Prejudice, Bias & School Violence

An Introduction to School Violence & Prejudice and Bias

For the past two weeks, we have been examining two extremely common issues both in schools and in the world around us. Being as though we will be dealing with the nation's youth as teachers, it is crucial that we grow a sensitivity to these issues in hopes of being more culturally competent. To begin, let's define both of these issues and give more context. 

Prejudice

Prejudice can be defined as "an idea or opinion that disregards basic facts. It's akin to ignorance, or a lack of knowledge, experience or education. It's something that should not be tolerated, as we all strive for betterment and higher learning" (Your Dictionary, 2020).

A good example of prejudice is in the film, The Laramie Project. This film features a theater group, Tectonic Theater Project, attempting to do a report on a boy named Matthew Shepard. This movie is based off of a troubling event that took place in the town of Laramie, Wyoming. Matthew Shepard was an openly gay university student, who was a victim of a hate crime that cost him his life. Two men, Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson, met Matthew Shepard at a bar, took him, tied him to a pole, beat him and left him for dead. Sadly, he then died after being found the next day still tied to the pole. The people of his town that were interviewed never saw Laramie as a hateful town towards homosexuals. However the movie uncovers that although there wasn’t outward hate, there was prejudice towards anyone who was different. A case like this unfortunately has many implications in the school environment. Almost all of the time, this prejudice is based on disregarded facts.

 Another group of people that are constantly experiencing prejudice, especially in this political climate is Muslims.

Source: change.org

Just from this image alone, it is obvious how media portrays people of the Muslim faith. There are constantly generalizations being made about Muslim people and even with the travel ban imposed by Donald Trump, there seems to be some biases towards people from the Middle East (where the majority of the people from this faith originate). I believe that this bias was born through ignorance and miseducation. Sadly this is where most bias originates. According to the Education Week article, Hate in Schools, "Muslim students, particularly girls, are often targeted. One reason: Wearing a hijab, the traditional religious head cover for Muslim girls and women "(Vara-Orta, 2019). Thanks to media, Muslim people's religious apparel and appearance are attacked, potraying them as "scary" or "terrorists". We all know that these generalizations are not true and through education, we can hope for those lies to cease. 

School Violence

According to the CDC, "School violence is youth violence that occurs on school property, on the way to or from school or school-sponsored events, or during a school sponsored event. A young person can be a victim, a perpetrator, or a witness of school violence. School violence may also involve or impact adults" (CDC, 2016).


Every parent, student and teacher's worst fear is a school shooting. They happen so often in the media that its almost desensitizing, but the fear is still very much there. This fear comes to life while watching the movie, Bowling for Columbine. This film follows Michael Moore in his research about not only what happened at Columbine High School in Colorado, but also the gun laws in Colorado and in America in general. As a future teacher in adolescent education (grades 7-12), the issue of school violence greatly impacts me. High School teachers get a great deal of students who are closer to being adults than children and because of this, they feel deep emotions. High School years are also the years that students go through hormonal changes and experience bullying and prejudice. Teachers have the responsibility of being an ally to their students and making sure that they are being supported. Students who feel like outcasts and have no support system are more likely  to be bullied, be the bully or even participate in more serious forms of school violence. School violence will be a constant thought in my mind as a future teacher. I will take it among myself to know the safety protocols for if there is some sort of situation in the school that I teach at so that I can protect myself and myself students in the unfortunate case that something happens. But also, I will just make sure that I create a sense of community in my classroom to ensure that there won't be any students that feel like outcasts. 

 Connecting the Two

These past two weeks we thought about both prejudice and bias as well as school violence. I believe that these two ideas are similar in the fact that they can affect the livelihood of the students and the teachers. When there is prejudice or any form of violence in schools, there is a stunting of the learning process. But also, there is fear surrounding the possibility that someone may be treated differently or hurt on school grounds. As a future teacher, my number one responsibility is to create a safe sense of community in my classroom. We can do this by engaging students in exercises such as group work or some other fun ice breakers. These type of behaviors such as prejudice would be hopefully weeded out in the beginning of the school year and through active classroom management, the classroom would be a safe place of respect. This is an ideal scenario and I do acknowledge that this isn't always possible but this way of thinking is necessary in the new and upcoming educators of today because violence isn't the answer. 

Source: relforcon.org

References:

Examples of Prejudice. (n.d.). In YourDictionary. Retrieved from https://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-prejudice.html

National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Division of Violence Prevention (2016). 
Understanding School Violence. https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/Schoo
l_Violence_Fact_Sheet-a.pdf

Vara-Orta, F. (2019, July 19). Swastikas. The N-word. 'Go Back to Mexico.' What Hate Looks Like in Schools. Retrieved from https://www.edweek.org/ew/projects/hate-in-schools.html