A normal school day consists of going to class, sitting in a schoolroom desk, listening to a teacher and being educated.  What would happen on a day when a student decided to come to school bearing guns, knives, or even bombs?  The following is a question that needs not to be asked.  As we know, when a student dares to bring a weapon to school, major havoc occurs.  Students and teachers run from the danger, leaving the villains to do as they please.  The questions that should be asked are, what makes students resort to gun use to solve problems?  What can we do individually and as a group to put an end to these violent crimes?

By incorporating classes such as gun safety and anger control, students may turn from being "outcasts" or "loners" by learning the time when words can solve a problem better than violence can.  The subject of school violence is not heard about until a tragic event happens in a school of any size.  The dead are hardly even identified before the idealistic cover-up has begun.  "The witnesses know their lines, they base themselves on the same self-satisfied premise:  the economy is doing well, the population is contented.  These are isolated cases, essentially inexplicable."  With these comments, you would think people were just shoving the fact that teens are rebelling against the norms of society under the rug, instead of trying to figure out why they would rebel in such violent ways.

Gun control and anger management classes should be considered as a rite of passage for today's teenage students.  The classes should start in the freshman year of high school and continue until the senior year.  Throughout these classes, teenagers would learn to respect life and the power that a gun is capable of.  In doing so, adults would have higher opinions of teenagers.  In completing these classes, teenagers would prove that they are ready to move into the real world by being able to control their anger on days when major problems arise.

What is really to blame for teenage violence?  Watching the news with family opens a window of death and violence.  People blame families, video games, movies, and general television for the violent behaviours that teenagers portray, but they overlook the major cause of violent behaviour:  the Government and the news.  "In this age of high-tech wars and precision guided munitions, the Pentagon conducts wars which allow the U.S. military to kill thousands from afar without the loss of a single American soldier.  The media packages the war as entertainment without real consequence for America."  There is no concern to the corrosive impact on the society of the death and destruction that the American Government sojourns upon people beyond the borders of the states.  The media allures viewers to illuminate in the operation of American military potency, showing students that violence is the answer to any problem, large or small.  Students would be more susceptible to going through anger and gun control classes if the Government would show them that war is not all that it is made out to be.

How can we teach teenagers and children alike to respect the value of life when they are constantly being shown the devastation of violence?  Without the proper conditioning, teenagers and children think that the best way to solve their problems is to resort to violence.  They are allowed to believe that this tactic is proper because America's Government resorts to violence to elucidate their problems.  If, instead of resorting to war and violence, the Government were to show teenagers and children that problems were able to be negotiated by words that speak louder than the effect of guns, then the school violence rate would decrease.  In going through anger management and gun control classes, students would learn that controlling anger is much better than killing someone over a petty problem.

Some things that should be enforced before graduation are gun safety and anger management classes.  These classes should be a requirement throughout the students' school career.  Teacher should also be made to take part in these classes to show students that the teacher is responsible enough to withstand the pressures of everyday life and also a day when life presents major and minor problems.  In completing these classes, students will learn to value the power of a gun and the power of anger control in presence of a problem.

Wouldn't life be more prodigious if we did not have to suffer the hardships of losing friends and families in place of violent short comings?  Without the viewing of life being discarded as frivolously as an insects' life, teenagers would learn to respect the value of their life and the life of others.  Taking gun control and anger management classes would suffice as a reasonable rite of passage that most students would not object to.

Works Cited

                The Editorial Board.  "A nation at war...with itself"  Online Source.                                                                           (http:\\www.wsws.org\articles\1999\apr1999\denva21.shtml)

Answers To Questions

1) What does Margaret Mead say at the start of her 1961 Preface to Coming of Age in Samoa that is reminiscent of a current recruiting commercial?

                Margaret Mead said that since we understand little about what culture really is that you     should be all that you can be.

2) Which of the following issues of the 1920's are no longer issues today?

                1. The importance of the language spoken in the home

                2. Familial pressures on children

                3. Misconceptions about race and color

                4. The effects of artificially separating children from a knowledge of birth, love and                                  death

                I feel that the largest issue is familial pressure on children, although there are still                 problems with every other issue.

3) Do you agree with Margaret Mead that "culture is man-made and the man is free to design it closer to the desires of his own heart"?  What definition of "culture" do you find in your dictionary?

                Culture is what you create, so therefore is man-made.  Culture-the act of developing by       education and training.

4) In her writings, Margaret Mead was advocating:

                1. a return to primitive ways

                2. greater knowledge and control over the civilising process

                3. an integration of the primitive and civilized

                4. None of the above.

                Margaret Mead was advocating Greater knowledge and control over civilizing process.

5) Comment on Susan's speech (page 60 A Tribe Apart) Do you and your peers really want adults to recognize what is going on and enforce "boundaries and structure"?

                Most teenagers want some rule of guidance so they are able to follow a guideline.               Without guidance, children and teenagers would grow into extreme hellions without             know what it is like to respect authority and follow rules

6) Write three thing that you "absolutely, positively know, saw or experienced concerning drugs and alcohol" among students at you school.

                Three things that I have seen being abused among students at my school are Cigarettes,   beer and Marijuana

7) Do you have a solution for the "plight of the black teenager"? (page 88 A Tribe Apart)

                A solution for the plight of the black teenager is that people should be trained to see all     humans as the same race.  People should respect others as equals to themselves without           one race being better than another.

8) Would it be a relief if all you had to do was "go to classes and learn"?  Would you be happy if you were home-schooled or attended a single-sex private school where academics were presented in an exciting way and learning was admired by peers?

                School would be easier if all we had to do was go to learn.  I personally believe that in a      public school atmosphere, you spend more time competing with style guidelines then you       do learning.  A single sex school wouldn't be much better because then the students           would be unsure of how to act when released into the real world.

9) Comment on the line from Pete Seeger, "Schools are like prisons because they don't teach you how to live."  And Jonathan's comment, "People in school are dulled by the remoteness of the real world."  Would more classes incorporating community-based learning be helpful? (incorporating activities with relevance to actual real life situations)

                I agree with Pete Seeger in the fact that schools don't teach you how to live.  Schools         teach you what life is for the television family (ex. The Brady's).  Schools don't go into        the problems that teenagers actually face.  I also agree with Jonathan in the fact that           people are numbed by the remoteness of the real world.  Classes that incorporate                community-based learning would be helpful by teaching teenagers about the problems                 that real people face into the real world, bankruptcy, death, cancer, AIDS, and divorce.       With these types of classes, the teenagers would be more capable to handle the pressures              put on them when they are on their own.  If school continues to be as it is, there will be      more people depending on others to get things done.

10) Comment on the "bottom line" (page 364 A Tribe Apart)

                I feel that every adolescent needs to have a guide or a mentor.  The deprived children         deserve the same treatment as any other child.  Adolescents need to have an adult figure       be there when they have a problem and need to talk to someone with experience.