6-year-old's answer to a simple riddle will make you question everything
Things got deep for Brett Turner's class on Tuesday.
The father-of-two and elementary school teacher put the following riddle to his first grade class (6/7 year olds):
"I am the beginning of everything and the end of everywhere. I'm the beginning of eternity and the end of time and space. What am I?"
To which one of it students answered "death".
The first guess from one of my 1st graders was “death” and such an awed, somber, reflective hush fell over the class that I didn’t want to tell them that actually the answer is the letter e, which just seemed so banal in the moment pic.twitter.com/7sYFxHNcZk
— Bret Turner (@bretjturner) 2 January 2018
Turner's class wrote on Twitter that "an awed, sombre, reflective hush fell over the class."
He then updated us with the rest of classes answers, which were similarly existential, such as ""NOT everything," "all stuff," "the end," and maybe my favourite, "nothingthing.""
Before I finally revealed the "correct" answer to the riddle, to a largely unimpressed audience, I fielded other guesses that continued along a similarly existential vein. There was "NOT everything," "all stuff," "the end," and maybe my favorite, "nothingthing."
— Bret Turner (@bretjturner) 3 January 2018
The correct answer to the riddle? The letter 'e'.
After receiving the answer of "death" however, Turner "didn't want to tell them that actually the answer is the letter 'e', which just seemed so banal in the moment."
The philosophical answer is prompting a similarly awed and thoughtful debate on Twitter:
Too late, but a cushion to the seeming banality of the final answer might be that Odin hung himself upside down for three days to gain the wisdom of letters… what magical things, that allow us to know another's words across time and space!
— Helen South (@helsouth) 3 January 2018
Give that kid the “A” I expect a great screenplay from him/her some day.
— Harrison Smith (@HarrisonSmith85) 3 January 2018
Can you also ask your class of 1st graders to explain Kafka's The Trial through the lens of Foucault's analysis of power?
— Tari Diagonal (@diagenesy) 3 January 2018
Today's existential crisis was brough to you by: The Letter E
— the sun, but mad (@sleeperslayer) 3 January 2018
The answer should be forever changed to death in honour of that student who broke that BS context-shifting trick question.
— Jon Shanahan (@ThunderJon) 3 January 2018
That child is going places!