Young boys are selling drugs in schools, becoming desensitised to gun violence and getting more sophisticated in their dealings with police, an educator told parliamentarians yesterday.Lisa Trott, a counsellor at Whitney Institute Middle School, told the joint select committee on violent crime and gun violence she was shocked by the attitude to fatal shootings of some ten and 11-year-olds.She said boys would come into school and, instead of appearing “sad or disappointed” that someone they knew had been killed, they would stand in the courtyard and compare statistics on the death toll.“We as counsellors were coming in expecting to have to do a lot of nurturing,” she said, adding that staff had overheard children aligning themselves with the gangs Parkside and 42 and discussing how many each gang had shot dead.“They are getting so accustomed to aggression and violence being there and they are desensitised by it,” she said. “They are not fazed in terms of how they display it.”The former Bermuda Union of Teachers (BUT) president revealed one boy sold prescription drugs to his female schoolmates and another sold marijuana.She said the latter almost told a policewoman who supplied him with the drug but, when she briefly broke off the conversation to get a pen, he made a call on his cell phone.“When she came back there was an attorney on the line and the attorney said ‘My client has nothing else to say to you at this time’.”Ms Trott suggested violent video games and poor male role models on television such as those in the show ‘Two and a Half Men’ and cartoon character Homer Simpson were a negative influence on young males.She said boys in both the private and public school system were struggling to match the attainment levels of girls and their academic problems often began at an early age.“They get serious about school in S3 or S4 but by that time they have failed middle school. They have failed S1 and S2 and they can’t catch up.”Ms Trott said studies done overseas had shown boys’ brains developed differently to girls’ and they were having to learn in a way for which they were not biologically equipped.Constantly getting bad grades and feeling left behind made them more likely to go on failing, she added.Ms Trott was one of three counsellors presenting to the bipartisan committee yesterday on behalf of the BUT.School therapist Shacolbi Basden said educators were “constantly bombarded” with inappropriate behaviour sometimes on a hourly basis by certain students.She said the behaviour included bad language, blatant disrespect, bullying, sexual gestures and a complete lack of motivation.Ms Basden said Bermuda needed to focus on family and suggested mandatory parenting lessons for pregnant women.She said single mothers were crying out for support and some knew their sons were bringing money home gained by illegal means but needed the cash.Clindel Lowe, a counsellor at CedarBridge Academy, agreed some boys took up crime to help their mothers. “Some males see an illegal or dysfunctional way of making ends meet as the only way to make ends meet,” she said.Ms Lowe offered five recommendations for change:l School resource officers from Bermuda Police Service to help students build good relationships with police;l More after-school programmes;l A non-punitive residential facility for some students;l More resources spent on counselling; andl Gang experts in schools.Committee chairman Randy Horton spoke out on expulsions, explaining that when members recently interviewed jailed murderers at Westgate they found many had been expelled from school as youngsters.