le to employ reason if one is to be moral, Dewey says this is not possible. Does this mean no one can be moral? Or is one wrong? Or is morality, as Dewey says, a matter of habit? I will follow a combination of Baier and Dewey, that morality is largely a habit (though not entirely) but actions against society's agreed upon morality can be influenced by reason.
Besides training teachers to implement a new program of avoiding and preventing violence, the teachers themselves will have to be trained to avoid the appearance of abuse or violence. This "training" will come to a very fine line between necessary discipline, necessary concern or love for the students, and maintaining the professional demeanor that avoids accusations of impropriety. In one school a poster in the teacher's lunchroom shows a cute picture of two chipmunks hugging with the caption "A hug is worth a thousand words, but is it worth your job?" This sums up the fact that teacher's can no longer be the kind of emotional support they once were able to be.
But the limitations on teacher's actions go further than hugs, to include language that demeans. But here is where the line becomes fine. "You haven't done your homework, you haven't done your classwork, you are not able to do times tables." is an accurate and necessary statement the student needs to hear, whether he or she wants to or not. The students do need to hear the truth, however much it hurts. On the other hand, they should not hear opinions, however much they sound good, because opinions will cause the pain of acting on a false belief. Hence, comments of one's quality or lack of quality being based on race, sex, or religion should be excluded.
The program to end school violence can also begin there. Students can be taught, indoctrinated, and even brainwashed, that their membership is in the group called the human race, exclusive of skin color or supposed land of origin. Their "group" or "gang" is th...