NCJ Number
192932
Date Published
1999
Length
153 pages
Annotation
This volume presents ideas and actions that youth can take to influence their school communities, take responsibility for their actions, and promote school safety and violence prevention.
Abstract
The author is the founder of the nonprofit Institute to End School Violence. The book includes a series of thinking and teaching exercises that ask students to see their world, understand it, and influence it when necessary. The text uses systems thinking to examine how each person in a group affects the group as a whole and what each person in a group can do to stop school violence. It explains four components for ending school violence: (1) team players, who understand that everyone is connected; (2) straight talkers, who are effective communicators; (3) peace keepers, who lead by example; and (4) life winners, who believe in the future. Individual sections focus on systems thinking, communication and relationship skills, adult and peer mentoring, and life skills. The discussion and exercises also focus on the influence of social groups on school violence, the positive impacts of developing relationships among groups in the school system and community, the uses and abuses of emotions, increasing students’ self-esteem through changes in behavior, and the use of negotiation skills to improve school safety. Further sections focus on finding mentors to explore interests and skills for personal growth, becoming mentors to share new ways to relate, creating a community where school violence is unacceptable to every member of the community, and maintaining this new approach to school safety. Figures, chapter questions to prompt thinking about the issues discussed, and 2 suggested readings