thankyou

Summary:

A few weeks ago my 15 year old so came home from school saying he was scared as they had been discussing this at school!

thankyou

Mel (guest) 30 Mar 2010 09:43

so to stop him worrying i began to research the topic and fell upon the doomsday sites, even I began to believe it, then for some reason i changed the wording of my search and stumbled upon this site, of which you answered every question I had even down to explaining this to my children, My son now has a link in his favourites so he can come back to if he has any worries or questions!!!! Thankyou for bringing us back to reality!!!

Re: thankyou

Astrogeek 30 Mar 2010 16:46

Hi Mel;

Welcome to the site, and I'm happy that we were able to help you and your son.

Yes, this stuff is making inroads into our schools. It's very unfortunate. This is how I got into debunking this myth, by the way, because I visit local elementary schools and give astronomy talks. The kids kept asking me about this stuff, and that is how I became involved.

There is more material that has yet to be posted, so if you or your son have any questions, please feel free to ask, and we'll try to address them. There are several people active in the forum here who have quite a bit of experience in dealing with this kind of stuff.

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"Do you ever think about things you do think about?" - Henry Drummond to Matthew Harrison Brady in Inherit the Wind

Re: thankyou

mel (guest) 30 Mar 2010 19:44

I think what amazed me was they were learning about the earths crust and this became part of the lesson! I wasnt there so I cant tell you exactly what was said, but whatever it was has certainly scared many of the kids as we had a large group of my sons friends here on the weekend and they all wanted to rent the movie 2012 so they could see what could happen!!! Kids are like sponges not all kids understand scientific part of any lesson, on this the one thing all they remember is the words THE WORLD WILL END IN 2012. The rest of the lesson is then be null and void because thats all they then want to know about.

Re: thankyou

Astrogeek 30 Mar 2010 21:15

I would be very surprised and angry if the whole "2012" scenario was discussed as part of a lesson on the earth's crust, unless the teacher was trying to "debunk" it. Is it possible that it was discussed in that context?

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"Do you ever think about things you do think about?" - Henry Drummond to Matthew Harrison Brady in Inherit the Wind

Re: thankyou

Lika (guest) 31 Mar 2010 11:47

Almost what happened in my son's class! And he's a fifth grader! They were studying outer space and at least three kids asked the teacher about "the 2012 doomsday"….yep that's right, 5th graders. Fortunately, we had already talked about it at home, using this site, and he was the only one who said it was all fake and the teacher agreed with him. He even told his classmates to go to this site and read up on it. Definately a proud mom moment.

Re: thankyou

Astrogeek 31 Mar 2010 14:27

Lika;

Thank you, and pass along a "thank you" to your son as well. That's what this site is for… to be shared. This story makes me very happy!

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"Do you ever think about things you do think about?" - Henry Drummond to Matthew Harrison Brady in Inherit the Wind

Re: thankyou

mel (guest) 02 Apr 2010 05:07

As I said I cant be sure in what context this was brought into the lesson and as I said before once the words world will end the kids stopped listening to the teacher and just focussed on the so called important bit, then one of my sons friends said well theyve made a movie about it so it must be true….. I have explained to them that there have been many end of the world films made.
Im so sick of these dommsday idiots! Before showing my son this site he did his own search and stumbled on patrick geryls site and there was a question from an australian asking where the safe places in australia to go were, patricks answer was there are no safe places in australia as there will 2km high tidal waves and the mountains will crumble. Which caused a huge amount of panic as we live in australia.
These people are creating massive amounts of anxiety in people including young children, I dread to think what society will be like when the time is closer to december 2012 they seem to show up on every search done no matter what you type in.
I hate the fact that a reputable channel such as the history channel have given these idiots credibility by doing a show on this rubbish.

Re: thankyou

Astrogeek 02 Apr 2010 14:43

Hi again Mel;

Yes, I know how kids latch on to one bit of a conversation and ignore the rest. I'd like to give the teacher the benefit of the doubt, but I've seen some really strange things (like science projects on 2012).

Geryl's ideas are rubbish, and provably so. I can't decide if Geryl believes his own stuff or not… if he doesn't, he's a pretty good actor, but regardless of what he believes, he is also in it for the money.

I agree with you regarding the History channel.

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"Do you ever think about things you do think about?" - Henry Drummond to Matthew Harrison Brady in Inherit the Wind