School, Community, Business, and Neighborhood Partnerships
Not only the classroom needs to be safer. Physical environments in communities must be safe and well maintained. Public spaces can strengthen social relationships which, in turn, strengthen the support systems and resources available to youth. Physical environments’ characteristics influence crime, safety, and violence. Repairing and maintaining schools, neighborhoods, and common spaces, along with adequate lighting, opportunities to interact with nature, and availability of spaces that encourage positive social interaction are plagued by less violence, lower perception of the acceptability of violence, less opportunity for danger, and higher emotional satisfaction of residents. These characteristics show youth that the environment is safe, orderly, and caring which encourages them to act in safe, orderly, and caring ways, too. We model what we see all around us.
Schools can help by promote economic opportunities by offering students vocational skills, career and technical education, and interest-inventory based explorations of possible job matches that, with adequate training, can stabilize and increase economic growth for residents and businesses.
Since lack of opportunities for legal income increase risk of illegal activity and risk of violence, improving job skills and career awareness should decrease violence while increasing income and opportunity. Students who understand that there are legitimate and rewarding vocational opportunities in their future may not feel inclined to obtain money through illegal means such as drug sales or theft. Positive economic growth inherently increases neighborhood stability and encourages businesses and residents to improve health and safety while also providing economic growth opportunities.
Since it is known that positive connections among people in a community work to strengthen the community’s safety, health, and prosperity, offering students the chance to develop skills such as cooperation, teamwork, respectful interaction, and empathy can improve both the student’s sense of self as well as his or her participation and visibility in the community. Violence decreases with high collective efficacy.
Schools and communities must work together to change the notion that violence in any situation is acceptable. Carrying weapons and settling conflict with physical attack needs to be clearly labeled as unacceptable. Violence in both word and action must be shown as the evil it is. It will take whole school coordination in order to change the culture of normalized violence prevalent today. Focusing on studying the effects of kindness and cooperation as well as the effects of violence is imperative in order for students to see the benefit/harm relationship. Creative and innovative strategies can inspire students to lobby and work for cultural change by creating their own kindness projects as they endeavor to collect qualitative data on the results from others and themselves. Changing the culture will take frequent and multiple long-term teaching and learning. We can speed the process by allowing students to take ownership of projects so that they can eventually see themselves as the powerful change agents they can be.1
Although we may not be able to change the parenting our students now receive, we can change the parenting skills our students can learn for their current younger siblings and their future immediate families. Good parenting skills are not innate, but learned. Teenagers can benefit from an introduction to basic childhood development and psychology as well as parenting skills from infancy to adolescence.
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