School Violence in the K-12 Setting

According to a study conducted in 1995, 34% of middle school students admitted that they feared becoming victims of school violence. Eight percent of teachers say they are threatened with violence at school on an average of once a month. Middle school students are more than twice as likely as high school students to be affected by school violence. Seven percent of eighth graders stay home at least once a month to avoid a bully.

Explaining The Measurable Outcome (Dependent Variable)

The measurable outcome is the element of bullying. This seems simple enough because a kid hits another kid because he or she can. It is however dependent on the Independent Variable which we will discuss later. Bullying is common, it is feared, and it is evasive but it is real and it affects multitudes of lives.

Method to Measure The Outcome

Bullying is measurable via class monitors, campus watchdogs, lunchroom spotters, and undercover spies. It is also measurable via self-appointed students armed with a pencil and paper to record incidences of bully and then promptly dispense it to the school principal, the campus police or the grade counselor. With a flood of documentation, the scourge of bullying can be exterminated.

There are two causal influences – anger and power. Students are dealing with a great amount of anger at parents, other authority figures and life itself because they think they have no say in many different situations. Adults are so busy with life that they forget about the volatile positions that kids from kindergarten to 8th grade are in today. Anger is often a direct result of kids feeling they have no power. The result is going to school and beating up anybody and everybody who crosses their path.