Causes, Effects and Prevention of Violence in Schools

1. Introduction

School violence is one of the most serious problems nowadays because of detrimental effects on forming human-beings characteristics and future of a nation. This paper, based on secondary research, discusses violence situation in Vietnam, other parts of the world and analyzes the causes as well as gives solutions to tackle this problem. The findings of the research reveal that the happening frequency now is much higher than in the past and serious level also increase. Then, a variety of reasons are mentioned to help the readers comprehend thoroughly. Finally, some typical solutions are given and calls for support from authorities, family and students to reduce this issue gradually. Hopefully, school violence will decrease significantly in the future.

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Have you ever gone to school with the fear which is not the fear of not doing homework or coming late but that of being injured? You can say no but I can say yes because of the significant increase of school violence nowadays. It has no longer been a national issue but a global problem. In fact, it happened in any levels of education, from primary to university. Especially serious, the number of people killed has raised recently. The statistic given recently by Ministry of Education and Training in Vietnam showed that there were about 1600 school violence situations happened in one school year, 5 circumstances each day on average (Cam n.d.). It rang the alarming bell to government and citizens to address this problem. Therefore, this research paper, with the aim at reducing violence in schools and creating friendly and safe educational environment for students, discusses about three questions of why this issue is becoming more and more serious, what the consequences are and what should be done to solve this problem.

2. Discussion of findings

2.1. Why this issue is becoming more and more serious

This issue has increased rapidly in quantity, range, serious level. It happens not only in male but also in female, not only among students but also between students and teachers. Because of its seriousness, violence is school is becoming a significant issue which is mentioned fluently in websites, books, magazines, on television or even is reflected in films. For example, a Vietnamese film which is shown in Tet holiday of 2011 had the name “School ghost”. This film talked about problems in school’s life especially school violence. So there were lots of aggressive scene, even a scene in which female students attacked and ripped other student’s shirts. The film warned people about the serious problems which still exist in school and called the support to solve them. First of all, we must know exactly what the causes are. Actually, school violence results from many reasons.

First of all, family members are the closest relatives to a person so they have significant effects on that person. When living in a family which parents often have rows, the children will feel unpleasant, unhappy or even stressful. It will lead to negative behaviors, especially in teenager age when awareness of them have not improved completely. The younger the children are, the easier are they affected. They tend to repeat the parent’s behaviors and if they are bad behaviors, the effects are serious obviously. In an article “Causes of school violence” on an American website www.crf-usa.org , the author indicated that parents are the people who construct and form the characteristic of their children. When parents fail to improve positive behaviors, children may develop negative behaviors patterns. Neglectful or abusive family environments can limit the ability to grow of children such as communication skills, self-esteem, happiness.

Secondly, schools or educational environments play a crucial part in form awareness of students. The period of time which you spend in school each day is quite long so you communicate much with your classmates and teachers. You will study and behave well if your classmates are good children. But if your classmates are naughty, you will be involved in their bad activities and become naughty, too. Another case is if your teacher does not teach well and always rail students, you will be stressful obviously and will not have interest in learning. There have been events in which teacher insulted or even fought student, they absolutely harmed both physical and mental status of students.

Last but not least, cyber abuse is one of the most important thing affect children’s behaviors. Why violence school has become more popular recently? Since 1990s, Internet, blogging, email grew quickly so the children could approach violent books, videos or games easily. When accessing to the Internet, you can watch lots of violent and bad things without being controlled from family or community. It will make children have wrong behaviors or attitudes toward an issue such as using violence to solve a problem or conflict between classmates. Killing others because of small conflict on a social network, Facebook is a regrettable story between a nine-grade student and a eleven-grade student in Ha Long, Quang Ninh (Hoang 2013). It is a typical example which shows the seriousness of school violence and calls the support from community immediately.

2.2. What are the consequences

Consequences which school violence causes are really frightened. It impacts on many aspects.

To students themselves, both victims and people who cause will have bad consequences. Victims can be injured slightly or seriously and even lead to death. Moreover, they often have mental injury, feel bored, worried, lonely and depressed. The scare or haunt can make them feel stressful. It lasts for a long time and victims cannot concentrate on studying and do not want to take part in other activities with friends. People who cause violence must be responsible for what they have done. How they are disciplined depends on the serious level of violence they cause, be dismissed from school or even sentenced to prison. Since they are relevant to school violence, their future will not optimistic actually. Furthermore, people who see violent scene also are affected absolutely. They will feel unsafe when studying in an environment like that. If violent actions are not be punished immediately, other students can follow these negative behaviors and it makes the violent situation in schools become more and more serious.

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To family, it also causes regrettable consequences. When school violence occurs, family members are the people who must to solve problems which it causes. Victim’s family will have to spend both time and money to take care of their children if they involve in violent situations. Being not cured immediately, the victims can suffer from a lot of problems. Their family will be criticized and receive bad attitudes from social community, friends, etc. The children will be criticized by their parents, too. Stress from critic chat maybe lead to rows between parents and children and ruin family’s happiness. If unfortunately a student is killed, it is a pain which cannot be replaced. Try to image that the child whom you spend much labor to bring up, you care about much suddenly passed away, especially the only child in the family. So how sad you are!

A lot of violent situations happen in school will create stressful learning atmosphere which does not provide appropriate conditions for students to study. Schier (2008, p.30) stated that school violence destroys the positive learning environment schools are intended to provide. In turn, this affects a student’s readiness and ability to learn. A lot of students decline to go to school because they are scared to be attacked, insulted. Moreover, violent behaviors of students weaken school discipline, breakdown school rules and school reputation obviously. Because our country open market with globalization trend, effects from other countries are inevitable. Good things of our culture are fading and virtue is ruined gradually. That school violence occurs not only in schools but outside as well causes disorderly issue. If we don’t have immediate measures to address this problem, it will spread out rapidly and affect the nation’s prosperity.

2.3. How to solve this problem

Students are the future of a nation so the demand of finding solutions is the priority of both school and authorities. In addition, the support from children and their family also plays a crucial role. Without them, all attempts may never successful. No single discipline alone can prevent violence. A complex problem such as violence must be prevented through a combination of approaches (Barrois 2001).

A child is never born as arrogant or timid, it is the atmosphere around him which affects him much. The parents will face the bad consequences happening to their children if they do not give the necessary care and education because they are the closest people to children. On a violence website www.nssc1.org, the author said that parents should check their children as much as possible and discuss about the habits and behaviors their children should develop or adapt to. From an early age, parents should monitor and adjust appropriately if their children act wrongly. School administrations should be strict on regulating rules, students harsh punishments should be avoided especially violent behaviors and teaching solutions should be advised, the way which teachers and students communicate should be enhanced to create a comfortable in studying. Being as a friend of student is also necessary. Arguably, schools and teachers can identify unusual behavior in students. After all, teachers spend hours each day with students, develop relationships, and can likely talk to kids about what’s on their minds ( Anderson 2011). But the most important factor is student’s awareness themselves, they should know which behavior is good, which is bad to adjust and choose good friend to play with.

3. Conclusion

The findings above reveal that school violence in Vietnam and other parts all over the world is more and more serious. It damaged much not only the educational system, cultural beauty but also the future of a country. Sadly, there are many causes of this issue and they cannot be solved soon. However, with the raising of awareness and measures from authorities, we hope that this problem will decrease significantly and students can study well in friendly educational environments.