Mark Snyder’s eighth-grade government students at Shirland School have been studying the meaning of citizenship. As part of their study, students have learned that citizens have several rights, responsibilities, and duties. One of the responsibilities of citizenship is to be engaged in your community.
As a way to put that responsibility into practice and as a culmination of our study, students selected a topic of interest or concern, researched it, and wrote a letter to the editor on that topic.
“As their teacher, I often find myself disagreeing with the opinions of my students, and the students often disagree with each other as well,” Snyder wrote. “Part of responsible citizenship is learning to appreciate the opinions of others civilly, even when those opinions differ from our own.”
Student letters will appear on these pages in the coming weeks.
Recently I have been hearing about so many child abuse cases. This is not ok.
Child abuse does not only hurt the child, it can cause the child to become violent. Child abuse can cause long term effects on the victim such as impacts to health, opportunity and well-being.
According to the CDC, child abuse and neglect can cause children to do poorly in school, include not getting sent with proper lunches, and cause children to not even feel safe at their school.
People who neglect and abuse their children are teaching the child that violence is normal. This could cause the child to abuse other children or even their own children in the future.
One way to prevent this is if you see a friend or a student sad or even injured you need to understand what they’re going through, talk to them and report it to an adult if they are injured.
At least 1 in 7 children are abused or neglected in America and in 2021, 1,820 children died from neglect and abuse. This is not ok. People abusing their children are just causing violence at school, home and around their own family.
Dalynn Kneifl, Rockton
This article originally appeared on Rockford Register Star: Child abuse and neglect causes more harm than most think | Letter
Reporting by Dalynn Kneifl, Special to the Rockford Register Star / Rockford Register Star
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
