I don't know a lot about the British school system but I'd say two things:
#1: Violence begets more violence, it's hard to say if these attitudes started (perhaps generationally) from bigger kids picking on them, and them trying to play the game back, or if it's them simply being jerks with a feeling of invulnerability.
#2: I'd be very careful in messing with 11 year olds for a number of reasons. One of course is that it can easily backfire on you if your caught, and you can get in serious trouble if you seriously hurt one and are signifigantly older. The second one is oddly enough that you might wind up getting yourself hurt or killed.
To explain the second point, I will say that the whole "Chav" thing seems similar to the US Gangsta problem. Gangs are a lot more sophisticated than they used to be, and even produce their own propaganda and youth recruitment/conversion. Kids who act like that might be trying to impress real gang members, or even actually be in a gang themselves.
To put things into perspective there was this one kid known as "Yummy" who made the news in the US. At the age of 11 he already had over 20 felonies on his record, and was excecuted by his own gang just like an adult when he became a liabiliy. Oh yes, and he was also a murderer having shot and killed one person, and is known to have opened fire with a gun on a couple of other occasions.
Not a joke:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Sandifer
A profile on the gang he belonged to:
http://www.ngcrc.com/bdprofile.html
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Now the thing to consider here is that this happened back in 1994, if anything the problem has gotten worse. You have kids selling drugs to other kids in elementary schools and everything else.
While the odds are still in your favor that a kid acting like that is probably harmless, keep it in the back of your mind that especially if they seem to be acting with others (and you really don't know them) you really could get shot and killed by some moron... and we're not talking about Columbine stuff here.
Don't get too paranoid, I could say more about it (and post other stuff besides perhaps the most famous case), just an FYI.
#1: Violence begets more violence, it's hard to say if these attitudes started (perhaps generationally) from bigger kids picking on them, and them trying to play the game back, or if it's them simply being jerks with a feeling of invulnerability.
#2: I'd be very careful in messing with 11 year olds for a number of reasons. One of course is that it can easily backfire on you if your caught, and you can get in serious trouble if you seriously hurt one and are signifigantly older. The second one is oddly enough that you might wind up getting yourself hurt or killed.
To explain the second point, I will say that the whole "Chav" thing seems similar to the US Gangsta problem. Gangs are a lot more sophisticated than they used to be, and even produce their own propaganda and youth recruitment/conversion. Kids who act like that might be trying to impress real gang members, or even actually be in a gang themselves.
To put things into perspective there was this one kid known as "Yummy" who made the news in the US. At the age of 11 he already had over 20 felonies on his record, and was excecuted by his own gang just like an adult when he became a liabiliy. Oh yes, and he was also a murderer having shot and killed one person, and is known to have opened fire with a gun on a couple of other occasions.
Not a joke:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Sandifer
A profile on the gang he belonged to:
http://www.ngcrc.com/bdprofile.html
-
Now the thing to consider here is that this happened back in 1994, if anything the problem has gotten worse. You have kids selling drugs to other kids in elementary schools and everything else.
While the odds are still in your favor that a kid acting like that is probably harmless, keep it in the back of your mind that especially if they seem to be acting with others (and you really don't know them) you really could get shot and killed by some moron... and we're not talking about Columbine stuff here.
Don't get too paranoid, I could say more about it (and post other stuff besides perhaps the most famous case), just an FYI.
