Meghan Christensen

SLM-521

6/1/09

Elective 1- Hoaxes and Myths

I was very pleased to complete this elective. Snopes.com has been brought to my attention before, but I never visited the site. For the past two hours I found myself swimming through interesting facts that finally concluded years of questioning; did that really happen? I found lots of information regarding rumors forwarded in e-mails.

One rumor e-mail I remember receiving in college was about a girl who evaded a rapist disguised as a police officer by dialing #77. By dialing this number, she was connected to the police dispatcher who could confirm that the unmarked car was not a police officer. I sent this e-mail to all my friends hoping it would help them if they were ever faced with this situation. Apparently this is not true. I found that it is rare for a number to connect to a police dispatcher and if it is possible, the numbers are different in any area. Just call 911. Although I work with younger children, it is always important to relay correct information in harmful situations. The safest bet, no matter the danger of the situation, should be to call 911. By adding varieties of information to people in harms way may become more harmful to them.

Other rumors that have always come to my attention were movie rumors; Disney movies having explicit material; actors dying on or off set. These rumors range from the start of movies to today. This topic interested me because as a child you hear that Disney movies aren't as wholesome. In looking through Snopes.com, I found that a lot of the animations in Disney films were not added as a joke (although some animators do slip in jokes from time to time), but merely misconstrued by their audience. I found that people look for meanings behind the simple wholesome attributes of children's shows. I teach first graders, so this saddens me to think that they may have heard of these rumors from older siblings or relatives. It takes away the child in them. Even today there are rumors that celebrities have passed. One recently that relates to my students' age level is the rumor that Miley Cyrus died in a car crash. A lot of those rumors start because someone enjoys the power to persuade people's thinking. All though it will be proven wrong at some point, they have the delight in knowing it stirred up some controversy.

In reading an article about urban legends in About.com, I found that in any situation people need to get their facts straight. Where did this come from? Does it sound like it could really happen? Is it too "story like"? If an article doesn't seem real or if it states that "this happened to a friend", it is most likely not true. People need to check the dates of things and visit sites like Snopes.com to get the facts before they continue the rumors. I feel that these rumors have more of an impact on older children than first graders. My students learn the difference between fiction and nonfiction. They understand that people can give the wrong information; much like the game telephone. Say a sentence and about 20 people down the line it has been misinterpreted.