I think that you have to choose whether you are going to address the issue as a stand-alone issue or whether you are going to come at it from a contextual angle.


[PERSONAL OPINION - MAYBE RANT]
Violence between individuals of any age is something that no society has ever completely gotten rid of. It is a natural consequence of competition and can be sublimitated to non-physical violence if it must be but it is there nonetheless as part of our human makeup. Within any given context the violence may seem out of place and will be distracting at least. Chris recently dealt with a case of cyber violence in this forum and that is an illustrious example for us to look into.

Used to be that there were real consequences for crimes and disrespect. Men would fight over their honor and neither side would resort to litigation after losing. Men would deul over the honor of a woman, family member or cause and none would consider it criminal. When there is an acknowledgement of the role of violence and self-defense and a socially acceptable path for escalation and justice within the code and all feel capable of self defense and none feel unfairly oppressed then violence, in itself, is not that bad a thing. It is the lawless violence that causes the problem and is often used to unfairly oppress individuals and groups.

In a school setting or any other small sub-culture which individuals optionally participate in but needn't be involved in in order to follow a life path of their choosing, the distracting nature of violence and competition is the real issue. It is sad when someone gets a bloody nose or a bullet to the head but the real damage to the school is the sense of insecurity and lawlessness that results from these events. The feeling that one cannot properly pay attention to their studies because they must worry constantly about their security. The sense that the educator must become an enforcement officer first and an educator last. These are the lasting damages caused by violence in the schools. (Or flamewars in the forum) Used to be very easy for a school administrator to eject an unruly student from class, suspend them from school for a month or expel them from the school system for good. With this ability severely curtailed it becomes necessary to structure the entire environment around the student that needs the most individual attention at the expense of the freedom, liberty and security of the 85% of the student body that is lawful and predominately respectful of each other.

To bemoan the poor mis-undestood child who comes to school and knocks in the heads of his team mates with the baseball bat and re-engineer the locker room and provide a police officer to manage the baseball bats so that you only have access to one when you ara actually at-bat costs the school a large amount. Not only in money but also in missed opportunities. The students can not practice when the officer is not present now. This is a detriment to the entire team far worse than haveing the star player with an emotional problem kicked out of school to play on the state penn team. Nonetheless, in our current society (in the US) the liability to the school for "failiing to educate " the emotionally disturbed player, when combined with the liability for having the other players knocked in the head puts the school in such a no-win situation that only the police officer can bail them out. This shifts the responsibility to the state as represented by the police officer at the cost of yeilding your students liberty to the state as well. The proper response is to shift the responsibility for the emotionally disturbed minor back to the parents by sending him home till they sort it out (or not) both empowers the family and safe-guards the liberty of the remaining students and creates a crime-free school without the armed guard. And the students that remain learn that emotionally disturbed violent behavior is unacceptable and that criminals will be removed to where they cannot cause harm or disruption.

But then we will hear the cry "You're leaving Johnny behind! Poor disturbed Johnny, the society owes him the education and the chance to become an educated member of society!" Well, if Johnny's parents don't want him educated enough to ensure that he can properly participate in the school community then it is Johnny's parents that have left him behind. Sad, but perhaps he should be transferred to better parents before he is allowed back into school. If the gov't. is going to step in and answer the problem then why not disrupt that one, poorly functioning, family instead of the entire school?

[/PERSONAL OPINION - MAYBE RANT]

of course I could be completely wrong and misguided. But hey, you asked.