School violence has its roots in society

Opinion

A huge thanks to Maggie Macintosh for shining a light on violence in our schools — Reading, writing, punching, kicking, July 19 — a timely and necessary wake-up call for all of us! And thanks for the subsequent editorial (Schools should be safe for teaching staff, July 22), the update on governmental response, and various perspectives shared through other articles and letters to the editor. However, it asks a bigger question — what might be behind today’s children’s violence?

Children are not generally born violent, they learn to be violent from watching and listening to their older siblings, parents and other adults. And, as some writers suggest, the roots of the violence are not in the school but in the broader society. They watch violence being normalized in the media and social media. They watch movies and play video games that glorify extreme violence. If they listen, they hear governments and politicians justify violence of all sorts.

We humans seem to have a love-hate affair with violence, and our children are caught in our ambivalence toward eliminating it in our speaking and actions. And that ambivalence finds life in our children’s lives and their schools. And our troubled children deserve adults who support them beyond merely controlling their behaviour.

As for school violence in general, physical violence toward caring adults is primarily a pre-adolescent phenomenon. As children get older the violence takes other forms — fights between rivals, insults and intimidation on social media against peers, abusive language and threats against teachers — more often emotional and psychological than physical, not withstanding youth attacks outside school and school shootings by young people.

Unfortunately for teachers, they are also susceptible to threats and psychological violence from some parents who want their children’s bad behaviour and lack of effort to be excused … or as one writer said, as a cover or distraction from their own inability or unwillingness to parent responsibly. And high school teachers are more likely to suffer additional emotional violence from administrators unwilling to stand up to abusive parents who are blaming or threatening them.

Nevertheless, as suggested by Ed Buettner, schools have a responsibility to help children to become self-controlled and self-governing humans, and much can be done by educating teachers and teacher assistants about how to manage and de-escalate violent situations. And as the Violence and Harassment Against Educators project recommends, system changes like reducing elementary class sizes and complexity can help. But they cannot do it alone in contexts that tolerate and glorify violence.

So, we are right to hold our politicians to account but, quite frankly any actions they take, will likely prove insufficient. They can offer policy positions, issue guidelines and demand compliance, but they remain distant from the places where violence takes root and manifests itself in its many forms, meaning that many of their efforts will miss the mark. And too often their own public behaviour and speech incites others to verbal abuse and threats, and sometimes even dangerous action. Not only that, but politicians themselves are living in a world where threats and violence towards elected people are increasing exponentially.

Extreme polarization and partisanship fuel attitudes that nurture aggressive thoughts and behaviours — some recent incidents include political support for the mislabelled Freedom Convoy and the COVID anti-vaxxers with inflammatory public rhetoric. In one of the worst unfolding scenarios, U.S. President Donald Trump repeatedly spreads falsehoods, declares political rivals as treasonous public enemies, imprisons and deports innocent people, supports and pardons criminals — and Republicans, and a world, watch in horror, silently.

Not only complicit in their silence but also by their actions, our world leaders have shown that they believe violence to be a way to solve global problems. Even though war has been declared illegal, its massive violence is justified around the world — massacres of civilians are touted as necessary and reasonable defence, racial and religious differences are rationale for terrorism and other brutalities, never-ending territorial disputes offer no end in sight — our responses to violence are more violence as justified retribution, revenge and ironically, safety. And Canada is spending billions to shore up the violence-producing military industrial trade.

I fear “school violence” will disappear as a “sound bite” in a saturated, self-focused information world, leaving children and their educators to their own devices without meaningful and concerted collective action. And I worry that our tolerance or embrace of violence beyond the school’s reach will just get worse unless we all tackle this global issue with greater understanding, urgency and commitment.

John R. Wiens is dean emeritus at the faculty of education, University of Manitoba.