R.E.M., anyone?

In spite of all the jokes I've made or heard or cartoons I've seen regarding the end of the world, I had no idea what serious business it was to some people.  I should have guessed, though, after such events as the members of Heaven's Gate cult committing suicide back in 1997 in order to meet the 'mother ship' that was trailing comet Hale-Bopp.  But then I heard a news story about how so many people were contacting the astrobiologists at the NASA site about December 2012 and the end of the Mayan calendar that NASA felt compelled to post videos and facts debunking that myth.  The really sad part is that the 'Ask an Astrobiologist' writer has received emails of people contemplating suicide and stories of children who have nightmares and can't sleep because they're so worried.  Adults have the ability to reason through this; small children don't.  In fact, sometimes the teens I teach don't seem to have that ability, either.

I, as most teachers I know, are usually as busy on the weekends (grading, lesson planning) as during the week.  And if they're procrastinators, as I sometimes am, then Sunday evenings can be a very stressful time of playing catch-up.  The particular weekend I'm thinking about occurred three years ago.  I had everything done by mid-afternoon Sunday (tests graded, lessons planned, supplies bought for an upcoming lab AND all my housework done!), so I called some friends and we went out for a movie and dinner.  It was so unusual for me to go out on a Sunday evening (and put me in such a buoyantly good mood for Monday), that I joked around with one of my classes that I now knew for sure the world was coming to an end.  I didn't explicitly state that it was because of my actions on Sunday evening, but I had just been talking about the movie I had seen (before we got down to the hard work of stoichiometry), so I assumed my students would take it as a joke in the fashion of, "Little Susie Q ate her Brussel sprouts; the world must surely be coming to an end!"  You know, that kind of hyperbole that makes you smile.

After class, two of my students came to me with worried and serious looks.  "Mrs. A, how are you so sure the world is coming to an end?  Is it because of the Mayan calendar thing?" I must have made a kind of strangled sound from choking back laughter (I didn't want to offend them), and explained I knew no such thing with certitude; I had just done something unusual for me on a Sunday evening, so I joked about the world ending because of it.  The girls looked relieved, and one told the other, "See?  I told you she was joking!"  Umm, sure.

Piaget was correct in his observations about concrete vs. abstract thinkers and the range of ages it takes to reach the abstract stage.  And sometimes we forget that to the potential detriment of our young listeners.  So, here's to the end of nightmares and not the world!