School Violence on the Today Show

This morning, while feeding my nephew his baby cereal and fruit, I was watching the Today Show and was appalled! 61% of children in today's schools have witnessed violence. 25% have been a victim of a robbery and 46% have been assaulted. Why are our children being exposed to violence at school? School!? The place where every child should be safe! Some of these kids come from a not so nice home life. School should be their safe zone :o( Why are they being attacked in school!? I am so sad for these kids.

I blame parents and the teachers. Parents because some parents are not activily in their child's life for some reason or another...too self absorbed, too drunk or stoned, too into work, too depressed...what-have-you. Wake up parents! You had these children now parent them!!!!!

Yes, teachers do not make a whole lot of money. They knew this going into the profession. When some teachers start out, they hope to make a difference in a child's life, not get rich. Some where along the line it changed.

A soldier does not make a lot of money either and you don't hear them complaining. They are protecting our country, our lives, sometimes paying with their own life! Yet, they can qualify for welfare and WIC. We did. We got WIC when our children were babies and that is when we lived in base housing with no other bills but our utilities. Most of the time we didn't have a phone nor cable TV because we couldn't afford it.

Got a little sidetracked...sorry... Parents need to get control over their children. Teachers need to get control over their classrooms again. Do it for the rewards of seeing a child learn, to get it like you did when you first started teaching.

My son's kindergarten teacher was horrible! She was just a few years away from retirement, but should have quit long before she got my son. She did not enjoy children, especially the ones who needed help. She just wanted to teach the good quiet ones. The things she did to my son could equal abuse in my opinion. And, in my husband's opinion and anyone else that you talk to.

She would make my son miss his bus just because he was a bit pokier than the rest of the students. he'd lose focus of what he was suppose to be doing...one day when I had had enough of it, she made him miss the bus. I went off on her! I told her that what if someone saw my son standing out on the sidewalk crying and just scooped him up and left. I told her that I would have charged her with negligence. Then I said that I had no way of coming to get him and she'd have to bring him home herself. I mean, really, that is why he rode the bus! We lived too far from the school to walk and I didn't always have a car at home to transport him myself.

After he got home that day, I also called the school and told them the same exact thing. I don't know if she got reprimanded for that or not, I doubt it really.

Well, to my utter amazement, she did bring him home and that was the end of letting him miss his bus!

Now this lady is running for school board! Heaven help us all if she wins which she probably will as she was a favorite teacher to the good quiet kids.

I just think a teacher is the most influential person in a child's life. She/he is the one that is going to either make the child enjoy school or make the child despise school.