Teacher’s Classroom Riddle Gets An Answer From First Graders That He Does Not Expect
Think back to your days in the first grade. What was on your mind? My thoughts never really went far beyond the simple pleasures of candy, football and my bike, so it is quite a shock to discover the deep and philosophical musings of today’s kids.
Teacher Bret Turner of Albany, California, decided to try and bamboozle his students with one of those annoyingly smug riddles, that despite its deep and existential wording actually has a boringly logical answer based on letter placement and spelling. “It was a morning brain-teaser,” Mr. Turner explained to Bored Panda. “It’s the first thing they see when they come into the classroom to get the gears churning before they start their work. We talk about philosophical themes on a first grade level all the time.”
However, there was one kid who was having no truck with such banalities. The novice Nihilist blurted out his startlingly sombre response to a hushed audience, leaving Mr. Turner at a loss for words in the presence of such profound wisdom. “When the student said “death,” there was a subdued silence that fell over the room, and I said something to the effect of “wow, great answer,” Mr. Turner revealed. “Young kids talk about death all the time; grandparents, relatives, especially pets. It’s fascinating to them, and also normal.”
Mr. Turner’s riddles often throw up the unexpected, opening doors to the unfiltered creativity that many kids possess. “A day in first grade is filled with funny, curious, bizarre, extremely deep, introspective, existential, eyebrow-raising quotes. It’s one of the best parts of the job, and rolling with it is a blast,” Mr. Turner told Bored Panda. “Guesses to riddles are always great, and often the “wrong” answers are better than the correct ones.”
Unsurprisingly, the class was largely unimpressed when the actual answer was later unveiled. “They were not that impressed with the answer. But they love riddles, especially ones that trick you a little like that.”
You can scroll down below to check out Mr. Turner’s riddle, kindergarten Kierkegaard’s brilliant response and some reaction from a delighted internet. Also, please feel free to add your own surprisingly deep and meaningful kids quotes in the comments!
(h/t: Mashable)
Teacher Bret Turner decided to bamboozle his students with a riddle, but it took quite an unexpected turn
People reacted with amusement to kindergarten Kierkegaard’s surprisingly deep response
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What a difference a year makes! I work with kindergarteners and so far, the most profound things I've heard from them this year are "I wonder why there's a booger in my mouth" and "Jasmine showed me her penis". Lol!
Riddle aside, I'm just so happy to see a man teaching 1st grade. We need more male teachers, especially at the elementary level. My hat is off to this teacher for being a great role model for these kids and for making them think every day!
in children we can find our darkest depths, unfathomed and unabashed. but we also find our brightest heights, unexpected, unashamed, immeasurable, and absolutely glorious!
My 7 year old daughter just answered "A black hole". We watched the theory of everything last week. It obviously had an impact on her
This happens because adults choose to take in what they want and nothing else ... Whereas kids are open to learning new things and just absorb everything around them... This is why childhood is the best part of life.
Childhood is wonderful, but I love being old enough to have obtained a wealth of knowledge along with an insatiable desire to learn just for the sake of learning.
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I started looking at the letters right away. As a child in "gifted" programs (for students with very high test scores/IQ), I was given these types of puzzles frequently. I hated these puzzles, so I tried to solve them quickly, to move on to other tasks.
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Wow! I was thinking God or Infinity or something.........not the letter E.
I was thinking of infinity too. But then I discarded it, because infinity has no beginning nor and end. Did not see the letter E coming. The child absolutely made an interesting observation.
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I would have said God, but it just depends on how you were raised but, death is a very deep answer. I like ot
I guessed "death" too before reading about it just seeing the riddle. Is I smart? ;P But seriously now, I think whoever made up the riddle in the first place already had in mind that it could have these so different answers on purpose. An answer could also be "the big bang"...
I don't think that there was anything necessarily "wrong" with the student just because their answer wasn't a warm and fuzzy one. There could have been, but that one instance isn't a reason for thinking that way. We as adults know the world is not a sweet and happy place, and some children can perceive that too. Perhaps they were ahead developmentally. Or perhaps they did go through something, but are dealing with it in their own way. When I was a child I pondered whether perceiving something proved it existed or not, how firm was our grasp on reality and what did it mean in the end. I decided the world was "real enough" to mean something to me, regardless of the actual answer. I was in kindergarten. Sometimes a child can be strange, AND mentally healthy.
My first guess was "entropy" - not too different from the kid's answer. I do like how this kid thinks outside the box.
Believe me, my 5 and 7 year old would know what this means and neither my husband or I have a Twitter account or let them have a twitter account. It's part of the cultural lexicon and kids are way more savvy often than we give them credit for.
sounds like a profound answer, but on second thoughts, how can death be the beginning of everything? that doesn't make sense
Death nourishes life. Without the death (decay, harvest, hunting or slaughter) of living matter, living matter cannot survive and replicate.
Load More Replies... Am I theonly one who find it a little bit weird, that he wants to tell his class that the tweet about them is going viral? I don‘t think that this should be something, someone in 1st class should think about - also I‘m not sure if a 1st class understands what this means?
6 year olds would totally understand what a viral tweet means. It's like when you were a child, you knew the difference between "our school was on the local tv news" (so people in your city saw it) and "our school was on the national news".
Load More Replies... What a difference a year makes! I work with kindergarteners and so far, the most profound things I've heard from them this year are "I wonder why there's a booger in my mouth" and "Jasmine showed me her penis". Lol!
Riddle aside, I'm just so happy to see a man teaching 1st grade. We need more male teachers, especially at the elementary level. My hat is off to this teacher for being a great role model for these kids and for making them think every day!
in children we can find our darkest depths, unfathomed and unabashed. but we also find our brightest heights, unexpected, unashamed, immeasurable, and absolutely glorious!
My 7 year old daughter just answered "A black hole". We watched the theory of everything last week. It obviously had an impact on her
This happens because adults choose to take in what they want and nothing else ... Whereas kids are open to learning new things and just absorb everything around them... This is why childhood is the best part of life.
Childhood is wonderful, but I love being old enough to have obtained a wealth of knowledge along with an insatiable desire to learn just for the sake of learning.
Load More Replies... I started looking at the letters right away. As a child in "gifted" programs (for students with very high test scores/IQ), I was given these types of puzzles frequently. I hated these puzzles, so I tried to solve them quickly, to move on to other tasks.
Load More Replies... Wow! I was thinking God or Infinity or something.........not the letter E.
I was thinking of infinity too. But then I discarded it, because infinity has no beginning nor and end. Did not see the letter E coming. The child absolutely made an interesting observation.
Load More Replies... I would have said God, but it just depends on how you were raised but, death is a very deep answer. I like ot
I guessed "death" too before reading about it just seeing the riddle. Is I smart? ;P But seriously now, I think whoever made up the riddle in the first place already had in mind that it could have these so different answers on purpose. An answer could also be "the big bang"...
I don't think that there was anything necessarily "wrong" with the student just because their answer wasn't a warm and fuzzy one. There could have been, but that one instance isn't a reason for thinking that way. We as adults know the world is not a sweet and happy place, and some children can perceive that too. Perhaps they were ahead developmentally. Or perhaps they did go through something, but are dealing with it in their own way. When I was a child I pondered whether perceiving something proved it existed or not, how firm was our grasp on reality and what did it mean in the end. I decided the world was "real enough" to mean something to me, regardless of the actual answer. I was in kindergarten. Sometimes a child can be strange, AND mentally healthy.
My first guess was "entropy" - not too different from the kid's answer. I do like how this kid thinks outside the box.
Believe me, my 5 and 7 year old would know what this means and neither my husband or I have a Twitter account or let them have a twitter account. It's part of the cultural lexicon and kids are way more savvy often than we give them credit for.
sounds like a profound answer, but on second thoughts, how can death be the beginning of everything? that doesn't make sense
Death nourishes life. Without the death (decay, harvest, hunting or slaughter) of living matter, living matter cannot survive and replicate.
Load More Replies... Am I theonly one who find it a little bit weird, that he wants to tell his class that the tweet about them is going viral? I don‘t think that this should be something, someone in 1st class should think about - also I‘m not sure if a 1st class understands what this means?
6 year olds would totally understand what a viral tweet means. It's like when you were a child, you knew the difference between "our school was on the local tv news" (so people in your city saw it) and "our school was on the national news".
Load More Replies...
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