Everydayness of violence

Students I interviewed, wherever they were located, were clear that violence was all-pervasive in society and in their own lives. As one student said:

Violence is everywhere, all the time. Everywhere-it's like, a part of life in a way. It's like a part of life. No matter what walk of life you're from, if you're from an affluent family, or from a family that doesn't have a lot, or-it doesn't matter. Wherever you are on the spectrum, violence will somehow work its way into your life. And in a school, it's just like-violence is almost a cool thing. When you're a grade nine, you get initiated. They never caught me, though, I ran all the way to grade ten. They never caught me. But getting beat up when you're a grade nine in high school is like the norm. It's not even looked upon like-well, if the principal catches wind of it, he's a disciplinarian or whatever... But at that age you're vulnerable because you don't know who you are. You don't have an identity. You're still searching for what kind of group you belong to-what kind of circle you fit in-and your self-esteem level is unstable. (Kwame)

Students who had moved to Canada from different parts of the world were eloquent that there had been far too much violence in their lives, from war, from civil unrest and from other forms of violence witnessed in their communities. In regular classrooms, nobody spoke of violence they had experienced in the home, although I wondered in many groups how much of the silence and awkwardness was about what wasn't being said. In a grade nine classroom, the silences were especially tortuous. In a grade 12 classroom, one boy argued that there was little real violence in Canada-only the fear of violence created by stereotypes and media from the United States. A girl who had been pushed into a car in broad daylight was incensed by this argument, and other boys spoke of the presence of violence in their lives. Students repeatedly described the violence in school, or just outside school, that went on out of teachers' sight. Students generally spoke of the prevalence of violence, or the threat of violence, in all areas of their lives.

Violence is not an aberration that can be excluded from children's lives at home and at school. It is an everyday occurrence that needs to be acknowledged and addressed. In the face of this widespread experience of violence, the school and societal approaches of removing children from violence in the home and removing violent children from the school seems inadequate to maintain a safe learning environment or support learning for those who have experienced violence.