I had originally planned on writing about school funding for this week’s blog, but after overhearing a class conversation discussing domestic violence I really felt compelled to look deeper into this issue. Because our school does not have enough classrooms for each teacher to have their own room, some of the teachers use my room during my planning periods. As I walked into my room this morning, the biology teacher (who uses my room) was having a decision/debate with her class concerning the Chris Brown /Rihanna beating. The class entire class was defending Chris Brown’s actions. This particular group is an extremely talented, well mannered honors biology class predominantly consisting of females with zero discipline issues. I was tremendously shocked by this for several reasons, first that it was the honors class taking this stance, that the ladies were the most vocal in his defense, and that they honestly thought, and firmly argued, that it is acceptable for a man to hit a woman during a disagreement. One young lady raised her hand and firmly stated, “Well, Rihanna deserved to be hit and she must have done something to set him off. It’s not his fault; they said that she slapped him first so she better be expecting it back. If I hit any of these boys around here then I’d be expecting to get hit back.” After she was done making her statement several of her classmates both male and female agreed with her opinion.
The vast level of acceptability for this violent form of conflict resolution was quite shocking to me. In the two years that I have been teaching at this school on the south side, I have witnessed countless fights. In the heat of the moment, physical fights breaking out during class is a common occurrence and nothing that would shock or surprise me. Something about a classroom full of level headed, intellectual honors students’ zealously defending violence as a method of conflict resolution really impacted me.
I attended a middleclass suburban high school. During my four years there, I witnessed the occasional fight but never at that level. The mentality towards violence, especially domestic violence was very different. It was not widely accepted as an appropriate form of conflict resolution, and defiantly was not advocated between men and women. According to the NCCEV (National Center for Children Exposed to Violence) “Serious school violence occurs most often in urban schools. According to the Constitutional Rights Foundation, rates of school violence tend to mirror those of the general population. Typically, community violence in inner cities is more prevalent than in rural areas, which may partially prove that community violence has direct effects on children. The majority of the research to date suggests that violence is a learned behavior, so children who are acting out in violent or aggressive ways may have learned violence by repeating the violent behavior of adults. With this in mind, one can see why early intervention among school aged children is an important element in stopping the cycle of violence.” I believe that the mentality towards violence in urban schools is a learned behavior that is either learned in the home or the surrounding neighborhood. If violence is observed from a very young age, then children will grow up believing that it is an acceptable norm.
Early intervention is recommended, but what are the best solutions?
What can be done to break the cycle?
Another website that I found useful was http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2003/schoolcrime/6.asp?nav=1
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I to find it amazing that these girls would defend Chris Brown's behavior but not necessarily surprising. I also have witnessed countless fights in the schools I have taught and the mind set is usually that the other person 'had it coming'. My daughters had to read a book in high school titled "The Breakable Vow" by Kathryn Clark. It is an easy read but is a true story about domestic violence between a young couple. I think it shows how girls often do think it is the norm because it builds up slowly in a relationship and is usually based on controlling the other person.
ReplyDeleteThe Dept. of justice finding are as follows:
ReplyDelete# Physical attacks without a weapon, theft or larceny, and vandalism are much more common in schools than are the more serious incidents. Forty-four percent to forty-nine percent of all schools reported crimes of these types to the authorities. (2000 Annual Report on School Safety, Department of Education and Department of Justice, 2000)
# Fights or attacks with a weapon are more common in middle schools - twenty-one percent of middle school/junior high schools reported these incidents for an estimated 7,576 incidents. (A National Study of School Environment and Problem Behavior: The National Study of Delinquency Prevention in Schools, Gottfredson Associates, Inc., 2000)
These statistics are from 2000! Imagine what they are like now. I'd like to be optimistic and think the levels have decreased but with the way the world is today I'm 100% sure that they've increased. Since behavior is learned the people who commit the most violent crimes need to be re-sensitized.
Where do we go indeed, when people feel that they've "deserved" to be physically harmed?!?
ReplyDeleteI think it all goes back to education of rights. Not just for women, but for all people. If children are not growing up in homes where their individual rights are supported, then basic human rights, need to be incorporated into the school day, not as curriculum, per say, but modeled by their teachers and staff.
Aside from that overarching idea, I think educating students about the supports available to them, if they are victims of abuse or any sort, is imperative to breaking the cycle of violence.
This is indeed a troubling issue. It definitely relates to culture. (Violence is definitely a learned response, not innate.) It's also a moral issue. Shouldn't schools encourage non-violent conflict resolution? Wouldn't this require some teaching in schools about rights, and about techniques of nonviolent conflict resolution? Shouldn't adults be involved as well as kids?
ReplyDeleteI also think that violence in the culture is reinforced by national policies of how to respond to violence. When the president vows to "hunt down and kill" a terrorist, isn't he promoting violent responses in general? How do we address that issue?
The Chris Brown thing has had the same sort of effect on the students at my school. Many of the girls I know in my classes are totally willing to justify his actions. I think that women's issues are either taking a huge decline, or they never really got to where they were supposed to get in the first place. If Rihanna had beat Chris Brown, would boys be saying "well, he made her mad, so he deserved it"? I doubt it. This enrages me. I've never really considered myself a women's issues activist or anything, but the longer I teach, the more I find myself feeling discouraged with many of my female students' attitudes that they are lesser somehow. Unfortunately, this is sometimes an idea that is culturally reinforced in the media (i.e. Chris Brown/Rihanna) and/or in the students' home lives.
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