Violence In Schools Is A Big Social Issue That Occurs Almost

Gun violence have a big effect on young people! Studies have documented that young people exposed to gun violence experience lasting emotional scars. Some children may develop posttraumatic stress disorder, which can affect brain development. The psychological trauma of gun violence may lead some children to arm themselves "for protection," or desensitize them so that they feel less hesitation about engaging in violent acts.

Schools are no longer a safe havens for furthering knowledge; instead violence is occurring at alarming rates. Common occurrences in schools include: physical altercations, severe property damage, and bullying behaviors. According to “ThefutureofChidren.org,” youth violence in schools costs the public 158 billion dollars each year. In this decade, that rate of children inflicting violence on other children and teachers is staggering. Today’s teachers are being trained on gun safety, school lobbies are being installed with bullet proof glass, and counselors hold

According to Agnich (2010); Böckler, Seeger, Sitzer, & Heitmeyer (2013, p. 2) there has been an unprecedented trend in shootings, especially within the last decade. But, one of the most feared shooting tends to happen at schools where are children attended. These types of shootings put fears in teachers, education administrators, parents’ and students. Even though these incidents can happen

When you hear about a school shooter, you might think “Oh, there parents are awful, they just let their child do that,” Well you would be wrong. Most of the time we can`t comprehend if a child will be a potential school shooter, also them owning a gun does not make them a suspect for a potential school shooter.. The real issue here is the lack of communication between the victim or potential school shooter and the school. In “Here’s How to Prevent the Next School Shooting, Experts Say” by Anya Kamenetz, she states “It means the quality of relationships among the students and the adults in a school. It's affected by the school's approach to discipline and behavior, the availability of professionals like counselors and social workers, as well as any social-emotional curriculum taught in the classroom.” Also “School climate, in turn, affects students' mental and emotional health and

According to researchers Shapiro, Dorman, Welker and Clough (1998), gun violence is damaging the quality of life for urban youth and forty percent of adolescents stated that the fear of violence is affecting their daily lives because they do not trust people. The design of this study is cross-sectional, it is designed to connect violence-related exposures, attitudes, and behavior that contribute to the youth feelings and attitudes toward gun violence (Shapiro, Dorman, Welker and Clough, 1998). This study examines two types of gun exposure, which are traumatic exposure to gun violence and nontraumatic exposure to gun violence (Shapiro, Dorman, Welker and Clough, 1998). The sample included 1,619 youth from grades third to twelfth and the ages was from eight to eighteen (Shapiro, Dorman, Welker and Clough, 1998).

School shootings have grown and become a big problem for the United States over the past four to five years. The issue is a hotly debated topic and has divided people because of their views. The truth is, there isn’t just one answer to this problem and people are so worried about their views and their guns they are slowing the rate of change. To truly reduce the number of shootings we need to, stop bullying in schools, improve support for the victims of bullying, make the ability to obtain a fully automatic weapon more difficult for the mentally ill, create a checklist or steps for schools to identify and deal with the problem, ban certain weapon accessories, and improve school safety.

School should be a place of peace and opportunity, but gaps in the system of gun control threatens the safety of faculty and students. School shootings have killed a total of 297 lives, young and old (Slate Magazine). Gun control has been a continuous nationwide debate for many years. It seems that no one wants to take a stance against guns unless they are personally affected. In order to take control of the matter and prevent more incidents from continuing schools need to change. To achieve a safe environment in schools need to educate faculty, safe and students, heighten security, and assess mental health issues.

Whereas the causes of school violence are mostly theoretical, the effects of mass school shootings are stark and terrible. In the past twenty years there have been many incidents, both small and large scale, of shooting in schools. Two of the most well known of these are the Columbine shooting in 1999 and the Sandy-Hook shooting in 2012. Twenty-six people were killed in the Sandy-Hook shooting and thirteen in the Columbine shooting (“School Safety Timeline.”). One boy described his experience at the Sandy-Hook shooting as, “I saw some of the bullets going past the hall that I was right next to, and then a teacher pulled me into her classroom” ("What Happened in Newtown”). It is hard to imagine the terror and life-long effects that such an incident would cause among children. These stories cause a fear in many students that makes it difficult to create an environment for learning. It is obvious that something must be done to protect children of all ages in public school.

Columbine, Virginia Tech, and Sandy Hook these are but a few cases of fatal school shootings that have plagued the United States history in recent years. School-based violence has gained much attention in the media. Parents are fearful to send their children to school, teachers are becoming armed, and schools have more police patrolling campuses in hopes to deter future endangerment to students and administration. Shootings are the most common and frequent acts of school-based violence and accounts for the highest amount of deaths according to Roberto Flores de Apodaca and fellow co writers’ study of the characteristics of school shootings (Flores de Apodaca et al, 2012, p.365). The question though still stands: what causes these shootings and what can be done to prevent future lives being taken? The answer to this question is not a simple one. There are many factors that play a part in school shootings: the events leading up to the shooting, interpersonal/psychological issues, community, and social culture. To come up with a solution to the problem, one must first look into the causes of the problem because there is not just one cause but many contributing factors. The aim of this paper is to examine causes and factors that lead to shootings in schools and solutions or ways to prevent them.

It is without a doubt that there has been an increase in violent crimes in schools throughout recent years. School shootings continue to become more and more common, especially in North America. Safety concerns for any and all students and staff in schools are at all all time high due to the high number of fatal and non-fatal occurring incidences. Since 2013 to the present, it is estimated that the United States has seen approximately 205 school shootings. Weekly, that is a shocking one shooting on average. Many of these shootings have resulted in the injuries and deaths of multiple of students and staff members. (Everytown Research, 2017) Evidently, school shootings are tragic events that affect so many more people than just the victims. However, these events are also interesting to look at from the psychological and sociological point of views. Through much research, it can be concluded that school shootings are a complex problem that are caused by a mix of improper brain development and societal and media influences which motivate school shooters to emerge. Psychological factors may include struggling with mental illnesses and/or abuse that leads to damaged brain development. Additionally, being bullied and/or the role of the media are examples of sociological factors.

Parents, educators, and caregivers are thought to be responsible to teach children to recognize and avoid the dangers in the world. Young children are drawn to guns, they do not know different. Parents have to realize that having honest and age-appropriate conversations with children is crucial to have to prevent these future traumas happening. No matter the age, “they should learn about and respect the danger of firearms and know what to do if they find a gun..parents and caregivers must recognize that children move through many different environments during their day, including spending what may be unsupervised time in the homes of friends and relatives” (Erdman). To help families work with and learn more about gun safety, there are a number of resources they can turn to. Starting this education at a young age could change the world

In the 2002 article “Mitigating the Effects of Gun Violence on Children and Youth” James Garbarino and co-authors pointed out that “children exposed to gun violence may experience negative short and long-term psychological effects, including anger, withdrawal, posttraumatic stress, and desensitization to violence”, the result of which, they believe can continue a “cycle of violence” (Garbarino 1). The report suggests that children exposed to violence are often times victims of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) - associated with “hyper vigilance (an overly alert state), an exaggerated startle response, anxiety, and recurring thoughts and dreams associated with the traumatic event”, and in some cases Psychic numbing- associated with “emotional detachment and decrease in activities they once enjoyed.” (Garbarino). These grim statistics and reports scream one common idea: Gun Violence needs to be

From the amount of school shootings that have occurred in the past 5 years, as well as a plethora of unpublicized acts of intimidation, threat, and simple assault occurring in the classroom, it is reasonable to conclude that for many young children, school is not the safe haven that it was once believed to be. Instead, it is a place of constant fear, where the possibility of harm is an undeniable threat.

School violence, in recent history, seems to have taken the United States by storm. Be it a shooting, such as the Columbine High School shooting in 1999, the inappropriate relationships between teacher and student, such as Stephanie Figueroa whom initiated one such relationship with her 11-year-old karate student, or the multiple fights we see on social media that take place in schools. With each passing week, we see a new story that falls in one of these categories. Today, we look at the types of, causes of and how to prevent violence in what should be a safe place and second home for our youth.

Topic: School Violence General Purpose: To inform Specific Purpose: To inform what needs to be done to stop school violence. Central Idea: To inform the effects, causes, and solutions of school violence. INTRODUCTION:      Since the April 20, 1999 shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado I have been looking deeper into the issue of school violence. The number of extremely violent crimes committed by students has been increasing in the last few years.