Case+Study+Hum1+Group3

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= = = = =Case Study=

Our specific topic is:

Reason for Choice
We chose this topic to work on because as a group we felt that there has been an increase in violence and terrorism throughout the world and a large amount of this violence has been transferred to schools causing school shootings and violence around the world but particularly in the United States.

Our Idea to Stop Violence in Schools
Ensuring peace is an extremely important global issue because if there is no peace in the world people would be many more wars, more disagreements, and an incredibly larger amount of violence. This issue is already affecting schools and we need to stop it. Recently the world has been appalled and shocked at the violence of the Virginia Tech shootings and yet this was not the first time we have seen completely messed up and incredibly angry individuals go on vicious and violent sprees of anger. This is becoming a thing of the future and more and more violence is getting in to schools and these malicious events are occurring more often and becoming more common. From July 1, 2005, through June 30, 2006, there were 35 school-associated violent deaths in elementary and secondary schools in the United States. ( “Indicators of School Crime and Safety: 2007.") That is a huge number and yet the same thing to a different extent is happening in many other countries. Also about 1 homicide or suicide of a school-age youth happens at school per 3.2 million students enrolled during the 2005–06 school year.  (Indicators of School Crime and Safety: 2007)  In 2005, students ages 12–18 were victims of about 1.5 million nonfatal crimes at school, including thefts Indicators of School Crime and Safety: 2007) Students ages 12–18 were generally more likely to be victims of theft at school than away from school. ( Indicators of School Crime and Safety: 2007)  These are serious indicators that violence is being integrated and becoming a part of schools. This is why schools need our organization because we know how to stop the spread of deathly violence in schools and make schools have peaceful environments. Our idea to solve this problem is we must first start and fix the problem of violence in ourselves, then spread this inner peace through the things we do and then we can spread this peace around the world through people to people connections, schools, friends, families, and activities. To do this and start the chain of events which leads to peace in the world however we needed something to make people have peace in themselves. To do this we need Tai Chi. Tai chi is a way to release stress and anger which will make yourself a calmer person which in turn will make those around you calmer and more peaceful and if taught in schools could make schools more peaceful and the peacefulness could even spread to the families. It has proven to make angered or stressed individuals think rationally and be peaceful. We want to make this world a more peaceful place. For this we need Tai Chi and we need to teach this in school. That is what our organization, to try to stretch peace through tai chi as far as we can until there are no boundaries or blemishes.



Sources: "Indicators of School Crime and Safety: 2007." __National__ __Center__ __for Education Statistics__. Institute of Education Sciences. 31 Jan 2008 . "Indicators of School Crime and Safety: 2007." __National__ __Center__ __for Education Statistics__. Institute of Education Sciences. 31 Jan 2008 .

Organization fighting terrorism
A specific organization that is working on preventing terrorism in the Middle East is called SFCG, or Search for Common Ground. They are a non violent organization in which find a solution to conflicts in the Middle East. To prevent terrorism they develop media and use it to talk about critical issues that are happening in the Middle East. What I believe is so cool is that how much organizations like SFCG can make without using violence. Instead of going in and using force, they design things for media to deal with an issue that way. “The methods we use vary as greatly as the places where we work. However, our methodology is based on one fundamental principle: Understand the differences; act on the commonalities,” States the President and founder of SFCG, John Marks. This basically means that when faced with a conflict between places SFCG finds out what the differences are as well as the similarities, and then they try to build more on the similarities. To conclude, there are many organizations which are working on peacekeeping and preventing terrorism however I believe that the organizations such as the SFCG deserve to be recognized on there efforts.

SFCG: http://www.sfcg.org/programmes/middleeast/programmes_middleeast.html Self Help: http://www.selfhelp.ie/selfhelp/Main/Home.asp



Organization Trying to Stop School Violence
Another organization we chose to focus on is called NSSSS which stands for the Nation School Safety and Security Services. There are numerous and many different ways that this organization is trying to help preven and stop school violence. One of the biggest ways is they are helping faculty to write crisis action plans to help them during the case when violence or terrorism occurs. They are also helping the faculty during school professional development days by giving sessions to them to help them understand about violence in schools, how to be ready for it, what to do should it occur, and how to prevent it. We are interested by their program because they go beyond then just giving speeches to the student body and faculty about violence but they instead are hands on and interactive to try to set up plans so that violence in schools can be prevented and that people know how to react in violent situations taking place at school. They also teach the kids what to do if a situation should arise. We are modeling our action plan after them and the SFCG because our group is trying to raise awareness on the serious issue of violence and terrorism in schools, we want to teach people about what they can do, and how they can do to prevent violence in schools so that violence and deadly events such as the Virginia Tech Shooting do not occur and are bypassed.

Statistics
From - http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/iscs05.htm
 * From July 1, 2001, through June 30, 2002, there were 17 homicides and 5 suicides of school-age youth (ages 5-19) at school.
 * Annually, from 1999 through 2003, teachers were the victims of approximately 183,000 total nonfatal crimes at school, including 119,000 thefts and 65,000 violent crimes.
 * In 1999-2000, about 54% of public schools took at least one serious disciplinary action against a student, amounting to about 1,163,000 actions.

From July 1, 2005, through June 30, 2006, there were 35 school-associated violent deaths in elementary and secondary schools in the United States
 * Twenty-one percent of middle school/junior high schools reported these incidents for an estimated 7,576 incidents.
 * Student bullying is one of the most frequently reported discipline problems at school: 26% of elementary schools, 43% of middle schools, and 25% of high schools reported problems with bullying in 1999-2000.
 * Students aged twelve through eighteen were victims of more than 2.7 million total crimes at school. (Indicators of School Crime and Safety 2000, U.S. Department of Education and U.S. Department of Justice, 2000)
 * Nationwide, 15% of high school students had participated in a physical fight in 1998. (Juvenile Offenders and Victims: 1999 National Report, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 1999)
 * 57% of expulsions for bringing firearms to school involved high school students, 33% involved junior/middle school students, and 10% involved elementary school students. (Gun-Free Schools Act Report: School Year 1998-1999, U.S. Department of Education, October 2002)
 * In the past twelve months, fifteen percent of students in grades nine through twelve reported being in a physical fight on school property. (Indicators of School Crime and Safety 2000, U.S. Department of Education and U.S. Department of Justice, 2000)
 * Younger students, ages twelve through fourteen, were more likely than older students, ages fifteen through eighteen, to be victims of crime at school. (2000 Annual Report on School Safety, Department of Education and Department of Justice, 2000)
 * On average, each year there are 133,700 violent crimes against teachers at school and 217,400 thefts from teachers at school, reported by teachers from both public and private schools. (2000 Annual Report on School Safety, Department of Education and Department of Justice, 2000)
 * A total of 3,523 students were expelled from school for bringing a firearm to school according to the most recent Gun-Free Schools Act Report. (Report on State Implementation of the Gun-Free Schools Act: School Year 1998-1999, U.S. Department of Education, 2000)
 * Fifty-seven percent of expulsions for bringing firearms to school involved high school students, thirty-three percent involved junior/middle school students, and ten percent involved elementary school students. (Gun-Free Schools Act Report: 1998-2000, U.S. Department of Education, 2000)
 * Seven percent of schools or an estimated 6,451 schools reported at least one incident of physical attack or fight with a weapon to law enforcement personnel during a recent school year. (A National Study of School Environment and Problem Behavior: The National Study of Delinquency Prevention in Schools, Gottfredson Associates, Inc., 2000)
 * Only nine percent of violent crimes against teenagers occurring in school were reported to the police compared with thirty-seven percent of such crimes occurring on the streets. (A National Study of School Environment and Problem Behavior: The National Study of Delinquency Prevention in Schools, Gottfredson Associates, Inc., 2000)