We all know, without having to think too hard, that violence in our schools flows from the lived experience of our children.

Those who take knives, ice picks and other weapons to school do so because they believe they may feel the need to use them.

It’s not difficult to understand why many of our children think along those lines. Far too many come from communities and homes in which violence is commonplace and the option of first resort; where being feared by others is taken for granted, even a matter of pride.

It’s not by accident that Jamaica is widely seen as being among the most violent places on the planet.

That mindset, we believe, is how and why a knife came into play during a quarrel between two female students, leaving one dead, at Kingston Technical High School last week.

We are told that on a visit to the school following the tragedy, Education Minister Mrs Fayval Williams noted that the incident happened despite the presence of metal detectors to make sure such weapons are kept off the school compound.

The minister is reported as urging students to find peaceful ways of resolving conflicts as part of making schools safer.

“We have to reach the hearts and minds of you our students. We have to reach the hearts and minds of families from which you come…” Mrs Williams said.

Commenting on behavioural problems in schools, Member of Parliament for St Catherine North Eastern Ms Kerensia Morrison told her colleagues that “psychology” should be taken seriously. She argues that “conversation, reason, counselling, therapy must be part of the suite of methods used” in helping children.

No one in their right minds would argue against any of the above. It is obviously of great importance that every effort is made to so socialise and condition students, so that they see the value of intelligent, non-violent resolution to conflicts and problems.

However, the even greater, long-term challenge is those families — referred to by the education minister — and those communities from which the children come.

How to ‘resocialise’ entire households and communities? We refer to people, who may well recognise that violence is wrong, yet accept it as the norm and feel helpless to do anything about it.

We refer to people, many of whom became parents when they were teenagers; children, with no clear idea of how to bring up children. Many were parented by people in the same situation. Impoverishment and ignorance exacerbate and perpetuate. Almost inevitably, by-products include anger, resentment, and a sense of worthlessness.

And so the beat goes on.

We make no apologies for constantly arguing in this space for a mass mobilisation of society against a culture of violent crime and antisocial behaviour that is far too pervasive.

We believe that the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica’s $2-billion, five-year Project STAR (social transformation and renewal) targeting behaviour change in troubled communities could serve as at least part-template for such a mobilisation. Obviously parenting training would have to be part and parcel.

The long-standing tendency to throw empty words at our deeply embedded social problems makes no sense. It’s time to actually start doing something substantial about them.