Every organization has violence in it in many gross and subtle forms and school is no exception. Violence in school is visible in five different forms. This chapter briefly discusses the control measures a school can take to reduce and prevent violent behaviour in school.

1 .Verbal violence

2.Psychological violence

3 .Physical violence

4.Criminal violence

5 .Structural violence

e.g. insulting, name-calling, threatening, cursing, alluding, shouting, labelling, and arguing.(Aimed at emotional hurting)

e.g. blaming, condemning ridiculing, scorning, embarrassing, anonymous writing revenging.

e.g slapping, caning, kneeling down, torturing, hitting,assaulting, pulling ears.

e.g stabbing, shooting, stealing, destroying property, raping, child abusing, vandalizing, gang assault.(Violence arising from the way school is set up)

e.g.pushing students to compete with others, comparing individuals, keeping children sitting passively for hours, subject-centred and teacher-centred delivery of lessons, neglecting students' special needs, harsh imposition of rules, externally imposed discipline, drilling.

Obviously, the actors of the above violence are the members of the staff and students except on rare occasions where public intruders break in and commit aggressive acts.

Teachers' violent behaviour

In many Asian schools the tradition of physical and verbal violence still continues by way of caning, scolding and other ways, in spite of all the propagation of child rights going outside. They are justified in the name of education.

When a teacher commits an act of violence against children say, caning or harsh abuse, the happy social climate of the whole school is affected adversely. A negative climate, charged with fear and threat emerges. Constant teacher violence implies the following negative impressions about the school.

(a) Distanced teacher-pupil relationship.

(b) Deteriorating teacher professionalism.

(c) Inefficiency of school management to control such unprofessional behaviour.

(d) Teachers' lack of skills in maintaining a positive discipline.

(e) Children's apathy against the present quality of education they receive.

What is the way of discouraging teacher violence in school? The following guides may be helpful.

1. Conduct school-based staff development sessions on

Students' anti-school and anti-discipline aggressive behaviour are an inbuilt element in school as an organization. They differ only in degree with various types of schools. The underlying violence among students in school mostly goes unnoticed by teachers.

Violence or aggression is generally defined as acts committed with the intention of hurting, injuring or harming another person. Words or thoughts that express the intention of hurting are also a part of aggression.

However, all forms of children's aggressive behaviour need not to be taken seriously. Naming some forms of behaviour as violent may not be fair. For instance, children fight for fun and to test their strength. Such behaviours are not malignant, vicious and therefore not aggressive. Such behaviours seem to play a part in children's psychological development. They disappear naturally with the other stages of growth. Parents and teachers should be concerned only when such behaviours seem to establish as a pattern of personality by repeated.

Form of Aggression

Psychologically we can classify aggression into live basic forms of expression.

1. Orgunized group aggression: where a gang perform an aggressive act, with a pre-planned course of action.

2. Direct aggression: where people directly express physically or verbally their anger against others.

3. Indirect aggression is mostly manipulative where a person pretends to be nice, but works behind towards the destruction of others.

4. Symbolic aggression: conveys the message of violence through a symbolic action. They are mostly used in political and public campaigns.

5. Instrumental aggression: is used as a strategy or a means to achieving a certain goal.

Ways of reducing students' violent behaviour

1. Prepare a school policy for prevention of violence in school.

2. Based on the policy, draws a violence control programme as a part of discipline management.

3. Build school as a community, based on the principles of mutual respect and co-operation. Emphasize the value of non-violence as a part of the school tradition.

4. Make learning meaningful and joyful. Improve the quality of education in the school to the satisfaction of the students.

5. Implement a fair system of discipline control using positive techniques.

6. Encourage each class to draw a code of conduct and maintain it.

7. Refer students found in vicious aggressive behaviour to counselling.

8. Keep the school under surveillance during intervals, especially in those areas where bullying and other anti disciplinary behaviours could occur.

9. Implement school timetable effectively so that students find no time to engage in anti disciplinary activities.

10. Organize a surveillance system to check students' movements after school is over, e.g. on their way home up to a certain limit.

11 Implement the school timetable tightly allowing no free periods, during special seasons when ragging and bullying increase in the school. (e.g. beginning of the year/ when new students enter high school.)

Concluding Thoughts

As mentioned earlier, the above measures are mostly negative in approach.. Most of the disciplinary problems reflect the inefficiency of the way the school is managed, the curriculum is delivered and the level of student-teacher relations. What is really necessary in such cases is to correct the causes of conflict, that give rise to them, rather than suppressing them through strict control measures. Peace education is basically a positive approach to school discipline as amply presented here.

Things To Do

1. Find out ways by which some good schools maintain their discipline. Discuss with their principals.

2. Discuss with your colleagues to find out their problems of classroom management.

3. Identify some activities of violence prevention for your school.