A Violent Education

This book gives an immediate action plan for parents, teachers, school administrators, communities, school boards, first responders and school resource officers (school-based uniform police officers) to protect our kids in school.

During an armed conflict or period of gross human rights violations, the first priority is a cessation of violence. For the cease-fire to be more than a lull in hostilities and atrocities, however, it must be accompanied by a plan for political transition and social reconstruction. Essential to this long-term reconciliation process is education reform that teaches future generations information repressed under dictatorial regimes and offers new representations of former enemies. In Teaching the Violent Past, Cole has gathered nine case studies exploring the use of history education to promote tolerance, inclusiveness, and critical thinking in nations around the world. Online Book Companion is available at: http://www.cceia.org/resources/for_educators_and_students/teaching_the_violent_past/index.html

Asking fundamental and often uncomfortable questions about the nature and purposes of formal education, this book explores the three main ways of looking at the relationship between formal education, individuals and society: * that education improves society * that education reproduces society exactly as it is * that education makes society worse and harms individuals. Whilst educational policy documents and much academic writing and research stresses the first function and occasionally make reference to the second, the third is largely played down or ignored. In this unique and thought-provoking book, Clive Harber argues that while schooling can play a positive role, violence towards children originating in the schools system itself is common, systematic and widespread internationally and that schools play a significant role in encouraging violence in wider society. Topics covered include physical punishment, learning to hate others, sexual abuse, stress and anxiety, and the militarization of school. The book both provides detailed evidence of such forms of violence and sets out an analysis of schooling that explains why they occur. In contrast, the final chapter explores existing alternative forms of education which are aimed at the development of democracy and peace. This book should be read by anyone involved in education - from students and academics to policy-makers and practitioners around the world.

This book examines the historical context of African Americans' educational experiences, and it provides information that helps to assess the dominant discourse on education, which emphasises White middle-class cultural values and standardisation of students' outcomes. Curriculum violence is defined as the deliberate manipulation of academic programming in a manner that ignores or compromises the intellectual and psychological well being of learners. Related to this are the issues of assessment and the current focus on high-stakes standardised testing in schools, where most teachers are forced to teach for the test.

The violent imagination begins in experiences of violation against the self and grows through the stories, myths, folktales and anecdotes of everyday life. Originally published in 1986, John Schostak discusses the educational, social and moral implications of the violent imagination in connection with theories of violence, childrearing practices, and schooling as a childrearing institution. He also looks at the relation between sexism, racism, drugs and the emergence of a vandalised sense of self. The book explores the complex ways in which images of violence pervade society, inform action and provide interpretations of events. Schools, the author argues, contribute towards the development of a violent imagination which guides judgements and actions. The child’s images and experiences of violation may involve physical assault or psychological forms of assault. Some of these experiences of violation and violence are considered normal, even moral (‘spare the rod and spoil the child’); others are considered abnormal, criminal, pathological – although the abstract logical form of each may be equivalent. Nevertheless, all such images contribute towards the development of a sense of violation, and children are schooled to accept normal forms and reject abnormal forms.

A look at why Canadian schools are becoming more violent and what we can do to prevent this.