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ISSN 1091-4706

Volume 5 Issue 1, Fall 2000

Aggression and Violence

2 Read the Editorial: Early Warning, Early Response / Lyndal M. Bullock

The Many Faces of Anger

5 Karate Killed the Monster in Me / Robin K Chan

7 Redirecting Pathways to Violence: Early Identification of Risk Factors in Children / Karen .J Carney, Sarup R. Mathur and Robert B. Rutherford Jr

12 Tailoring Our Response: Asperger Syndrome and Problems of Aggression and Violence / Richard L. Simpson, Brenda Smith Myles, and Jennifer B. Ganz

18 Policing, School Violence, and Students With Disabilities / James K. McAfee, Christopher Greenawalt, Scott L. MacDonald, Craig Murphy, and Damon Smith

22 Your Silence Will Not Protect You: Gay and Lesbian Youth Who Leave School Prematurely / Gerald P Mallon

Meeting Unmet Needs

27 Do Schools Teach Aggression? Recognizing and Retooling the Interactions That Lead Students to Aggression / Sharon H. Grant and Richard Van Acker

33 Practical Strategies for Working With Students Who Display Aggression and Violence / Eleanor Guetzloe

37 One Youth at a Time: Addressing Aggression and Violence Through Individual Systems of Positive Behavioral Support / Timothy J Lewis, Lori Newcomer Michele Kelk, and Lisa Powers

42 Meeting the Needs of Children and Youth With Challenging Behaviors / Lyndal M Bullock and Anthony L. Menendez

51 Over the Net: Encouraging Win-Win Solutions Through Conflict Resolution / Mary M Addison and Dolores A. Westmoreland

Building Safe Communities

55 The Misperceptions and Reality of Youth Who Commit Violent Crimes / Thomas F Brame

58 Preventing School Violence With Comprehensive Planning / Russell Skiba, Reece L. Peterson, Kimberly Boone, and Angela Fontanini

63 Stop and Think! Steps Toward the Systematic Prevention of Student Violence / Howard M Knoff

67 Tending Roses: Cooperation as an Antidote to Aggression and Violence / David W Johnson and Roger T Johnson

72 Beyond Resilience: Building Relationships to Promote Thriving / Gale M Morrison, Michael J Furlong, and Richard L. Morrison

from the editors

Early Warning, Early Response

Lyndal M Bullock

Aberrant behavior in children and youth has been a focus of concern for many years. As early as 1928, E. K. Wickman examined the attitudes of a selected group of teachers in Minneapolis public schools about the behavior of children in their classrooms. He asked teachers to delineate the most serious behavior problems they observed. The top five most aggravating behaviors were whispering, inattentiveness, carelessness in work, tattling, and disorderliness in class. Wickman also used the same approach with a group of teachers in the Cleveland Public Schools. These teachers listed the five most serious problems in their classrooms as stealing, heterosexual activity, obscene notes and talk, untruthfulness, and masturbation (Wickman, 1928). Over time, behaviors of concern have changed.

The outcomes of a recent focus group of teachers, designed to examine the most serious types of behaviors they face in their classrooms in the year 2000, illustrate changes in the seriousness of behaviors being encountered in the schools. Although numerous troubling behaviors were mentioned, the five top behaviors that emerged were

  • depression as demonstrated by having a defeatist attitude, being non-communicative or withdrawn, and lacking interaction with peers
  • anger coupled with a feeling of helplessness as demonstrated by comments such as "ain’t no need to try it," "it won’t make no difference anyway," and "my dad is a bum and I will be too"
  • obscene language, including threats to peers and adults, sexual harassment, and bullying
  • lack of respect for self and others as demonstrated by refusal to cooperate or participate in class activities, instigating disturbances in the classroom and elsewhere on school property, and defacing school and community property
  • erratic responses to instruction as demonstrated by the infrequency with which in-class and homework assignments are completed and turned in and the general lack of positive participation in class.

Many of the behaviors that emerged from the focus group have been cited by Barr and Parrett (in press), Bullock (2000), and the National School Safety Center (1999) as being among the early warning signs of aggressive and violent behaviors.

When thinking about behavioral problems in youth, I am reminded of Abdul, a 16-year-old young man with whom I worked in a counseling role. Abdul lived with his mother and four younger siblings. His mother worked two minimum-wage jobs in order to provide for the family. This required her to be away from home for most of the day and late into the evening, and she often arrived home after the children had gone to bed. Abdul had been given the responsibility to care for the younger children but had grown tired of the responsibilities. He began to neglect his siblings and responsibilities at home. He also started hanging out away from the home — but it seemed he was mostly alone on the streets. At school he began to show signs of being very troubled. He became uncommunicative and would have nothing to do with his friends. He started neglecting homework assignments, and he became disengaged in classroom and other school-related activities.

Teachers reported that they felt he had given up and expressed fear he would fail all of his classes and drop out of school. Reportedly, he had started making money on the streets through prostitution and stealing. After conversations with the mother, it was obvious the family situation would not improve unless community resources became available to provide assistance. If the mother quit her jobs, she would not be able to provide food and shelter for the family. She was determined to remain as independent as possible. The school wanted to make a positive intervention and began advocating with various community agencies on behalf of the family. Unfortunately, then as now the wheels of bureaucracy turned very slowly — too slowly for Abdul. The headline news on a January morning in the Times Journal reported that Abdul had been beaten to death by what was presumed to be one of his tricks. How can we not feel somewhat responsible for what happened? We recognized the signs, but were seemingly unable to act quickly enough! Had we been more diligent, would it have made a difference in the outcome?

I believe the answer is yes. Although the literature increasingly provides reports on the status of violence in America (e.g., National Association of School Psychologists, 1994; Tolan & Guerra, 1994; VanAcker, 1996), early warning signs (e.g., U.S. Department of Education, 1998), and effective intervention programs (e.g., Barr & Parrett, in press), we must become more diligent in our efforts to save significant segments of our younger generations from social isolation and failure, self-depreciation, anger and unhappiness, and criminal activity. Our schools and communities are full of young people who exhibit many of the early warning signs of being extremely troubled and feeling unable to reverse what is happening in their lives.

The Many Faces of Anger

Authors who have contributed to this issue of Reaching Today’s Youth address several dimensions of aggression and violence in our culture, our classrooms, and our youth. The Many Faces of Anger are highlighted through a series of articles. Robin Chan shares with us how, as a young boy who was incessantly bullied, he turned to karate lessons as an avenue to revenge, but learned instead how to be a positive role model. An overview of risk factors at different ages, grounded in one youth’s experience and ways adults could have intervened along the way, is provided by Karen Carney, Sarup Mathur, and Robert Rutherford Jr.

Richard Simpson and his colleagues remind us that children and youth with disabilities often present problems of an aggressive and violent nature and offer recommendations for preventing and responding to the problems presented by students with Asperger syndrome. After discussing the lack of good training for police on how to interact with students with learning and behavioral problems, James McAfee and his colleagues suggest ways for police and educators to develop interactive cross-training. Gerald Mallon examines a frequently overlooked population of students: those who are gay or lesbian and drop out of school because of the verbal and physical violence they have experienced from their peers and school staff members.

Meeting Unmet Needs

The second section of the journal focuses on Meeting Unmet Needs. Sharon Grant and Richard Van Acker discuss how the school context can exacerbate the development and display of aggression. Specific guidelines for classroom management are offered by Eleanor Guetzloe, who discusses strategies for preventing violent episodes and for reacting appropriately when they do occur. She also emphasizes the school’s responsibility. Tim Lewis and his colleagues highlight a component of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 1997, functional behavioral assessment and positive behavioral supports. They offer suggestions for providing positive behavioral support at the individual student level. Focusing on the collection of behavioral data, Bullock and Menendez provide a training module designed to assist educational decision-makers in meeting individual student needs. The last contribution in this section, provided by Mary Addison and Dolores Westmoreland, emphasizes the use of conflict resolution techniques in reducing school violence.

Building Safe Communities

The final section of the journal, Building Safe Communities, offers a series of steps, recommendations, and principles that represent successful attempts to make a difference in the lives of youth. The lead article in this section, authored by Tom Brame, contrasts the "get tough on crime" approach with the reality of juvenile crime and presents eight steps for positive interventions. Russ Skiba and his colleagues advocate the use of early response instead of zero tolerance policies in responding to violence, and offer strategies for responding early. Howard Knoff provides a series of recommendations for a comprehensive system of student discipline, behavior management, and school safety, with an emphasis on the teaching of social skills. Authors David and Roger Johnson explain how we can use and teach cooperation to enhance the positive development of children and prevent antisocial behaviors. The final article in the issue by Gale Morrison and her colleagues focuses on how we can work with youth with aggressive or violent tendencies to nurture their ability to thrive, a form of resilience-plus in which youth not only bounce back from adversity, but bounce back stronger than ever. Building relationships to promote the possibility of thriving epitomizes the intent of this issue.

Many times I have worked with young people whom I could predict would become aggressive or violent to such a degree that they would meet untimely deaths or be incarcerated. All too often, in spite of the positive efforts of the school and community, it seemed that we were unable to positively change enough variables in a life to keep it from going astray. All of us have much work to do in order to fully understand the early warning signs, to advocate for greater positive supports in the school and community and to accelerate our efforts to make a difference in the lives of troubled children and youth. We believe the articles in this issue will help you to rekindle your commitment to meeting the challenge before us while at the same time providing some guidelines that, if implemented, will make a difference today!

 

Lyndal M Bullock is a senior editor of Reaching Today’s Youth, along with Alan Meredith Blankstein, and is past president of the Council for Children with Behavioral Disorders and the Regent’s Professor of Special Education at the University of North Texas in Denton.

References

Barr, R. D., & Parrett, W. H. (in press). Hope fulfilled for at-risk and violent youth: K-12 programs that work (2nd ed.). Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

Bullock, L. M. (2000, winter). Finding alternatives to anger. Reaching Today’s Youth, 4(2), 2-3.

National Association of School Psychologists. (1994). School Psychology Review 22(2), 139-261.

National School Safety Center. (1999). Checklist of characteristics of youth who have caused school-associated violent deaths. On-line. Available: www.webmaster@nsscl org.

Tolan, P., & Guerra, N. (1994). What works in reducing adolescent violence: An empirical review of the field. Boulder, CO: Center for the Study of Prevention of violence.

U.S. Department of Education. (1998). Early warning — Timely response: A guide to safe schools. On-line. Available: www.ed.gov/offices/OSERS/OSEP/earlywrn.btml.

van Acker, R. (1996). Types of youth aggression and violence and implications for prevention and treatment. In L. M. Bullock & R. A. Gable (Eds.). Mini-library series on emotional/behavioral disorders. Reston, VA: Council for Children with Behavioral Disorders.

Wickman, E. K. (1928). Children behavior and teachers’ attitudes. Worcester, MA: The Commonwealth Press.