Kids may say some spectacularly funny things at times, but every now and then they can be impressively wise too.
On Tuesday, teacher Bret Turner tweeted about a recent puzzle he'd set for his first grade class.
"I am the beginning of everything, the end of everywhere," reads the riddle. "I'm the beginning of eternity, the end of time and space.
"What am I?"
The first response he got, while ultimately wrong, was pretty deep.
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) January 2, 2018
When you remember that these are six-year-olds we're talking about, "death" is both incredibly wise and incredibly bleak.
I’m considering telling the kids tomorrow that a tweet about them went viral, and given their facility with the internets, I expect their response will be “sure but did it go SUPERviral” and “just how many retweets are we talking about here” and “can I go to the bathroom”
— Bret Turner (@bretjturner) January 4, 2018
Gen Z are all existential nihilists aren't they.
— IntractableFallyn (@FallynMuses) January 3, 2018
Small children are clearly growing up way faster these days.