From the mountain of literature on the causes and consequences of violence among young people, two themes emerge that should be of special interest to educators:
- Violence is learned behavior, and can be unlearned
- Early intervention that teaches positive life skills may be the best hope of preventing violent behavior
How do children learn violence? They hear it in name-calling and threats. They experience it when family members use physical force as discipline or to vent anger. They see it on television and movie screens when guns are used to settle differences.
No one who lives in our society—the most violent country in the industrialized world (Prothrow-Stith, 1994; Walker, 1995)—should be surprised that children learn violence early in life from what they see being modeled all around them (Kimweli & Anderman, 1997). Schools, after all, are reflections of their communities (Center to Prevent Handgun Violence, 1990).
School conditions can contribute to a climate in which violence becomes more likely as well. Schools that are conducive to disorder, violence, and crime also tend to have overcrowding, high student-to-teacher ratios, insufficient curricular/course relevance, low student academic achievement, student apathy, poor facility design that increases isolation and hampers communication, and adult leaders who fail to act (Rossman & Morley, 1996; Sautter, 1995; University of the State of New York, 1994; Watson, 1995).
Safe schools, in contrast, tend to be small and attempt to treat students as individuals. They seek to bridge the gap between school and community by involving parents and local residents in mutually supportive relationships. They create a physical environment that is aesthetically pleasing. They focus less energy on enforcing rules and more on developing trusting relationships between adults and students (Noguera, 1996).
