Physical altercations with  peers can be caused by a variety of reasons; self defense or perhaps a disagreement between two people. According to Psychology Today, The most common cause of fights today are a lack of mutual or empathic understanding and usually result in a bad feeling from both parties. Some may regret the way they acted after they have been told what their consequences are; while others may not because they needed to release built up anger. At Antioch Community High School, the deans are responsible for dealing with student violence and giving out punishments that fit the crime.

Often times when student disputes turn into violence, it’s mainly caused by a lack of maturity to handle a disagreement. With many teenagers being dependant on technology, cyberbullying has evolved over the years, causing arguments with a simple tap on a screen. When students leave school, there isn’t certainty that their issues with others won’t go away due to their easy access to others through social media.

“Often times these fights have to do with a disagreement between the two parties and sometimes it might not even involve the people in the fight,” Dean Grant Murray said. “Most times social media is involved when someone says something about someone else and it gets blown out of proportion and now you have people throwing fists and a bigger situation that we now have to handle.”

According to Psychology Today, students lash out differently depending on the situation, as well as the experiences they have outside of school. Someone may have problems outside of school that can make them lose control and lash out in a bad way towards others.

“I got in a fight last year and was suspended for it,” sophomore Shane Ibrahim said. “I regret what I did because the fight was for an irrelevant reason. I was a freshman so I wasn’t that mature but I thought it was cool but afterwards I regretted it because the consequences weren’t worth it.”

When most fights occur, there is typically built up anger involved. The deans still aren’t always able to figure out the reasons as to why these seemingly fights keeps occuring, but they are constantly looking for ways to put an end to them so we can resolve all problems.

“Sometimes it worries me when my friends get into fights because I don’t like them being in bad situations,” sophomore Javanni Redd said. “I’m also the type of person to try and break up a fight because I’m not into violence and I don’t like when it happens, especially with people I know and I wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to one of my close friends.”

The majority of the  fights at ACHS aren’t ones with serious injuries. The fights are most likely a disagreement between people and it is handled before the situation gets worse. Not only do the deans handle fights, there are also security guards and other teachers that may be in that area and want to restrain the fights from occurring.

“As soon as I hear a fight is going on I want to get to the location as soon as possible,” Murray said. “In a lot of cases, with the fights we have here, there aren’t many serious injuries.”

All teachers, security guards and deans want the place to be a safe environment. According to Murray, Violence has never been encouraged at ACHS, and never will be; it is a place of pride, respect and responsibility.

“When fights break out it is typically because people can’t control it anymore,” Murray said. “There is usually lots of built of anger and aggravation inside and we can not pinpoint the reason why fights happen frequently or else it would be a lot easier to put an end to these fights so that they can stop frequently occuring.”  

A fight is fueled by others reactions surrounding the event; if no one has invested in the dispute, then it will most likely stop. One might want to help, while others prefer to stand back and take videos to post. The ones who want to break up the fight may have a friend in the fight or they may not like violent situations. Either way, students at ACHS are encouraged to not interfere with a fight, but instead get a security guard or teacher to help.