Carroll County Republicans created a flap when they auctioned off a Beretta to generate campaign funds.
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=745719&BRD=1289&PAG=461&dept_id=156627
Gun safety to be taught in the fall
By: Kevin Miller, Times Staff Writer.
Carroll school officials expect to incorporate their self-made gun safety curriculum into health education programs for students in kindergarten through grade nine this coming school year, officials said Monday.
The curriculum - developed by teachers, police and citizens during the past six months - uses annual lessons on decision-making and conflict resolution to better prepare children for situations involving a gun.
Lesson plans were developed with each age group's maturity level in mind. They range from puppet shows and role-playing for the youngest students to the possibility that ninth-graders could hear a real 9-1-1 tape of a call made after a person was accidentally shot.
The curriculum will not, however, include any hands-on exercises with guns and is in no way intended to be a shooting safety course, said people involved in drafting the lessons.
School officials opted to develop their own gun safety curriculum late last year after reviewing the National Rifle Association's ``Eddie Eagle'' program, which is a short assembly program aimed principally at elementary school children.
C. Scott Stone, president of the Carroll County School Board, said Monday that school administrators preferred to incorporate the gun safety lessons into the regular health and safety education programs rather than adding Eddie Eagle alone.
The new curriculum teaches the same basic message of Eddie Eagle - mainly, that if a child finds a gun, he or she should leave it alone, leave the area and tell an adult immediately - but is intended to reinforce that message with violence recognition and prevention lessons taught year after year.
In kindergarten, for instance, children will be taught safe behaviors in the home, school and community, as well as how to differentiate between dangerous and safe situations. The lesson plan, outlined in drafts of the curriculum, also calls for the use of hand puppets in a role-playing skit to stimulate discussion among students about handling specific situations.
By grade three, students will role-play such situations as finding a gun at the playground, encountering a sibling playing with a gun or discovering a gun left leaning in a corner after a father's hunting trip. Groups of children then will present a gun safety situation to the rest of the class and will be critiqued by the teacher and classmates.
Activities for middle-schoolers include asking students to watch their favorite shows and pay attention to the instances of violence in the programs. Students then will be asked to explain the consequences of the violence and how the situation may have been avoided, according to the curriculum drafts. Gun violence lessons will be taught alongside other violence recognition and prevention lessons.
The curriculum culminates in the ninth grade as students discuss relationships and self image and hear personal stories about gun violence victims. Part of the ninth-grade lessons may include listening to edited tapes of the 9-1-1 call made after 18-year-old Finksburg resident Sarah Mohlmann was shot in the head and killed when a friend handling a gun accidentally touched the trigger, said 1st Sgt. Dean Richardson, who worked on the curriculum as a representative from the Maryland State Police.
``What we are trying to do is bring realism into the picture here and explain to these kids that when you don't know about guns, just stay away,'' said Richardson.
Part of the challenge facing the group drafting the curriculum was to teach children the serious danger of guns without portraying all guns as bad, Richardson said. Demonizing all guns would not likely go over well with many in Carroll County's sizable population of gun owners, he added.
``But we want to get the message across that guns are deadly and they will kill you if you don't know how to handle them,'' he said.
The draft curriculum also has the support of one Manchester resident - John Price, who with his wife, Carole, has become one of Maryland's most prominent crusaders for tougher gun laws and increased gun education.
Price, whose 13-year-old son, John Jr., was accidentally shot and killed by a friend in 1998, praised the school system for its safety program. Price was asked by school officials to help review the drafts in March.
``I'm proud of Carroll County, which is sometimes perceived as being [made up of] very conservative, Republican people, for being open-minded and recognizing that this is a health issue that needs to be addressed and realizing that what happened to my family can happen to any family,'' Price said.
Price said Eddie Eagle had an honorable message, but he prefers the county's curriculum because it reinforces the messages of gun safety annually. Price also said he fears using cartoon characters in gun safety curriculum, such as those in Eddie Eagle, may send the wrong message to children.
``This is something that I can't see the right wing or the left wing complaining about because it is teaching safety,'' he said.
Dorothy Mangle, assistant superintendent of instruction with the county schools, said the pilot program will likely be instituted into the curriculum this year.
©Carroll County Online 2000
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=745719&BRD=1289&PAG=461&dept_id=156627
Gun safety to be taught in the fall
By: Kevin Miller, Times Staff Writer.
Carroll school officials expect to incorporate their self-made gun safety curriculum into health education programs for students in kindergarten through grade nine this coming school year, officials said Monday.
The curriculum - developed by teachers, police and citizens during the past six months - uses annual lessons on decision-making and conflict resolution to better prepare children for situations involving a gun.
Lesson plans were developed with each age group's maturity level in mind. They range from puppet shows and role-playing for the youngest students to the possibility that ninth-graders could hear a real 9-1-1 tape of a call made after a person was accidentally shot.
The curriculum will not, however, include any hands-on exercises with guns and is in no way intended to be a shooting safety course, said people involved in drafting the lessons.
School officials opted to develop their own gun safety curriculum late last year after reviewing the National Rifle Association's ``Eddie Eagle'' program, which is a short assembly program aimed principally at elementary school children.
C. Scott Stone, president of the Carroll County School Board, said Monday that school administrators preferred to incorporate the gun safety lessons into the regular health and safety education programs rather than adding Eddie Eagle alone.
The new curriculum teaches the same basic message of Eddie Eagle - mainly, that if a child finds a gun, he or she should leave it alone, leave the area and tell an adult immediately - but is intended to reinforce that message with violence recognition and prevention lessons taught year after year.
In kindergarten, for instance, children will be taught safe behaviors in the home, school and community, as well as how to differentiate between dangerous and safe situations. The lesson plan, outlined in drafts of the curriculum, also calls for the use of hand puppets in a role-playing skit to stimulate discussion among students about handling specific situations.
By grade three, students will role-play such situations as finding a gun at the playground, encountering a sibling playing with a gun or discovering a gun left leaning in a corner after a father's hunting trip. Groups of children then will present a gun safety situation to the rest of the class and will be critiqued by the teacher and classmates.
Activities for middle-schoolers include asking students to watch their favorite shows and pay attention to the instances of violence in the programs. Students then will be asked to explain the consequences of the violence and how the situation may have been avoided, according to the curriculum drafts. Gun violence lessons will be taught alongside other violence recognition and prevention lessons.
The curriculum culminates in the ninth grade as students discuss relationships and self image and hear personal stories about gun violence victims. Part of the ninth-grade lessons may include listening to edited tapes of the 9-1-1 call made after 18-year-old Finksburg resident Sarah Mohlmann was shot in the head and killed when a friend handling a gun accidentally touched the trigger, said 1st Sgt. Dean Richardson, who worked on the curriculum as a representative from the Maryland State Police.
``What we are trying to do is bring realism into the picture here and explain to these kids that when you don't know about guns, just stay away,'' said Richardson.
Part of the challenge facing the group drafting the curriculum was to teach children the serious danger of guns without portraying all guns as bad, Richardson said. Demonizing all guns would not likely go over well with many in Carroll County's sizable population of gun owners, he added.
``But we want to get the message across that guns are deadly and they will kill you if you don't know how to handle them,'' he said.
The draft curriculum also has the support of one Manchester resident - John Price, who with his wife, Carole, has become one of Maryland's most prominent crusaders for tougher gun laws and increased gun education.
Price, whose 13-year-old son, John Jr., was accidentally shot and killed by a friend in 1998, praised the school system for its safety program. Price was asked by school officials to help review the drafts in March.
``I'm proud of Carroll County, which is sometimes perceived as being [made up of] very conservative, Republican people, for being open-minded and recognizing that this is a health issue that needs to be addressed and realizing that what happened to my family can happen to any family,'' Price said.
Price said Eddie Eagle had an honorable message, but he prefers the county's curriculum because it reinforces the messages of gun safety annually. Price also said he fears using cartoon characters in gun safety curriculum, such as those in Eddie Eagle, may send the wrong message to children.
``This is something that I can't see the right wing or the left wing complaining about because it is teaching safety,'' he said.
Dorothy Mangle, assistant superintendent of instruction with the county schools, said the pilot program will likely be instituted into the curriculum this year.
©Carroll County Online 2000