Why Some Students Fight
Part 3
The following is the second-place winner’s essay in the contest where students had to address the issue of fighting in public places. The second-place winner was Emon Shaw. His prize was $75.00. As a result of a donation from Somalia Doyle, who added to his original prize, he received a total of $100. Special thanks to Somalia for her support.
These essay contests present an opportunity for our youth to voice their opinions on an issue that affects them personally. This is the last essay on this subject. Emon and his family gave permission to publish his essay. The fights are continuing in our city. Now, they are affecting the business community, which has expressed outrage as to how they are impacting their businesses.
This Columnist is calling on parents and guardians to get involved with their children before someone gets hurt in these altercations. I appreciate the voices of the youth who wrote an essay. It is my hope that adults in our community have read their essays. The following is the essay from Emon Shaw, who is a 10th grade student at Burgard High School.
Here are the words of Emon: Fighting among youth is a problem. I see fighting every place. I’ve never fought outside of school, but I would like to see it decrease. I think students like fighting because when they fight they go into suspension and get suspended for 2-3 days. Then if we fight again, we get suspended. The principals and teachers don’t put a lot of pressure on the ones fighting. The consequences are not good enough for the actions they are doing.
Generally, people don’t want to look like a punk by talking it out. Sometimes when boys fight, it is to show off for the girls. However, this year a lot of girls are fighting instead of the boys. It can be over gossiping or someone saying something about their mom, or a beef, that is posted on Instagram or Snapchat.
My mom doesn’t want me to get into fights and she says you can talk it out, but if talking doesn’t work, you will have to protect yourself. I used to think that middle school was a game, so fighting became the norm. Now that I am in high school, I realize that fighting might get me kicked off the basketball team! Or worse, suspended and kicked out of school. Getting kicked out won’t impact my future goals that bad, because I can just go on to another school’s basketball team.
Reasons for fighting are many. People might have things going on at home. Some people have anger problems. I used to have poorly managed anger, but sitting in a corner calmed me down, or playing with a stress ball, or putting my head down for a while helped. Teachers kept telling me to count from 1 to 10, but I just got madder. Having my own space to calm down was the best strategy for me.
More pressure needs to be applied. I think everybody, students, teachers, and support staff should sit down in the auditorium and have a meeting about fighting. A planned panel where items that will be discussed would be helpful. What is going on now is not really working.
For adults trying to figure this out, I have one piece of advice: Keep trying! If adults stop trying, it would be like letting monkeys out of the zoo. Everything can’t be solved by fighting, but I know how some people feel. I worry about things “going left” with shooting and guns. People don’t handle things like it was back in the day. Back in the day, people would fight and become friends the next day. I would tell the Mayor to just keep doing his job. Keep trying until everything is good!
This Columnist would like to congratulate the winners of this essay contest. It takes courage to write and express your honest opinions. Perhaps one day you can write a book!!