Reporting policies intended to create safety may instead exacerbate silences. When young people fear they will lose control if they disclose their experience, many will "choose" not to tell. But with this choice they lose connection and have little opportunity to think through the meaning of their experience, see how it is affecting their learning, and assess their options. When teachers and other professionals "choose" not to open up talk about violence, not to ask students why they are arriving late, skipping school, or misbehaving - fearing disclosures and the consequences of asking - they, too, preserve the silences. Students, teachers, and others all need opportunities to explore meanings further.

While the current reporting system remains in place, one possible way to break the silence may be for schools to seek to create more "spaces" which support students' critical reflection about their lives and the opportunity to consider the level of violence they experience, and provide information about the variety of resources they might be able to access. Students suggested that schools should explore creating more assemblies. In this forum the issues of violence could be introduced and different resource people such as Children's Aid workers, social workers, psychologists and psychiatrists could speak about how they address issues of violence, its legacy for the self and its impact on learning. Posters advertising resources such as the Kids' Help Line would help students to know how to contact places where they can speak confidentially about their experience. Where counselling and information on resources is widely and easily available there are more possibilities for students to access needed resources even if they feel unable to break silence about their own experience. Teachers who are concerned about students will be more able to ask them directly whether anything is wrong if they know that students who disclose understand that teachers must make a report to Children's Aid. Teachers are then able to give a clear message that they care and are concerned about students' wellbeing, rather than seeming to be simply judging their misdemeanours.

Violence at school:
move from confrontation to collaboration

Many of the students who are the perpetrators of violence in school will be those who are experiencing violence at home. Students who have been violent are only too aware of the way violence can quickly become part of their identity, and explained how hard it is to be seen or even to see themselves in a different light:

Don't think about the person who committed the violence as a perpetrator, think of them as a person. Because what I've seen in schools is that when you did something really bad, you get punished for it, and that cloud hangs over your head. It's like a shroud of shame that you have to walk with. So a lot of the kids end up going with a life of walking on that road for the rest of their lives... They don't take time to look at them as a person and wonder - why did you do this? (Zane Holder)