School Violence: Bullying Essay Example
School Violence: Bullying The word violence is defined as, “an intense, turbulent or furious and often destructive action, force or exertion of physical strength so as to injure or abuse” (Oxford, 1316). Associating that term with the safety of our children within a public school setting will bring about an immediate reaction to discover what is root of the problem and what, as a society, can we do to prevent this behavior in the future. Violence in public schools is a growing concern for parents, teachers, faculty and the students themselves. Although violence is the most exaggerated form of abuse within schools today, bullying is seen on an everyday basis. Each day, children across the country go to school to learn, only to instead find violence in the form of bullying. The problems with schools today are the fact that children are not educated enough about bullying, safety measures in schools are not designed to prevent bullying, and at-risk students are not being monitored. Some would think that school violence is confined to just urban areas, but in fact it is also prevalent in suburban schools as well. It is very common in large schools and most likely targets are middle school students. Violent crimes in our school systems have decreased since the early and mid 1990’s. However, this decline is relatively small. The problem of bullying in schools may not be as large as it has ever been; there just has not been enough attention to the seriousness of it until recently or we have not cared enough to try and determine its extent (Roberts, 3). When children do take part in bullying, it can really have an impact on the victim that can last through the rest of their school life and even throughout adulthood. It can lead to various psychological problems, ranging from depression to bipolar disorder to borderline personality disorder. Bullying can even result in the victim committing suicide, as is shown in the very many cases that we hear on the news daily.