internet) have increased their coverage over time as well. The media tends to “glorify” violent acts, and this is one reason I think that it is important for teachers (especially in the older grades) to be able to have discussions about what is going on not only in the world, but also in student’s everyday lives. Unfortunately, there is not often time to do this, and it is only when a major disaster occurs that students are able to have those discussions. (I remember when Columbine happened back in 1999. My high-school English teacher let us watch part of the news coverage and then we had an hour long discussion about it).

I think a lot of problems occur in schools because most of what students do outside of the classroom is their own choice. They choose what they watch on TV, what movies they see and what songs they listen to on their IPods. When they are younger it is often monitored more closely by parents, but as children get older it is impossible for parents to know everything that their child being exposed to. It is my belief that teachers/school personnel are not oblivious to what their students are seeing and hearing, but they may not always know how to approach the subject. They usually do not feel that it is their “job” to approach those topics, and leave it up to parents to raise their children.I read an article in Education Week that talked about how students are actually video taping fights in schools and posting them on YouTube. The article says that a lot of it is being done for attention and kids want their “15 megabytes of fame”, even going so far as to “faking” fights and planning them in order to get as much attention as they can. Schools have said that students’ posting the videos has actually helped them in a way to identify who was involved in order to administer the proper punishment, however the fact that this is even happening is something that really needs to be addressed.

There is so much that goes into this issue, but what I think it really boils down to is the basic human desire to be acknowledged. People, especially children, want to know that others care about them and are paying attention to what they are doing, and when they don’t feel that then they may start to act out. It is important for schools and teachers to be able to recognize the signs of bullying and have a plan on how they will handle it, before something extreme happens. I think that the programs that were discussed in class regarding bullying are great ways to bring up the subject, but it needs to be something that is discussed frequently, not just a one-time thing.