Violence is pervasive in our society and schools need to offer an alternative way to deal with conflict to prevent Columbine-type tragedies.

The Columbine High School massacre in 1999 was seen as a watershed moment in the US - the worst mass shooting at a school in the country's history.

Three school shootings in the past decade have surpassed that death toll: 2012's Sandy Hook Elementary School attack, in which a gunman killed 26 children and school staff; the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, which claimed the lives of 17; and more recently the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 children and two adults were murdered on 24 May 2022.

A mass shooting is an incident in which four or more people, excluding the perpetrator(s), are shot in one location at roughly the same time. The American public are momentarily shocked when these shootings happen, but seem to continue as normal.

South Africans too seem to take violence in their stride. Recent newspaper articles caution that violent crime is threatening to turn our public schools into war zones. Earlier this year a primary school principal was shot at school by a pupil. There was a small outcry, but schools continued as normal.

The truth in South Africa is that violence already is a pervasive...