Talk:Investigating Critical & Contemporary Issues in Education/Drugs and Violence

Being successful in school is hard enough with homework, after school activities, or having a job that takes up a lot of free time you could use to get school work done. What if there was more in the way, preventing you from doing your best? What if you had to deal with violence on top of it? Would you have trouble in school if you knew everyday there was a chance of someone physically, mentally, or sexually hurting you? What if you had a drug problem or someone who lived in your home did? Not only will this paper help with understanding why drugs and violence affects student learning so much, but it will help show ways of preventing it. Violence affects student learning in two different ways. Violence in schools plays a big role on the education of students. When committing a violent act in school, the student could either be suspended or get detention. That causes them to miss out on a lot of school and learning. Many students may not even come to school in fear of being bullied or having another student get violent on them.

“Seventy-nine percent of violent children have witnessed violence between their parents,” (Lewis, 1983). Violence at the home could also play a major role in the learning of students. Children who have to deal with domestic violence at the home may have trouble concentrating in school because they are too worried about what is going to happen when they get home. They may even miss more school than those who are not dealing with domestic violence because they feel there is no point and they will not be successful anyways due to the lack of self-esteem they get at home. When students face domestic violence at the home they are more likely to indulge in violence themselves. This could cause them to pay more attention to who is going to be their next target at school instead of how they are going to do their homework.

In the year 2000 more than sixty percent of teens said that drugs were sold, used, or kept at their school (GDCADA, 2006). Concentrating in school is made difficult with so many students using school as a place of dealing with drugs instead for a place of learning. Paying attention to a teacher is not easy when you have someone selling drugs right next to you or someone who is currently on drugs and not hiding it right next to you. Not only are they a distraction, but they create fear. Making the student wonder what they might do since their brain is warped by drugs.

“Drugs are a waste of time. They destroy your memory and your self-respect and everything that goes along with your self esteem” (Kurt Cobain). Not only do drugs affect student learning by distraction, most drugs affect the brain. They can cause memory loss, damage to the brain and/or brain cells, and others, such as marijuana, have shown to weaken problem solving ability (Nahas;Burks, 1997). With students killing their brains on drugs, how are they supposed to focus?

The prevention of drugs and violence in school needs to be improved and better enforced. Teachers could improve violence by punishing the students for the crime. A lot of teachers may see violence in school and not deal with it because they do not want to get involved and they need to get involved. Talking to students about violence and how it affects the student body and themselves is a way to lead students in the right direction. Parents should let their children know that violence is not to be tolerated and the parents should show violence in front of their children. Apparently a lot of teachers and parents have been realizing the seriousness of violence because the statistics of violence in schools as dropped dramatically from thirty-four percent to fourteen percent from 1994 to 2007 (NCVS, 2005). Parents could also help prevent the use of drugs by talking to their children about it and not providing for them. Teenagers whose parents talk to them regularly about the dangers of drugs are forty-two percent less likely to use drugs than those whose parents do not, yet only one in four teens report having these conversations (GDCADA, 2006). If students are learning at home from their own parents how bad drugs are for you, how can you expect them to listen to anybody else? Teachers and parents are the adults. They need to make sure students better understand how violence and drugs affects them and the people around them.

Work Cited

(March 6, 2002-2006). greater dallas council on alcohol & drugs. Retrieved September 21, 2009, from Teen Substance Abuse Web site: http://www.gdcada.org/statistics/teens.htm

Swiercinsky, D (2000-2001). Brain on Drugs. Retrieved September 21, 2009, Web site: http://www.brainsource.com/brain_on_drugs.htm

(2005-2007). Serious Violent Crime Rate in U.S. Schools. Retrieved September 21, 2009, from Violence in Schools Web site: http://youthviolence.edschool.virginia.edu/violence-in-schools/national-statistics.html