All year the students have been pestering me about the Mayan calendar and the end of the world. I have been amused by most of their questions, but since the shooting last Friday the students have become more fearful and sure that something terrible was going to happen today.
Due to rumors of violence on campuses around Las Vegas, many of my students did not show up to school today. The students were so paranoid the first few periods of the day so we went through all the emergency instructions. This was not an easy conversation to have—how do you properly ease their fears and concerns? As the conversation progressed one of the students admitted that he had prepped his backpack as a shield. This picture does not do the bag justice—it must have weighed at least 30 pounds. He had three large textbooks, sandbags, an old laptop and a myriad of other tools. I was stunned that he had been so concerned.
Fortunately, today was like any other day at school except for missing half of my students, there was nothing to worry about. As much as my teenagers like to think that they are grownup, today reminded me again that they are still just children.
