School fights are the most common form of school violence. School fights are problems between two or more students that get “resolved” with physical violence, cyberbullying, sexual violence, or the carrying of weapons, but most times it ends in a physical altercation. School fights happen from false rumors being started, bullying, or gossiping. The fights can be on school grounds or outside of school with a problem that started in school. If you see a school fight, the best thing to do is to call out the students’ names, but if you don’t know the students’ names, yell at them to stop, and if it gets to the point where you have to break it up physically, that’s what must be done.
School fights can be very impactful on students and their learning, even those who are outside of the fight. School fights can cause anxiety for other students, especially if they’re friends of the people involved in the fight. They could think that possibly they’ll be included in some way, and some students even have to be called out and questioned about details. Fights can be distracting from school work, and they can start even more unnecessary drama. It can be seen happening all the time in school, where fights between two people can cause a whole new group of people who are friends with the aggressors to start drama, fights, bullying, etc.
There are only a few ways that school fights can be prevented, and even then, they’re not very effective because, whether you try to prevent them or not, they’re going to happen. But a few ways that they can be prevented are through sending messages to students widely through assemblies, threatening discipline for fighting and violence in school, and security guards and police officers, which many schools have and do a pretty good job at preventing fights.
Violence is a very big issue in schools because that’s not what you’re there for; you’re there to learn, and if there’s fighting going on, this can take you off the path to success. Violence overall can have a really big negative impact, especially in schools, and even more so in high schools. At this time, you’re supposed to be setting yourself up for a successful future, and if you’re focused on fighting instead of your education, you could be setting yourself up for a less successful outcome. Another big problem with school violence and school fights is that they lead to drug and alcohol abuse. If you’re caught up in a lot of situations, you’re going to want to find a way to reduce your stress and get your mind relaxed. Sometimes you think the best option would be to try drugs or alcohol, which is never the case. And in some very extreme cases, these fights could also cause suicide among students.
Some people say that the rate of school fights is decreasing, but I think that’s mainly because technology has a really big advantage over people and can be used in ways that it’s not supposed to. So now, instead of mostly physical altercations between students, these fights and bullying can be done through technology and online. These are still counted as school fights, but mostly are done off of school property. So unless it’s brought up at school or a physical fight is caused because of it, nothing can really be done by the school if they don’t know about it since it’s online on these individuals’ phones, computers, tablets, etc.
The danger of school fights is that they can easily escalate from just using your hands to harm somebody physically to using guns, knives, and other weapons. It makes it a lot more difficult to break up fights and prevent them when you don’t know what the situation is. If it’s a physical altercation between two people and they’re using their hands, this can be broken apart, but when guns and other things are involved, it’s a lot more difficult to break these things up because then the person breaking it up is putting their own life at risk.
Some people don’t take fighting in school as seriously until threats are involved, like threats of bombing, shooting, or taking somebody’s life or somebody around them, so the dangers of this could easily escalate into something risking people’s lives, and it should be taken a lot more seriously than it is. At this rate, students would fight over any little disagreement, and this little disagreement could turn into a whole new group of dangers and ideas.
In short, engaging in fighting in school can affect you short-term or long-term, depending on how big of a fight you were in and the consequences that you received at school. You can have short-term or long-term physical injuries, legal consequences, emotional and psychological effects, academic consequences, social and peer relationships can be damaged, you have an increased risk of future violence, it’ll leave a negative impact on your mental health, and you may have reduced educational and career opportunities. If you weren’t in that bad of a fight, it really won’t affect you later on, but it can affect you while you’re in school. If you’re in a bad fight where there are legal consequences, this can really affect your future. You can have physical injuries that last your lifetime, all because of some disagreement that you had as a teenager. Which can have emotional and psychological effects on you and may traumatize you. It can mess with your education and prevent you from getting a future job if you have to miss school from being in fights, and it could have legal consequences that will stay on your record and can mess up opportunities that you have later on in your relationships with your peers; your reputation might be damaged, which can lead to social isolation; or you can be seen as a troublemaker and not a great person to be around. If you engage in school fights, you also have an increased risk of future violence. Students who engage in invites are more likely to resort to violence later on in life when they have altercations that can simply be solved by talking about things.
