While we had alcohol, we didn't have to deal with it because we knew our parents would deal with us if they found that we were even in the presence of the devil's brew. Growing up a good Southern Baptist, my mother believed that imbibing in beer, wine or whiskey was a mortal sin. As a result, the kids of my crowd in high school didn't have much contact with drinking.
Drugs definitely were not a problem at our old high school, probably because most of us didn't know anything about them. All we knew about heroin was what we saw on the huge screen at the drive-in and judging from the hell addicts on the screen were enduring, it didn't seem to be worth the effort to even experiment with such a thing.
We wouldn't have known where to find it even if we'd wanted to give it a try. Drugs, to us, were something the doctor gave you when you broke your arm or when the dentist was going to pull a tooth. We weren't bombarded every day with television programming depicting dopers and drugs.
School violence today is a very scary concern for students and parents alike. There are many reasons for young people to kill each other today, but most of them have to do with drugs. In the high school years of my past, there was only one reason for a fight, always with fists and never with a gun or knife. Girls!
If violence had erupted in school yards back then, it would have been because of a girl! A guy's honor had to be avenged if there had been a perceived encroachment into the vows of "going steady." There was a lot of posturing back then, but I can't remember a single fight. I would have remembered one, if only for the entertainment value.
The same thing happens today, just as it has since the beginning of time. But girls today are different. They're all movie stars! Girls back then simply didn't look as they do today. If today's girls had appeared on our school yards, we would have thought they'd gotten there by way of a time machine! Violence is certainly more serious than it was at my old high school.
I can't remember there ever being a serious fight from the time I was in the first grade until I graduated from high school. Sure, there was a certain amount of posturing by boys during that time, but I can't recall a single punch being thrown. Maybe there was violence, but since it wasn't scattered all over television, we never knew about it.
There was a menacing collection of characters that was called the rock gang, assumingly because they sat on a rock wall on the edge of the school ground, jeering and taunting anyone who walked within shouting distance. After a while they became more of a joke than a threat.
Today's' school shootings appear to have much darker motives than someone's love life being toyed with by an outsider. Reasons for these atrocities range from someone emptying a shotgun into a crowded classroom because they were failing algebra, to slaughtering classmates in the hallway because the devil told them to do it!
A lot has been written about our "troubled teens", but I can only recall one guy that you could classify as "troubled". His nickname was Nickel Nelson because everyone he approached he shouted at them to "Gimme a nickel!" He would then roll his eyes, shake maniacally, then spit on the ground and shriek, "Gimme a nickel!" Everyone gave him a nickel! Twenty years later I heard that he owned a large Chevy dealership in Kentucky, an AA baseball team, hockey team and a Division II Arena football team. He was our most "Troubled Teen". Who knew?
Violence in schools has been dominating the headlines lately. More and more parents fear for the life, safety and health of their children. Home school seems to be a better alternative than sending children to school where they may become the victim of school violence.
Damaging Effects of Preschool
In a study conducted by the University of California, Berkeley, and Stanford University, proof was gathered on the fact that children who spent more than six hours in preschool had difficulty with respect to cooperation, sharing and participating in classroom activities, while children who remained at home with their parents prior to starting school showed no difficulty whatsoever. According to a Harvard Longitudinal Study, children who went to daycare centers were shown to have inability to form psychological attachments later in life. Another study showed that the time spent by children in daycare was directly proportional to the likelihood of their becoming disobedient, defiant and aggressive by the time they reach kindergarten.
The conclusion that can be derived from these studies is disturbing. Children who attend preschools or go to daycare centers instead of remaining at home with their parents suffer serious problems with social and emotional development. This leads to aggression, hostility, and eventually violent behavior as they grow older. This may be one of the reasons of violence in schools. A child who is socially and emotionally underdeveloped may have difficulty controlling his or her aggression or hostility, which may lead him or her to act out and resort to violence, endangering the safety of other children.
Home Schooling as the Solution
Studies have shown that children who are home schooled are more socially and emotionally adjusted compared to children who go to private or public schools. Children who are home schooled have stronger ties with their family and feel more secure because they know that they have their family's support. This gives home schooled children more confidence to think and act without subjecting themselves to peer pressure.
Home schooled children learn from the people that they trust and with whom they have the closest ties to their parents. This encourages them to open their minds without the restrictions imposed on them in a classroom setting. They not only learn what they are supposed to from their academic lessons, they also learn about real life because they get to learn in a real setting and not in an artificially controlled environment like that in classrooms. The end result is that these home schooled children learn to resort to patience and reason rather than aggression. They are better socialized since they interact with different people other than those in their own age group and they are more emotionally secure compared to children who learn in a classroom setting.
It is not difficult to see that home schooling may be one of the solutions to curbing violence in schools. Parents who can afford to spend more time at home with their children should consider home schooling as an alternative method of instruction considering the fact that children who are home schooled grow into socially and emotionally mature people, who in turn become assets to the community.
Both Bob Alexander & Peter Velikanov are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Bob Alexander has sinced written about articles on various topics from Alternative Medicine, Marketing and Food And Drink. Bob Alexander is well experienced in outdoor cooking, fishing and leisure living. Bob is also the author and owner of this article. Visit his sites at: