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Instead of notebooks, students carry weaponsWHY THE POWER OF THE WORD IS REPLACED WITH THE POWER OF THE FIST AND THE SLAP?

Vecer, 23.12.2011
 
The wounded student in a bus who was returning from school, the children’s quarrel between two groups of primary school students in Skopje, Cair that ended up with a stabbed student, the massive fight amongst the high school students from Ohrid and Struga and the lifeless body of the student Muhamed Jashari are just part of the many physical attacks among today’s youth, who throughout the years replaced the power of the word with the power of the fist and the slap. Given the fact that in the past year and a half, there were 57 registered cases of student’s bulling, it is not hard to realize that the children of the 21st century are filled with wrath and anger. Therefore the hospitals are full with severely injured students, some of them stabbed with knife, even with bullet wounds in the chest. The experts describe this situation as worrying, and they say that the fault lies in the system. They warn that not only the school desks started losing their function, but also the parents fail to cope with the battle called education. Therefore we get a final product called aggressive youth.

The emergence of the aggression is a complex concept that depends not only on one factor. On one hand we can blame the contents which can be found on the social networks, the internet, the print media, the television, and on the other hand there is the emotional bond with the parents which in some families exists and in others it does not. The third one is the social sector, ranging from changes in working hours, carrying children to kindergarten at a very early age, the way the children are treated in kindergarten etc., says the psychologist Maja Lutovska, adding that we should not exclude the possibility that some children inherit the aggression.

The family as primary socialization, according to the psychologists, has the biggest influence as the children do not learn by words but by models. The parental practice during the upbringing is consisted of conversations in which the parents teach their children what is good and what is bad, not taking into account that while performing their everyday duties they do bad things.  Also the struggle for existence of the unemployed, and keeping the job at any cost are the things that form the alienation between the children and their parents, which later results with frustration or complex attention, and in the end with aggression.

Today, at home people cannot talk, they yell. The parents yell why the child didn’t eat, why he ate out, not at home, why he didn’t write homework, why is he dirty etc. The high tone of the voice incites aggression in the children, adds Lutovska while stressing that the violent contents that bombard today’s children are second, but still an important factor that increases the aggression among the youth. About the education, she thinks that it lost its function and became self-education in which there is no education part.

The sociologists as the psychologists are concerned about the frequent incidents in the school yards. They see the solution in a more efficient domestic education, and also in establishing professional services in the schools that will discuss and will build an emotional connection with the young people. Through the corridors of the schools there is a need for professional service which will be composed of social workers and psychologists who will work with the children and talk to them, says the sociologist Hristina Ljubenovska, and adds that the children who are constantly teased, mocked and violently humiliated either home or at school, are feeling rejected, outcasted, worthless or have low self-confidence. If these children are not given an adequate support by the professional services in dealing with these feelings, they may express them in inappropriate ways, including aggression and other more severe forms of violence.

A similar point of view for this phenomenon is shared by the first children embassy "Megjasi". They say that the increasing violence amongst students is expected if we take into account how today’s children spend their childhood. According to them, the childhood today is surrounded by lots of violence, as well as many cartoons and TV shows full with brutality and aggression. The parents usually follow this kind of programs, and they are not paying attention how this will affect the formation of the personality of the child.

The parents lead their fast lifestyles and they are so occupied with providing financial resources that they don’t have enough time to spend with their children and to talk to them about the problems they are facing. Instead of spending more time with their children, playing interactive games, they give them videogames so that they can devote to their commitments, and almost every videogame is full of violence, add from Megjasi. Megjasi points out that the problem could be solved by introducing activities in the field of peace education in all the segments of the educational curriculums, which will greatly help in preventing violence.

The agencies that safeguard the schools give the opposite effect!?

At the time when I was going to school, all the classrooms were ensured by students, i.e. children monitors who were watching who comes and goes out of the classroom during the breaks. Today they are replaced with insuring agencies. I have to mention that this way of ensuring schools sends signal of insecurity to the children, which reflects with aggression, says Lutovska and Ljubenovska, while stressing that this does not solve the essential things, it simply protects the system. According to them the insurance is unnecessary sector in the schools. We need services which will give us the answer to the question where do the children find knives and guns from.