Crying is Contagious
at least in 4th graders
from 
JoeUser Forums
JoeUser Forums
Or so it would seem...in the span of a 20 minute lunch period what began as one 4th grade girl crying over the loss of the classroom hampster quickly spread to the others around here until there was nearly an entire lunch table full of puffy-eyed 10 year old girls. Not so coincidentally there also was a table of 4th grade boys who seemed to be enjoying themselves at what was occurring a few tables down from them, the table which, I just previously described. Now I am not a man without compassion, but I'm also not a sucker. Or rather, maybe I'm also a man of "suck it up." They girls may clearly have been hungering for tear-covered pizza, and if so they got exactly what they were hoping for. Oh well, this is not to say that I'm not claiming I didn't mourn the loss of my first hampster in the same fashion at that age. "Tilly," I believed it was named, which helps me earn the porn name Tilly Holiday, was my first pet and I'm sure I was just as irrational about its death as what I witnessed today.
However, I don't think this matures in development very quickly. I recall in junior high when a student died a grade ahead of us. All of sudden every person in the entire school felt compelled to get excused from school for the day to mourn the loss of this person they apparently were so close with. Now if I had died in junior high, or anytime in my school career, I would hope that a lot of people who I've never met would take advantage of my death as a way to skip class and play video games for the rest of the day. But I would never do it...and I didn't.
Maybe I just side with the philosophy, or maybe even the "reality," that death is just as natural as birth. Our society doesn't seem to hold this same perspective. Death is a mistake, unnatural, and often unthinkable. I say this in complete ignorance and arrogance being that I myself have never really experienced the death of anyone close to me. I've been to two funerals, but was either too young or too disconnected from the person to feel a great sense of loss.
I don't say this to suggest that deaths shouldn't be mourned, (my rambling about how much emphasis we place on preserving life to the last possible minute is probably best suited for another discussion) what I am saying is that it's interesting how much the loss of something so insignificant (at least from the "adult" point of view) can emotionally charge these kids.
However, I don't think this matures in development very quickly. I recall in junior high when a student died a grade ahead of us. All of sudden every person in the entire school felt compelled to get excused from school for the day to mourn the loss of this person they apparently were so close with. Now if I had died in junior high, or anytime in my school career, I would hope that a lot of people who I've never met would take advantage of my death as a way to skip class and play video games for the rest of the day. But I would never do it...and I didn't.
Maybe I just side with the philosophy, or maybe even the "reality," that death is just as natural as birth. Our society doesn't seem to hold this same perspective. Death is a mistake, unnatural, and often unthinkable. I say this in complete ignorance and arrogance being that I myself have never really experienced the death of anyone close to me. I've been to two funerals, but was either too young or too disconnected from the person to feel a great sense of loss.
I don't say this to suggest that deaths shouldn't be mourned, (my rambling about how much emphasis we place on preserving life to the last possible minute is probably best suited for another discussion) what I am saying is that it's interesting how much the loss of something so insignificant (at least from the "adult" point of view) can emotionally charge these kids.