fist stick knife gun

i should be working on the lesson plan for tomorrow's class. my co-fellow and i are going to read a book called "my lost teeth" and then have the students make models of their own mouth by pasting in paper teeth into paper lips.  it will, of course, be differentiated for each student.  for the ones who can count, the teeth will be labeled different numbers that they have to put in order.  for the ones who can look at an image and verbally identify it, we hope to get them to point at the paper mouth (and then their own) and say "mouth," teeth and say "teeth," etc.  

the semi-irony is that today i was bit by one of my students...it was sort of inevitable, but damn, hurt nonetheless. and with the classroom not being my own, with few structures in place, i'm not quite sure what to do about it--i'm not sure that the teacher even knew it happened; i didn't want to make it even worse (he wound up biting someone higher up on the pecking order of the summer institute right after, so that sparked a lot of attention). 

Anyway! 

here is what geoffrey canada, founder of harlem children zone, has to say about school "safety." it's a clip from his memoir, Fist Stick Knife Gun, which i strongly, fervently, pleadingly recommend to anyone and everyone.. the stats are a bit old, but still ring true..

"Schools in America are dangerous places.  According to a 1991 study by the Centers for Disease Control, approximately one in twenty-five high school students carries a gun...It strikes me that while metal detectors may prevent a few guns from coming into the school, they have no real impact on the children's sense of safety.  Children simply get the message 'if you're going to shoot someone, it will not be in school. You must shoot them coming to school, or going home from school, but not in the school building."..School is too often the child's learning ground about the impotence of adult authority when it comes to violence."