POSITION PAPER 3 - SITI FATIMAH NOR BT SAAD ISMAN (0729206)

“Violence in the school is a result of differences outside school. We as counselors can’t do anything about it.”

Violence is some sort of wrongdoing that happened anywhere including the school. The meaning of violence is cruel and harmful behavior or actions. Violence is the expression of physical or verbal force against self or other, compelling action against one’s will on pain of being hurt. Nowadays, there are several examples of violence such as bully, gangsterism, ragging and vandalism. Most of the cases are involve the student and the school cannot do anything to stop it. It becomes the ‘culture’ in every school in the world. The case of new student who transfer from rural area to urban area been bully by other student in the school become a common story that the teacher cannot do anything about it. At the ends, the student who been bullied transfer to another school and try to ‘survive’ at the new school. Actually, there can be a solution for this situation if everyone get involve and try to solve the problem that happened. Do not just sit and watch without do anything to prevent the violence.

It is true that violence in the school is a result of differences outside school because the students come from different background. They grow in variety of environment that shape their thinking, behavior, perception and personality. They live in the multicultural environment that contains different races and religions that affect the way of their life. As counselor at the school, there is something that we can do to decrease the violence although we cannot fully stop the violence from happen. We as counselor should know what is going on in the school every day. Try to communicate with students to know how they act and behave. We also can study the background of the school including the cases that had happened in the school. Next, make comparison between the years to determine if the problems still occur or not. By doing this, we can detect which problem is worst and make the new strategy to prevent the problem.

We also can make a program that involves all the students that come from different culture and not only focus on one major culture. Let them know each other and learn about other culture as well. We can explain and give information about the different culture inside and outside the school to make the students understand what is going on around them. Actually the students easily be influenced by their friend and follow what their friend doing without knowing the behavior is right or wrong. Some student do the violence for fun and some because of depression which is mean that by doing the violence, it can release the depression. As we know, most of the students who involve in violence are come from the broken family, low socio economy status and others family problem. The family is playing the biggest roles in develop the students achievement and performance. If we look from another side, the students will not do the wrongdoing without any reason. Sometimes, they have to because of the pressure from the environment inside and outside school. For example, the student is been forces to get involve in fighting if he or she want to be accept in the group. The student has no choice and just follows the rule if he or she wants to be friend with others in the group.

On the other hand, some people think that the counselor cannot do anything to stop the violence because of the differences amongst student and the counselor does not know how to prevent and make the violence varnish from the school. The job of counselor is to guide people who involve in the problem that relate to emotions and feelings. In addition, the violence is relates to one’s feeling that they show to people in meaning of rebel. However, they express their feeling in wrong way. The counselor plays an important role at the school and this goes same with other teachers and staff. All teachers and staff in the school must give full cooperation to help the counselors to guide the student who have the problems. If everyone alert and aware about the situation that happen, this might help to decrease the violence from occurs in the school.

Violence is happen because of one’s wrong behavior that gives pain to others and this thing occurs commonly everywhere. It can get worst in the future if there is no strategy or suggestion that can be use and implement to prevent this thing from happen. This job is not only for counselor but everyone that close to the students. If all get involved together and give the full commitment, not just the violence can be decrease but any other problems can be decrease too. So, the counselor and also other party may get the problems solve if they stick together and faces the problems without any fear.