Resources for Teachers and Students
Prepare: Geoffrey Canada is CEO of a pioneering
project called the Harlem Children's Zone, a community-based
organization that enhances the quality of life for children
and families in some of New York City's most devastated
neighborhoods. His biography
can be found on the organization's website.
Read:
Geoffrey Canada's Architects
of Peace essay is excerpted from his book, Fist , Stick,
Knife, Gun: A Personal History of Violence in America. In
it, he describes how society has failed its children, and
how that failure results in violence.
Explore: The University of Colorado sponsors a Conflict
Resource Consortium that has become the premier clearinghouse
for information on conflict resolution and peacemaking.
Their resources cover the entire scope of interpersonal
conflict, including family conflicts, school conflict, inter-group
conflict, organizational conflicts and even international
conflict.
Write: In his Architects of Peace essay, Geoffrey
Canada claims that children need heroes because "Heroes
give hope, and if these children have no hope they will
have no future." Is there a cause-and-effect relationship
between hopelessness and violence? Is a hopeful person less
likely to engage in violence than a person who has no hope
for the future? Write a three-to-four page personal essay,
from the point of view of your own first-person experience,
about the relationship between hope and violence.
Extend:
Every day, eight children in the United States of America
are killed by gun violence. Pax,
Latin for "peace," is an organization that offers
real solutions to gun violence, both through their "Speak
Up" hotline for students and their "Ask"
program for parents. The idea for the hotline, 1-866-SPEAKUP,
is predicated on the fact that in the great majority of
school shootings, the attackers told other students about
their plans before those plans were carried out. According
to Pax, 93% of weapons confiscations are the result of tips
coming from peers.
Additional Resource: The National
Youth Violence Prevention Resource Center is a gateway
to U.S. government resources to prevent violence committed
by and against young people. They make extensive materials
available for professionals, parents, the press and for
young people through their website.
Biography of Geoffrey
Canada