"The average American child will witness 200,000 violent acts on television by age 18." Federal Communications Commission

There has been a great deal of discussion lately about allowing teachers to bring guns to school or to hire armed security guards for every school. School districts are finding themselves go from discussing BYOD to discussing BYOG. This sad time in public education should lead to a larger national discussion about violence and mental health in our society.

We need to have an honest discussion about violence in the media.

Our students are surrounded by violence. It makes its way to our television screens through police dramas and becomes a reality that we hear about on the news. We cannot watch the local news without hearing about shootings, robberies and arrests. The national news gives us violent stories from across our nation and around our world. If we choose to turn on our televisions we are at risk of breathing in toxic stories that we never seem to learn from.

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