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| Didax "Class Ideas" Newsletter Archive |
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March 31 through April 4 is National Youth Violence Prevention Week, a national education campaign presented by Students Against Violence Everywhere (SAVE) and GuidanceChannel.com. We hope the article, Internet links, and activity pages in this month's Class Ideas will help you prepare for this important event. And be sure to check out this month's email-only special on lots of great resources for character education.
I'd love to hear from you, so please feel free to send along your comments on this issue or ideas for future newsletters. Until next time,
Cindy O'Neill, Editor |
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| National Youth Violence Prevention Week: Five Action Themes |
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 The causes of youth violence are complex, ranging from cultural differences and learned prejudices to social alienation and the inability to express negative feelings appropriately. In 1989, a group of grieving students who lost a classmate to violence formed Students Against Violence Everywhere (SAVE). Today, this national nonprofit organization, in partnership with GuidanceChannel.com, presents National Youth Violence Prevention Week, an annual campaign to "demonstrate the positive role young people can have in making their schools and communities safer." The campaign is backed by a website, www.ViolencePreventionWeek.org, offering a wide array of resources to help schools and communities confront this important issue.
The campaign is organized around these five action themes, one for each day of the week:
1. Promoting tolerance and respect
2. Managing anger
3. Resolving conflicts peacefully
4. Supporting safety
5. Uniting in action
This article takes a brief look at the wealth of information disseminated by SAVE and GuidanceChannel.com on the many-sided issue of youth violence.
Promoting Tolerance and Respect
According to Jim Carnes of Teaching Tolerance (www.tolerance.org), ?Prejudice can fragment the school community. It?s a negative force that, when left unchecked, can result in all sorts of damaging consequences, such as lowered academic performance and alienation of individual students.?
To combat prejudice and its damaging consequences, Teaching Tolerance advocates ?a proactive, comprehensive approach that defines the goals of the school community in positive terms,? says Carnes. ?Many times, we are accustomed to school policy expressed in the form of negatives, such as ?there will be no fighting.? Our experience shows that reframing rules in the form of goals is a positive step that affirms the commitment of the faculty, administration, and students.?
However, it?s not enough just to enact a policy, even a positive one, Carnes counsels. Once a school states its violence prevention policy in positive terms, teachers and administrators should be sure to refamiliarize students with the policy once or twice a year.
Managing Anger
?Anger often results from or replaces feelings of fear, hurt, sadness, frustration, interrupted goals, or hopelessness,? says Carol A. Korizek-McKenzie, Ed.D., LCPC, NCC for the American School Counselor Association. ?Young children often express a variety of emotions in an angry manner simply because they do not know how to convey those other feelings. Children and teens may learn behaviors for expressing anger from the media, at home from a parent or sibling, or in their circle of influence from friends and classmates.?
According to Kathryn S. Castle of the New York State School Counselor Association, ?A school-based anger management group intervention can help students to generate alternatives to emotional outbursts and expressions of anger. Through the group, adolescents will realize that we all get angry from time to time?it's what we choose to do with that anger that counts!?
A typical anger management curriculum, says Castle, could address the following questions:
1. What is anger?
2. How do people handle angry feelings?
3. What are the consequences of letting angry feelings take over?
4. What are your anger triggers?
5. What happens to your body when you feel angry? Is your heart beating fast or your face flushed? Are your hands and teeth clenched?
6. What do you typically do when you're angry?
7. What alternatives can you think of for dealing with your anger? (Possibilities include: relaxation techniques, walking away, using humor, saying what you?re feeling, directing your anger elsewhere - such as into physical exercise, finding someone to talk to about your feelings.)
Resolving Conflicts Peacefully
Conflict resolution is accelerated by empathy?putting oneself in the other person?s place. ?We have to become aware of how our behavior comes across to other people,? says Ellen Raider of the International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution. ?How we talk to each other while we are in conflict is extremely important. When we attack each other, it engenders another attack and our messages are not heard. Your underlying needs are not being considered, because the other person feels put down.?
If both parties can talk calmly about a conflict and meet each other?s underlying needs, they can reframe the conflict and solve it, says Raider. ?It takes about seven seconds from when a person is attacked for that person to decide to pull back and say, ?I don't have to let that attack in. I can understand that under every attack there is a real need. If I can find what that need is, perhaps I can reframe the problem so my need is met and the other person's need is met.??
Conflict resolution can be successful in school settings, but there must be real buy-in on the part of all parties concerned. ?For conflict resolution programs to work, they can't be add-ons. They have to be part of the culture of the school and the curriculum,? Raider says. ?Most teachers are not receiving training in this at all, and some teachers are only receiving superficial training. They don't own the skill and can't manifest it in their classrooms. Continuous training is needed, not only in the classroom or as staff development, but it needs to be integrated into people's lives.?
As with other violence prevention methods, successful conflict resolution goes deeper than creating superficial changes in behavior. Says Raider: ?Conflict resolution is a tool, but it has to be a tool that's used as part of the bigger vision. Conflict resolution might help the kids from coming to blows, but it won't help the school system address the underlying causes of the fights? There have to be deeper interventions and different kinds of discourse used to help people understand moral conflict. Again, it's a matter of education. Does our public school system see itself as a place that people unlearn oppression??
Supporting Safety
While incidents of school violence are statistically quite rare, other findings are sobering: There is no accurate profile of a school shooter, most deadly attacks are well thought out and planned in advance, and in most cases at least a few other people knew about the attack in advance or even helped plan it. If a student is acting in ways that suggest he or she is a potential threat to others, a school may need to perform a threat assessment to evaluate the situation.
Says Marisa Reddy, Ph.D., of the Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center, ?Threat assessment is a process that has been developed by the Secret Service to identify people who may have the idea or intent of attacking a particular target? First, we identify a child who might have the idea or intent of attacking. Second, we evaluate that child, which means gathering? information from? multiple sources? and trying to figure out whether this child is on a path towards a violent act. The third component is managing that threat.?
When gathering information, Reddy says, ?You need to think about drawing a circle around a child and consider who is in that child?s life. Identify whom that child may have talked to or who might have observed the child and try to solicit information from them. Then you need to bring together all the information you have gathered in one central location. This will develop the most comprehensive picture of what a child might be thinking and feeling.?
A competent threat assessment addresses the safety needs of the school or community at large while ensuring that the child who is being investigated is not being unfairly stigmatized. ?Using discretion helps protect against disenfranchising a child who might already be in need of greater connection in school.?
The best outcome of such an assessment is an individual plan that supports the child and helps him move away from thoughts and plans of violence, while also protecting the school and community.
The National Threat Assessment Center conducts regional seminars in cities around the country. For more information on these seminars and other ways you can support safety in schools, visit the Secret Service and Department of Education websites.
Uniting in Action
Bringing students, schools, and communities together in service-oriented projects can be a powerful deterrent to youth violence.
Says Cynthia Scherer of the Points of Light Foundation and Kids Care Clubs, ?A lot of times, young people are at risk because of issues of self-esteem. Service builds their self-esteem because, often for the first time in their lives, they can see that somebody needs them.? Even young children can benefit from participating in a service learning or community service project. ?I don't think there is a minimum age. It's more about creating age-appropriate developmental opportunities,? says Scherer.
To reap maximum benefits from such projects, it is important to let the students themselves play a role in planning the projects they will serve in. ?The benefits of including them in the planning may include an increased level of commitment and an increased opportunity for learning. The more young people are involved in all of those pieces, the more opportunities there are to learn,? Scherer says.
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| Downloadable Violence Prevention Activity Pages |
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 This month's downloadable activity pages come from the World Teacher's Press series Character Education. Drawing on the latest research and classroom studies, the activities in this series are designed to help your students develop the character attributes necessary for academic success, such as making good decisions, communicating, and showing respect for others. These sample pages can be used as part of a character development or violence prevention program. |
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| Violence Prevention Internet Links |
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 Many Internet sites offer valuable information on reducing or preventing youth violence. These links will take you to some of the most comprehensive sites, including the U.S. Department of Education and the National Youth Violence Prevention Center. Use the information presented on these sites to help inform a school violence prevention program or just begin a conversation on this important subject. |
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| April Newsletter Theme: Place Value |
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 April is Math Awareness Month, and we'll celebrate with a new article by authors Dr. Paul Swan and Geoff White on strategies for learning the concept of place value. Until then, happy Spring! |
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