POSITION PAPER 3

NAME : TENGKU NOR HAZLYDA BT TENGKU ABDULLAH

MATRIC NO : 0723490

VIOLENCE IN THE SCHOOL IS A RESULT OF DIFFERENCES OUTSIDE THE SCHOOL. WE AS COUNSELORS CAN’T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT. DISCUSS.

In today’s world, everybody keeps discuss and talk about violence. In coincidence with it, everyone makes their own assumptions, opinions and ideas about it. When talking about violence, all parties will relate it with adolescents and school students. However, what exactly the violence is? Is it true that adolescents and school children are a part of it? For a clear understanding of violence, there are some resources that we can depend on such as Wikipedia. According to it, violence is the expression of physical or verbal force against self or other, compelling action against one's will on pain of being hurt. Worldwide, violence is used as a tool of manipulation and also is an area of concern for law and culture which take efforts to restrain and stop it. There are many types of violence like domestic violence and school violence. Domestic violence, also known as domestic abuse, spousal abuse, child abuse or intimate partner violence (IPV), can be broadly defined a pattern of abusive behaviors by one or both partners in an intimate relationship such as marriage, dating, family, friends or cohabitation. Domestic violence may or may not constitute a crime, depending on local statues, severity and duration of specific acts, and other variables. Meanwhile school violence is widely held to have become a serious problem in recent decades in many countries, especially where weapons such as guns or knives are involved. It includes violence between school students as well as physical attacks by students on school staff. So, is it true that violence in the school is a result of differences outside the school? And we as the counselors cannot do anything about it? In my opinion, I strongly believe that violence in the school is a result of differences outside the school because home environment is thought to contribute to school violence and neighborhoods or communities provide the context for school violence. I also disagree that we, the counselors cannot do anything about it because we are the guider and adviser.

My first argument why I agree that violence in the school is a result of differences outside the school is home environment is thought to contribute to school violence. In fact, it is related with how the parents apply the parenting skills in order to grow their children. The differences way in nurturing children can impact on the school violence. If they are using harsh parental discipline, the children will associate with higher levels of aggressiveness in youth or students. When this happen, they are tend to involve with violence in school. In addition, parents always treat their children like they are still childish and kindergarten because they assume that their children do not know what is best to them and will choose the wrong path in their life. In this situation, the children will rebel and the action of it will be shown at school. Because of that, parents should gain their children attention in order to have children’s believe. Parents should give more space and support their child in doing anything not only ask them to do what parents want them to do because children are capable of doing anything if they start to rebel. This is because, when children feel they do not have freedom and unhappy at home, they will bring this mood to school and try to get entertainment by bullying other students, starting a fight with other gang and sometimes frightening other students or teachers. Moreover, at home children also expose to the television violence and video games violence which are related to increased aggressiveness in children, which, in turn, may carry over into school. Television and theater productions have changed so dramatically that viewers are exposed to extreme amounts of media violence. That’s why, parents should monitor the activities their children are involved in and who their friends are. But how parents can understand their children better? This will be the counselor roles as guider to give tips or opinion as well as strategies to involve in their children’s world in a proper manner and correct way. Thus, violence in school is one of the impacts of the parenting skills of the children and home environment and the counselors should cooperate with the family in order to prevent school violence among the students.

My second argument is neighborhoods and communities provide the context for school violence. Every single day, when switch on the television, reading the newspaper and talking with others people, the news will be as regard on crime and violence. Communities with high rates of crime and drug use teach the youth and students the violent behaviors that are carried into schools. One of the issues in neighborhood and community is the gap of the race and culture. These differences have become the main reasons of the school violence. Because of that, others, those outside of schools and families can do to stem school violence is society needs to recognize the origins of youth violence, which are child abuse and ineffective parenting, violence in the home, media violence, prejudice, substance abuse, gun access and poverty. In order to make the clear understanding on it, it can be one of counselor’ roles by creating and organizing programme at school that present awareness of community for students. Therefore, violence in the school is one of the results of neighborhoods and communities and the roles of counselor as adviser can manipulate the society to aware about it.

Nevertheless, some people say that violence in the school is a result of the school itself. Most teachers do not live in the communities where they work, and have limited knowledge of what their students' lives are like outside of school. This gap is often compounded by differences based on race and class. These factors add to the inability of teachers and school personnel to respond effectively to the causes of violence in schools. However, if we explore on the children behavior and misbehavior, we cannot deny that the family, neighborhood, society, community and environment play important roles in children development because there are the major influence. According to Scott Poland, build large schools that create environments for student anonymity is one way to prevent school violence. However, the big area in the school still cannot avoid this misbehavior happened. Therefore, this is one of the roles of counselors to get students participants in community by giving awareness of sense of ownership and belonging. Obvious ways to create a sense of ownership and belonging are to involve students to seek solutions for surroundings’ safety through student pledges, recruit students for participation on task forces, build and straighten the relationships between students with community and lastly involving community in students’ programme at school.

As conclusion, I strongly believe that violence in the school is a result of differences outside the school because home environment and neighborhoods or communities that encourage them for it. However, I disagree that the counselors cannot do anything about because counselors’ roles as the guider and adviser are the ticket for them to prevent or involve on it. So, it is all parties’ responsibility to prevent and avoid this misbehavior by all parties cooperates together and the students, themselves know their roles and functions at school.