preview

Causes of School Violence Essay

Good Essays

To explore how to maintain safe school environments, we must first define the causes of school violence. When Eric David Harris and Dylan Bennett Klebold opened fire inside Columbine High School on April 20, 1999, injuring 24, and killing 13 (including themselves), they were simply displaying the unfortunate 'symptom' of their 'disease'- a deeply-rooted lack of emotional literacy. As Sandra Bloom notes, 'A few incidents of violence are directly related to limited skills in reading, writing, and computation, but rather, limited emotional literacy' (Bloom, 2004, p.172). While installing metal detectors, hiring full-time security officers, and developing perimeter lighting may help minimize the 'symptoms' of the epidemic problem, to …show more content…

(The Economist, 2001, p.1). It is seemingly evident that when pupils are taught ways to deal with their feelings and emotions, they are much more inclined to approach ?social conflicts? with peaceful compromises and hopefully, long-term solutions.

With administrative concentration on the academic integrity, as well as emotional IQ of their students, the pandemic (http://thesaurus.reference.com/), increasingly surging, nationwide problem of ?bullying? would become less prevalent. When an individual ?picks on? another, it is often the case that he/she is lacking in emotional literacy him/herself- whether it be because of lack of social skills, confidence, or because he/she was once ?bullied? by another individual. Thus, when adolescents are more comfortable with themselves and happy ?within their own skin,? they are less likely to feel the need to belittle others. Obviously, ?bullying? is rarely ?taken to the extreme? (what leads to school shootings, for example), but, again, to ?root out? the causes of school violence, school officials need to attend to and attempt to help diminish the disposition for individuals to resort to unhealthy, destructive coping mechanisms when dealing with internal or peer-to-peer dilemmas- even if the coping mechanism be verbal abuse of another individual.

Utilizing Security Technologies to Maintain Safe School Environments

As part of the initiative to maintain safe

Get Access