The Use Of Pencils As Weapons :: essays research papers fc

Violence in our conditions has always been a problem, now much than ever before. Each yr many students atomic number 18 injured and some are even killed during supposed indoctrinate-yard brawls. In fact, more than 1,000 students are seriously injured per year during school violence in California al genius. (http//www.geocities.com/area51/stats/7403.html) In most cases of serious injury, weapons were involved, including harsh school supplies such as pencils and pens. Historically, the school systems response to possession of weapons on campus has been at the very least confiscation of give tongue to weapons and suspension of the possessor, more commonly expulsion of the possessor and occasionally the bringing of criminal charges to bear. The practice of weapons to do violence has had much the same results. In some schools, the students impart through a metal detector and/or are searched for weapons upon a regular basis. (Ch. 4 news at 600), However, when the weapons being utilise are common school supplies, what can one do? The proceeds of students injured by their classmates with common school supplies such as pencils and pens are on the rise. A student carrying a gun or a knife is often busted before having an opportunity to use said weapon, one with a pencil on the other hand, they run publish until they seriously injure or even possibly kill somebody with the pencil. Our current policy is to deal with the student after they commit the crime, as far as stabbing with pencils go anyway, treating them as though they had apply any other weapon. It is my belief that something can be done to prevent, or at least minimize the number of incidents involving the use of pencils as stealth weapons in our classrooms. Although we do not need to worry about lead poisoning from pencils, (pencil lead is really graphite), (From graphite to pencil, Ali Mitgutsch, 1985) when misused a pencil is a deadly weapon, one far worse than a pocketknife.One demonstrable a lternative, which would thrill many teachers, would be to replace pens, pencils, paper, and the like with computer systems of one sort or another. Estimations have been made that computer systems at the school could be provided for as little as $800 per student including Internet admittance and basic maintenance. (Computing Edge, John Beecham, 1997) This approach would have many advantages, including the fact that our schools would be releasing children with at least a basic knowledge of how to work a computer system, this in turn would make it much easier to shoot to operate other, more complicated and more advanced systems, which would give our students require job skills in todays information age.