Students - Your Thoughts on School Violence?

Reading through the Sun's coverage of the assault on Jolita Berry, I saw no mention - by school representatives or by the education "experts" - of the school's failure in its responsibility to create an aura of authority around and by the faculty. Authority is different from power - which schools seem to have abdicated as well by shying away from reporting and punishing violent crimes by students - in that authority involves persuasion of students that it is in their interest to respect teachers. This requires school administrators to back teachers and to offer clear, consistent consequences for unacceptable behavior, regardless of whether such behavior could be partially explained by home environment. (If that is the case, the school needs to provide an alternative to the home environment.) It also requires modelling of expected behavior. While I agree that in retrospect Ms. Berry could have handled the threat differently, I was appalled by principal Jean Ragin's comment that Ms. Berry invited the attack with "triggering words." I do agree that it is important to learn to read cues and de-escalate conflict, but the assumption that violence is a given is dangerous. Psychiatric residents are taught similar de-escalating techniques meant to be applied to ill, hospitalized patients. The expectation for students' behavior in school should be far different. The de-escalation strategies proposed by the "experts" are essentailly strategies of harm reduction, an approach some of us in the medical profession view as therapeutic nihilism. In other words, as long as violent kids are expected to be violent, these behaviors will persist. Teachers will be forced to flee, and the vicious cycle will continue.