As for later years, schools took a zero-tolerance policy, so that would have cut down on it significantly. With social media use increasing towards the end of the 2000s, fights could have been reduced further because people did not want to end up as a punchline (no pun intended) on Worldstar or Vine.
I experienced way more violence in my late teens and early twenties thanks to drinking in dodgy towns.
If you read Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer and Huck Fin, boys fighting, even if they just met seemed to be part of life.
> The summer evenings were long. It was not dark, yet. Presently Tom checked his whistle. A stranger was before him—a boy a shade larger than himself. A new-comer of any age or either sex was an im-pressive curiosity in the poor little shabby village of St. Petersburg. This boy was well dressed, too—well dressed on a week-day. This was simply astounding. His cap was a dainty thing, his close-buttoned blue cloth roundabout was new and natty, and so were his pantaloons. He had shoes on—and it was only Friday. He even wore a necktie, a bright bit of ribbon. He had a citified air about him that ate into Tom’s vitals. The more Tom stared at the splendid marvel, the higher he turned up his nose at his finery and the shabbier and shabbier his own outfit seemed to him to grow. Neither boy spoke. If one moved, the other moved—but only sidewise, in a circle; they kept face to face and eye to eye all the time. Finally Tom said: “I can lick you!”
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/74/74-h/74-h.htm#c1
I'm not from that culture myself but I know people who are.
Definitely tapered off the last couple years of high school, but some of the rougher kids continued to engage it. Those kids pretty quickly got into serious enough trouble that they ended up in jail, expelled, on probation. That quieted things down a good bit.
This was common for other people who I met later that from developing nations. Not sure if this still happens anymore.
https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/02/an-updated-le...
[ EDIT for the downvoters: this isn't a joke or some snide remark. The lead hypothesis as the basis for the huge spike in violence in various societies, especially among teenagers and young adults, has huge amounts of evidence. Correlation is not causation, but we even have a plausible causal mechanism. ]
Fights were not uncommon. I saw probably 8 or 10 inside school and a handful more after school at designated spots over 4 years in high school.
It was a suspension offense but no police or record was involved.
I won't go into details about my involvement in any school fights, but there were 2 incidents with tormentors at new schools that were quickly resolved and I lived in peace thereafter nor do I regret my actions. Besides I was like 8 and 11 years old at those times.
I don't think those "rougher" times were good and I'm glad there is less of that now. Still (and this might be personal bias), I can't help feeling like we lost something in the sense there is a fundamental underlying biological reality and people are shocked when they find out it actually exists underneath everything and people are more balanced if they learn this at an emotional level early.
I think these are the conditions we evolved under (constant threat of violence and need to deal with it) so even though it's not good and people got hurt and killed needlessly, we are somewhat adapted to that and changing the circumstances makes us a bit neurotic. Or something along those lines.
Without lead.
It's so weird that someone would say they didn't go to a violent school, but there were constant fights. Violence doesn't mean "weekly school shootings."
I did encounter some, but it was more like we as kids watched a lot of US media and thought this was how we needed to behave but were more “playing at it” than actually being vindictive.
My one fight in school was with the “toughest” kid in my age group (I was the nerdy outsider they were bonding over to defeat), we duked it out in the yard with half of the school watching, and didn’t get a clear winner. We both got tired and called it quits.
Both got reprimanded of course. Weirdly enough that was the most violence I’ve encountered in my life, period.
I blame video games. Aggressive teens got an outlet where they can establish rankings, troll, be dicks, or defend others, with zero parent supervision.
In my case, since it was done in computer cafes, it had its strong social aspect, with crowds cheering, gangs and clans. Counter Strike was more of a religion to us than anything. And it was so much fun that we didn’t really need “the real thing”.
Fights and bullying were extremely common in my schools (went to several), though they were the standard public ones (I'm not even sure there were private schools at the time). Late 90s to very early 00's.
I see nowadays it's much less common, as kids are all on smartphones, they've got no time for any physical activities. Silver linings, I guess. Kids still exclude the less "cool" ones, but at least no one (or fewer of them) gets spit on and beaten up.
fights were few and between. those that i remember had ethnic background.
Same years, 5km apart, different experiences. ...Maybe just a different recollection of the experiences.
I don't think it's that way anymore.
I didn't go to a very violent school, and fights got rarer as age made them more serious. My parents also treated it as normal. They didn't encourage it, but it wasn't a major outrage. Schools too. A note to parents or somesuch minor penalty was the usual recourse.