The Inevitability of School Violence: No Need for School Reform Essay

The Inevitability of School Violence No Need for School Reform Guns dont kill people, people kill people, I have often heard. We know people kill people. The real issue now is whether or not people usher out change people. Some ar of the opinion that we are capable of doing so by implementing new reforms and tightening inform security, people are, in effect, saying they have the solvents to the problems. The violence of recent school shootings has wrought anxiety and fear in parents, teachers, and administrators across the nation. The massacre of Columbine turned a public school library into a cemetery. The shooting in Oklahoma ripped us from the comfort of a stereotypical and easily recognized threat now popular straight-A students pull guns without black trench coats. The violence has perish unpredictable and, in all cases, extremely frightening. In response to the threat, schools have engaged in extensive prevention programs, often banning book-bags, implementing dress codes , range up metal detectors, or requiring students to attend anger management classes. Such attempts at reform sound efficient on paper and may to round extent alleviate the anxieties of parents, but they are like storming castle walls with slingshots. The target of reform in this case is not tangible or always plausible. The object of reform is the benignant heart, the internal person. We need to understand that the problem is bigger than a trench coat or a gun therefore, dress codes or metal detectors cannot solve it. These reforms are often vain attempts at prevention. They hinder education and provoke students. Policy makers and schools need to be aware that no childlike public mandate can suffice as a solution. In response to the massacres, schoo... ...ainis wider than the sky. We cannot implement a reform that will change human nature. There is no dress code that will bring self-esteem to the outcast or humble the popular. There is no metal detector that can sufficiently alert a student population to an angry and violent peer. The problem this nation faces is that of hurting hearts and minds. To present a concrete solution one must have a concrete problem, but this problem is complicated and its factors at times inexplicable. Its enormity resides in human emotion, its source as large as the capacity of the human mind. It is, therefore, as Dickinson aptly put wider than the sky. Works Cited Mathis, Deborah. Schools Fail at Stopping Violence. The Cincinnati Enquirer 7 December 1999, lowest ed./Warren A3. Miller, Mark. The Haunting Memories. Newsweek 13 December 1999, Final ed./Warren 75.