Our Schools

[kryptonlegion]

How can we keep the schools safe from incidents such as Columbine or the one this past week?

It seems to me that there is no real way to keep the students safe. Students say that the attacker(s) is/are loners and seem strange. Do they realize that they are admitting that they helped make them loners. If they saw them all by themselves all the time and people picking on them why didn't they do something. If you ask me it is up to the students to keep their schools safe. All of them need to help each other out. However this may only work on small campuses like the one I go too. We all see that we have the same goal and work together to achieve it.

What do you think?

[devonin]

So you're saying "Since the people who've done a few of these things were loners, the only way to prevent these things from happening is to force everyone to interact with everyone else"?

I'm a loner by nature, I'm also not prone to violence. But one of the surest ways to -make- me prone to violence would be to constantly pester me with invitations and demands that I interact with everyone else whether I want to or not.

[Kilroy_x]

I'm going to go ahead and bring out some arguments that have gotten me in trouble before.

Ok, to begin with whenever a school shooting happens of course students are going to say "I knew they were weird all along". It's a psychological weakness, people retroactively view themselves as much more observant than they were at the time. This alone shouldn't be controversial.

The next thing I want to say though is this. The overwhelming thing school shooters seem to share in common is not only manifestations of various forms of what we call mental illness, but involvement in programs of treatment, diagnosis of these forms of illnesses, and medication. Now, it may just be asinine since more kids are medicated these days than ever before. However what I'm getting at is this.

They were diagnosed and treated. Presumably the treatment would correct their problems, however if we attribute their problems to their illness then this doesn't follow. Either the treatment is not working or it is actually causing other problems. However no one ever says this. Instead they go "oh, they were just crazy". This sort of dismissal doesn't follow. It is ignoring an elephant in the room.

That's the controversial part of what I wanted to say.

[ShastaTwist]

Kilroy, it's called the hindsight bias.

In any case, I go to a school with about 2,000 kids. It's hard to pick out one "loner." Also, these kids are "loners" for a reason, it's not like nobody has ever tried to approach them. These kids have, most likely, been approached by other individuals wishing to befriend them and pushed them away because they don't like the idea of human interaction.

To place the blame on students who don't notice, don't care, and may be too shy to even say anything, is ignorant. We didn't put the gun in their hands or the idea in their heads that killing innocents is somehow justified.

[FreezinIce]

When something like Columbine happens, its natural for people to try to pick out one or two "signs" out of thier behavior and attribute the incident to those signs. What people are misunderstanding is that these "signs" are not the reason why they acted, only the product of actions and decisions already made. The human mind is one of the most complex things ever to be pondered by man, and any attempt to explain a action that resulted from it would need to be concise and reserched. People being "loners" is not a reason for the action, the several hundered or thousand reasons behind that mentality is. Abuse? Genetic tendencys? Mood? Habits? An action made by the brain is influenced by all these things and more. A spur of the moment action could defy even the most structured of pathological studies, cause people to do things that completely defy thier personality. There also is a certain element of randomness in actions that also must be acounted for since nothing anyone does is perfectly scripted and neat. Saying that the reason that Columbine happended is because the perpetrators were picked on and loners is being brutally simple to the point of irrationality. An extreme amount of differentiation exsists in terms such as "loner". By no means am I condoning what happended to those kids nor what they did to others at Columbine. Neither am I saying that those actions done against them didnt contribute in some way to the eventual result. I'm just saying that using such general terms as "loner" to descirbe thier motives, or trying to develop perventitive stratagies based on those such general diagnostics is not going to really solve the problem. Instead, we should try to just focus on the promotion of positive thinking and actions at school, not negitive attitudes and actions. If we focus on that, the problem will be solve itself IMO.

[JuggaloShow]

i think that there is no way to prevent things like colombine because if you are looking at signs like anger and being left out or things like that you are pretty much going to have to study everyone because of the fact that everyone shows those signs once in a while if they decide to act on it you cant really prevent them from doing so

[Kynodrake]

Or, you can jack up security and have metal detectors at every school entrance.

And a plastic detector for when a kid brings in a bebe gun.

And a wood detector too, for when they bring in even MORE medieval forms of ranged weaponry.

Or, you could just stop caring, because getting rid of violence in schools is impossible.

More impossible than keeping a straight face when thinking of Mitchell Henderson's suicide case.

What "an hero" (LOL).

[devonin]

I think there are plenty of ways to prevent or at least reduce instances of school violence. How can one school have shootings, and knife fights, and serious violence issues, while another school of the same size can have almost none?

Is it -entirely- due to one school being in a big city, or in a bad neighbourhood while the other isn't? Or can the policies of these school have something to do with it?

[Relambrien]

Originally Posted by Kynodrake

What "an hero" (LOL).

4chan, in my CT? It's less welcome than you think.

Anyway, schools can't do everything. Especially considering the sizes of some high schools today (upwards of 3000 people), trying to keep on the lookout to see if anyone could be prone to violence is difficult, at best. Others, such as friends and parents, are much better-suited to the task. Of course, when certain people are antisocial and have apathetic parents, it's extremely difficult to notice if they could be planning something.

I think some extra priority has to be placed on the students' roles in preventing school violence. I mean every year, I get shown the same tape on sexual harassment, yet not once (in high school) have I had a session on school violence. Students need to be reminded of the sort of things that could foretell a violent act, so that they can recognize them when they see them. After all, the more people you have on the lookout for a potential problem, the better chance you have of finding it and stopping it before it gets out of hand.

That isn't to say schools can't do anything, however. If a school's administration feels that the environment is conducive to violence, or has a large amount of violence, then certain measures like security cameras or guards can be a proactive approach to prevention of incidents.

I guess the gist of what I'm trying to say is this: due to the size and complexity of the school system, no one person or group can singlehandedly prevent violence. Everyone involved, the teachers, the administrators, the parents, and the students, must contribute in some way if there is to be an effect. And while no one can predict the future and say "This person will blow up the school in three days," it is most certainly possible to be involved with people so it can be determined who is more likely to commit violence than others. And once this has been determined, the reasons for the increased probability can be examined and possibly rectified, to the benefit of both the school and the student.

[Kynodrake]

Calm down, the 4Chan reference is simply to express how impossible eliminating school violence is.

Although you DO have a point, administration really has no power in influencing the "less positive" student body. Ever get those guest speakers? In our schools, they're laughed at, 'cause all this "omg omg omg don't do drugz and have seckz be4 ur 18" bull is being launched out of their over-happy mouths.

Maybe taking a positive approach is better in the end, but have we ever considered using REAL scare tactics to stall the problem? Kinda like folk tales your parents would tell you, or Al Gore regarding Global Warming?

Don't go out alone, a wolf will eat you -> Kids
If the world gets too warm, you all die -> Stupid population + Global Warming
???? -> Students with Guns?

Then again, maybe the kids who would make the attack are too instable to care about warnings and scare tactics anyway.

[devonin]

Positive reinforcement is almost universally superior to negative reinforcement in terms of getting behaviors to change.

"Scared straight" rarely works, or works by changing behavior through fear of worse consequences.

If you refrain from a behavior because you'll be beaten if you don't, as soon as you are in a situation where you are reasonable sure that you won't be caught/suffer the beating, you'll be just as inclined to do that behavior as always.

If however, you refrain from a behavior because you have learned that it is the wrong behavior, then you don't need constant oversight and the constant threat of severe punishment to ensure that you continue to refrain from that behavior.

Basically: Scaring you into compliance works only as long as the threat remains present and enforceable. Teaching you -why- you should comply works regardless of later circumstances.

[KilikOdagawa]

Originally Posted by devonin

Positive reinforcement is almost universally superior to negative reinforcement in terms of getting behaviors to change.

"Scared straight" rarely works, or works by changing behavior through fear of worse consequences.

If you refrain from a behavior because you'll be beaten if you don't, as soon as you are in a situation where you are reasonable sure that you won't be caught/suffer the beating, you'll be just as inclined to do that behavior as always.

If however, you refrain from a behavior because you have learned that it is the wrong behavior, then you don't need constant oversight and the constant threat of severe punishment to ensure that you continue to refrain from that behavior.

Basically: Scaring you into compliance works only as long as the threat remains present and enforceable. Teaching you -why- you should comply works regardless of later circumstances.

Exactly my thoughts. I completely agree with this.

Positive>Negative reinforcement.

But how exactly would someone KEEP this positive reinforcement in effect? Excellent question. I personally would suggest building several schools to split the students into. 2,000 students in one place sends an alarm out for me. 700 would be a much better number to keep in check. THAT way, all of the administrators CAN help the situation. If one gets to KNOW all the students, then one stands a better chance of minimizing school violence. NOTE: *This is just my belief. It works where I go.*

[purebloodtexan]

It seems to me that splitting the school into student numbers under one-thousand would separate students from their friends, probably causing more trouble.

[devonin]

It depends entirely on the size of the city in question. My town only had three highschools, of roughly 1000 students each, but larger cities, populations in the millions, simply couldn't support that volume of schools. Not enough teachers, administrators etc to go around to run 4 times the schools there are now. Barely enough to run the ones we have these days.

Physically larger schools with generally smaller classes might help a little, but you run into largely the same problem.

[Go_Oilers_Go]

Problems for the people can also occur outside of school related activities. There's really nothing that can be done. Sure, these killings may seem random, but we truly can never know what's going on inside of someone's head.

[slipstrike0159]

There have been many good points that have been brought up but the fact still remains. Even though there is no clearcut "miracle" solution to it, there are things that can be done to help. No matter how much you think it will help, security cameras dont help EVEN CLOSE to as much as you think they do because if someone decides to do something like that then they wont care if a camera sees because it cant do anything to stop them. Unless of course you hire an entire staff to just sit and watch the monitor for every single camera and have a special on call task force to immediately deploy to stop the incident.

Metal detectors wont help anything either IMO. There are various things that kids bring on a daily basis that would set it off but does not pose a threat. For example, i bring my external hard drive to school in my backpack every day because i need it for my technology classes. But when one person goes "OH NO, IT MIGHT BE A BOMB!" and everyone freaks out about every little thing like then you just have unnecessary fear.

As far as helping to stop it though is just supervision. I remember back in middle school or elementary school when someone started harassing someone then they would pull the bullies aside and assure them that if they continue they can be severally punished. Dont get me wrong, i fully understand the near impossibility of this since i am in a giant-overpopulated school, but at least it would help the "loner" factor a little more.

However, i seem to think that the school shooting is almost the same rarity as a suicide. There are so many social scenarios played out every day at school with outward influences, that it is destined to be that small minority of students that get the bad end of the stick in some way shape or form with just the right amount of revenge willpower to fight back, it is nearly impossible to stop completely. Trust me, given enough trials and variables in which every and all circumstances are played, there will be a tramatic few instances where a very bad solution comes up. Also the fact that it is very unpredictable and undetected by most people doesnt help any, because even though people say they were loners didnt know anything about them. And in a school where you will, on most circumstances, NEVER know everyone in your grade, it happens very easily.

The fact is, you cant ever tell how someone has been treated and even though they may be prone to being emo, angry, or outcasted; it is impossible to tell what they will do because of it. The choice is in the individual students whether to act on it or not and those kinds of kids would hate nothing more than to talk to a councilor about it.

Its always better the next morning...