Critique of... Perceptions of Violence: The Views of Teachers Who Left Urban School

There is a problem that both students and teachers face each day in Urban Schools. The dilemma that always surfaces is the threat of violence. The article interviews many of the teachers that worked in Urban Schools to better understand why the teachers left in the first place. The consensus was that they left because they were scared of the violence that existed in the school. Also, in some instances the reason why the left was because there was a lack of supplies that were needed to help facilitate the learning process.
The conclusion that can be drawn from this article is that these teachers have a preconceived notion about how inner schools and students act and think. They are more or less prone to violence. It is because of these perceptions that teachers automatically look for and expect that sort of reaction from the students and their environment. It seems that because of the media many of the students feel obligated to achieve this self prescribed prophecy and the teachers are looking for it.
I don’t like to believe that the media has that much of a hold on our thoughts and perceptions of a particular group of community. To a certain extent I do believe that we are all greatly influenced by the media, but I want to give people the benefit of the doubt that they are more independently driven instead of media influenced. If we do believe that people are influenced by the media than that expectation is all that we look for. Therefore, our pedagogy will be greatly damaged… especially in an Urban School where our perceptions are all negative.
In one of our previous articles, we discussed that most of the media’s depiction of urban students are all negative and in order for social order and obedience to take place a lone teacher must whip these students into shape. Like I said earlier, I don’t want to believe that we are influenced by media. What I can say is that the media works in some strange ways and the ideologies that it projects are imbedded in our subconscious. So, we might not even notice that he have negative perceptions about a particular group, but because of that our pedagogy and interactions will be greatly influenced.