Violence in Schools

Marietta Giovannelli

Two teenagers armed with guns and bombs walked into Columbine High School in April 1999. Thirteen were killed before the two turned their guns on themselves. The media took charge of the images and sound bites. Dozens of school shooting incidents have taken place in the near-decade that followed. These included shootings at both the K-12 level and the university level, the most noteworthy being the Virginia Tech massacre on April 16, 2007, in which thirty-three people were killed or wounded. As a result, beginning with Columbine, but by no means only as a result of that rampage, reduced tolerance of misbehavior and greater external control of students, particularly at the K-12 level, has become the normal course in schools across the United States. Metal detectors, uniforms, gates, bars, locks, video surveillance, armed security, and police presence have become part of the setting in our schools. Although school violence is ...

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