Abstract
School violence remains a serious American problem, especially in America’s inner-cities. Mainstream strategies to reduce school violence have focused on combinations of upgrading school security postures (more guards, metal detectors, etc.) and in improving student intervention programs (peer counseling, conflict resolution, etc.). This paper investigates another aspect of school violence—school cultures of violence—that few schools recognize as a serious problem and that mainstream strategies fail to address. School cultures of violence entail school administrators, teachers, and students becoming socialized into an environment where school violence as a method of student interpersonal relations is tolerated or perhaps considered inevitable. This paper develops, through an ethnographic and survey study of four Miami-Dade public high schools, how school cultures of violence are allowed to exist through a combination of factors that include: (1) school staff discourses of denial that school violence problems exist, (2) non-caring school atmospheres, and (3) remiss school security forces. In those schools with cultures of violence, it is shown how high neighborhood crime rates are allowed to invade the schools, resulting in higher levels of school crime and increased student fear of being victimized in school.
Introduction
I fear going to school one day and a Haitian might don’t like me and say “Look at that American, I don’t like that American”….and they might c...
On April 20, 1999 Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold opened fire on Columbine Highschool killing twelve fellow classmates and one teacher. School violence changes our youths morals. From bullying to peer pressure, youth are exposed to school violence everyday. What is school violence? School violence varies from accounts of “death, homicide, suicide, weapon related violence, in the US.” (c1) School violence can occur to and from school, while attending a school sponsored event, on a bus, or at an activity.
Whitman stresses the fundamental idea of nature in this, his seventh poem: Everything is dependent-no one can be independent from everything. Therefore, we are all essentially one giant organism. A fundamental unity exists in nature, and we are a part of it. Independence is a concept that nobody can truly understand, because everything is interdependent upon one another. The texture of the poem is very helpful in understanding its meaning. Whitman's structural brilliance shines through in this poem, helping the reader grasp the concept that all things are but one.
Throughout the poem, there is repetition of the line “I am the man, I suffer'd, I was there, ” to emphasize his empathy. He also includes alliteration such as “rent roofs” and powerful imagery like “the long roil of the drummers” to liven the poem. Additionally, he helps the reader experience the events in the poem by using similes to compare the challenges to things that the reader has experienced. One line reads, “The twinges that sting like needles his legs and neck”. In the poem, Whitman becomes the heroes, but by incorporating the literary devices, Whitman allows the reader to experience the same experience as the heroes as
The theme in “A Noiseless Patient Spider,” “is the quest, or exploration, for meaning and knowledge in the vastness of the universe” (Cummings). He elucidates this idea through the symbolization of a spider and human. He describes the actions of the spider and connects it with the behavior of a human in order to get his idea across. He also uses repetition. Line four says, “it launched forth filament, filament, filament out of itself” (Whitman 723). Filament is reiterated. It is what spiders do when they are loo...
Once one moves past the surface features of the poem, it is hard not to notice the poem’s extensive use of repetition in various forms. The first one that comes to mind is the repetition of the word “far,” which is used to emphasize the greatness of the depth at which the kraken lives (Line 2). More subtle, however, is the alliteration of the s and h sounds throughout the poem: there are twelve words in the poem in the poem that start with an s and ten words that start with an h. This helps enhance the cadence and rhythm of the poem. Anaphora also occurs in this poem: deep is repeated at the ends of lines one and thirteen and sleep is repeated in lines three and twelve. This repetition is used to emphasize important concepts the exposition of the poem - the fact that the
“Guns don’t kill people, people kill people,” I have often heard. We know people kill people. The real issue now is whether or not people can change people. Some are of the opinion that we are capable of doing so; by implementing new reforms and tightening school security, people are, in effect, saying they have the solutions to the problems. The violence of recent school shootings has wrought anxiety and fear in parents, teachers, and administrators across the nation. The massacre of Columbine turned a public school library into a cemetery. The shooting in Oklahoma ripped us from the comfort of a stereotypical and easily recognized threat; now popular straight-A students pull guns without black trench coats. The violence has become unpredictable and, in all cases, extremely frightening. In response to the threat, schools have engaged in extensive prevention programs, often banning book-bags, implementing dress codes, setting up metal detectors, or requiring students to attend anger management classes. Such attempts at reform sound efficient on paper and may to some extent alleviate the anxieties of parents, but they are like storming castle walls with slingshots. The object of reform in this case is not tangible or always plausible. The object of reform is the human heart, the internal person. We need to understand that the problem is bigger than a trench coat or a gun; therefore, dress codes or metal detectors cannot solve it. These reforms are often vain attempts at prevention. They hinder education and provoke students. Policy makers and schools need to be aware that no simple public mandate can suffice as a solution.
Repetition is used profoundly to help the reader understand the symbols and themes throughout the poem. It creates the emphasis that the speaker is praying and searching immensely for his connection to eternal life. It also creates an effect on the reader that the speaker and the spider are similar in the same way, repeating similar actions. “Artful repetition of keywords and phrases occurs throughout ‘A Noiseless Patient Spider.’ This is a strategy Whitman employs in many poems … but it is particularly appropriate here, because the repetition echoes the repetitive nature of the spider’s actions and longings of the soul,” (Napierkowski and Ruby 31: 192-193). The repetition portrays the yearning desire of the spider and the speaker to find their connections. In the second stanza Whitman writes, “Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them…” (Whitman 212). He repeatedly uses verbs in this line to show how tremendously the speaker wants to find his reattachment to society. It emphasizes the persistent activity of the speaker’s soul. Repetition is one of the many great rhetorical devices Whitman uses. Not only is it shown in this poem, but he also uses it in many other poems to create themes and different aspects. “Whitman’s poetry exudes a sense of music throughout, not in the traditional manner, but in a new vein, much of it emanating from his expertise in using the repetition of sounds, words, and phrases to create expressive rhythms,” (Philip K and Irons-Georges 5: 2704). This rhetorical device has created many different characteristics in Whitman’s poems, and has especially created one in “A Noiseless Patient Spider.” Without his repetition throughout the poem, the portrayal of the themes separateness and desire for connection would not have been understood by the
School violence has become an increased peril, affecting not only those involved, but the society in itself. The underlying reason for this phenomenon is that it is derived from bullying and easy access of weapons. It can even happen by the hands of a person who does not attend the school where the act takes place. Bullying has become an epidemic in America amongst school children. Though there are rules enforced about weapons at school, the weapon is usually not detected until the incident takes place. I have witnessed violence in the form of fighting while in school, however, I have never imagined that it has become so aggressive and affects children at younger ages. We must take a bold stand to stop these incidents from occurring!
While school violence can increase through neglect, it can also occur at any spontaneous moment. The alleged growing surge of school violence led the general public, state, and government to demand a higher need for security and harsher rules in the twentieth century (Packaged Facts 2000 as cited in Simmons, 2009). These strict rules and security produces the birth of a neo prison industrial complex within schools through heightened forms of surveillance and SROs.
In this section, the links between parental education levels and their children’s violent behavior at school will be discussed.
Whitman uses the extended metaphor to compare how hard a spider works to connect things on a smaller scale to how hard he will have to work to connect things on a larger scale. The first stanza talks about a spider that is always surrounded by empty space and how it works hard to create a spider
The author of the poem relies a multiple combination of uses of figurative language including using alliteration, assonance, and usage of parallel structure. Alliteration was presented multiple times through the poem, with the usage of musical rhythm and the flow of the overall writing. The usage of alliteration made every stanza stand out to create a flow with reading the poem. The first type of alliteration that is present in the poem is the repeated sounds in the beginning
In “A Noiseless Patient Spider”, Walt Whitman compares the images of a spider creating a web to catch its prey to his own soul. In the first stanza, he describes the spider creating its web. In the second stanza, he begins to describe his own soul searching for something it needs. Throughout the poem, Whitman is relating the spider to the human soul by showing how both would pursue and capture what they need to continue to exist in this life.
Society has suffered from various factors that are contributors of school violence. These factors are personal, family, school, and environmental.
In “On the Beach at Night Alone,” Walt Whitman develops the idea that everyone has a connection with everything else, including nature. Whitman uses a variety of writing techniques to get his point across. First, the repetition and parallel structure that his poems contain reinforce the connection between everything in nature. The usage of “All” 11 times emphasizes the inclusion of everything in the universe. The sentence structure remains the same throughout the poem, without any drastic change; however, the length of the lines in the poem vary. In addition, Whitman’s’ extravagance with his words further illustrates his idea of the Over-Soul. For example, “A vast similitude interlocks all” (4) shows his verbose nature. Whitman does not do directly to the point, but gives every little detail. Most importantly, Whitman’s’ use of catalogues stands as the most recognizable Whitman characteristic that illustrates his beliefs. These long lists that he uses set the mood of the poem. “All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, suns, moons, planets,” (5) shows the idea that everything is connected in nature. Similarly, “All nations, colors, barbarisms, civilizations languages.” (10) furthermore emphasize Whitman’s belief in the Over-Soul.