> Favorite slightly-related story: while teaching a class of 8 year-olds one day, a student in the back opened up his desk, and pulled out a machete. My heart s

> Favorite slightly-related story: while teaching a class of 8 year-olds one day, a student in the back opened up his desk, and pulled out a machete. My heart stopped for a beat. He then proceeded to sharpen his pencil with the machete, then place it back in his desk. Haha. We did this all the time. Well, not with machetes, but what ten-year-old rural boy doesn't carry a pocket knife or a leatherman? In high-school, the only concession to the no-weapons-on-campus policy was that if we were going hunting before or after school, you had to park in the lot across the street, so that your rifle or shotgun wasn't technically on-premises. My father remembers going to elementary school with his friends and they just locked up their 30-30s in their lockers, and would go do a quick deer drive at noon recess.