Carolyn N. Kinder
Society today is full of evidence of violent behavior. Everywhere we look there is violence on television, in our home, school and community. Violence has been a part of our evolution as far back as the days of our relatives, the chimpanzees. The status of violence in the chimpanzees and humans has a common origin.1 Chimpanzee-like violence preceded and paved the way for human violence in our society today.
Over the past quarter of a century, there has been a three hundred percent increase in the number of teenage homicides in the United States. While violence cuts across ethnic and gender lines, females have lower homicide statistics because they are involved in fewer fighting behaviors than males. Below is a timeline that gives a sample of violent incidents in the U.S. middle schools.
A Sample: Timeline of Middle School Violent Incidents in the U.S.
December 6, 1999, Fort Gibson, OK.
A 13-year old boy fired a 9mm semiautomatic handgun in Fort Gibson Middle School, causing a disturbance in which four students were wounded and one was severely bruised.
May 22, 1998, Memphis, TN
Ten- year old- Travis C. Leaper pointed a loaded .25 caliber semi-automatic pistol at a classmate’s head and said “pow”.
April 24, 1998, Edinboro, PA.
Fourteen-year-old Andrew Wurst was charged with killing a teacher and wounding two students at a dance at James W. Parker Middle School.
March 25, 1998, Daly City, CA.
A 13-year-old supposedly angry at being sent home early from school, fired a pistol at the principal in a crowded schoolyard of his middle school.
March 24, 1998, Jonesboro, AR.
Thirteen-year-old Mitchell Johnson and his 11-year-old cousin Andrew Golden hid in the woods outside Westside Middle School and fatally shot four girls and a teacher while wounding 10 other students as they filed out of the building during a false fire alarm.
Source:
Denise M. Bonilla, (2000) School Violence. The H.W. Wilson Company, N.Y.
With school violence on the rise, experts say middle schools must provide alternatives to help children. If teens have nothing to do, they will find ways to get into trouble. Children need role models. They need to see the adults in their lives taking action against violence.
This unit uses the book
Demonic Males: Apes and the Origin of Human Violence
as a means of discussing similarities and differences of violence in both chimpanzees and human beings. It is through this that we can hopefully get a better understanding of the problem of violence in today’s world and devise goals and strategies that will prevent it.