Bret Turner, a first-grade teacher from California, wrote a riddle on his whiteboard for his students to try to figure out. "I usually post riddles to begin the week," Bret told LittleThings. "I decided to try a tricky one on Tuesday back from the winter break."
On January 2, 2018, Bret used his Twitter account to post a photo of the riddle along with an answer one of his students came up with.
The riddle read: "I am the beginning of everything, the end of everywhere. I am the beginning of eternity, the end of time & space. What am I?"
We've all heard the saying that "kids say the darndest things," but one of his students really proved it to be true. As it turns out, first-graders are wise beyond their years. Bret wrote that the first student to answer replied with something super somber: death!
"I think the context here is that this was a very typical first-grade moment. Guesses to riddles are always great, and often the 'wrong' answers are better than the correct ones," the teacher explained to LittleThings. "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. Any other guesses?'"
In his tweet, the teacher admitted he didn't want to tell them the real answer after hearing this.
At the time of publishing, his tweet has garnered 258,000 likes and 2,400 comments.
Keep scrolling to read his whole tweet and see just why thousands of people are in stitches over the student's answer.
Thumbnail Photos: Air Force Civil Engineer Center // Twitter / Bret Turner
First-grade teacher Bret Turner has been teaching for seven years. He always loves to write riddles on the board for his students to crack.
The teacher posted a photo of his class' weekly riddle and the surprising answer one of his students gave.
The riddle Bret asked his students to answer read: "I am the beginning of everything, the end of everywhere. I am the beginning of eternity, the end of time & space. What am I?"
Bret was not expecting the answer that his first student gave.
"The first guess from one of my 1st graders was 'death,'" Bret wrote on Twitter.
After that, he felt like he couldn't even give them the real answer — which was so much simpler.
"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," he wrote.
The teacher continued to choose students to give their answer and he kept being met with the same "existentialism" from them.
He wrote:
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.”
Many strangers hoped that the teacher gave the student an A for thinking of such a creative and smart answer.
"Young kids talk about death all the time; grandparents, relatives, especially pets. It's fascinating to them, and also normal," Bret told LittleThings. "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."
One person wrote that the student wasn't technically wrong since death can be considered the beginning of everything.
Like many commenters, this Twitter user said she couldn't stop laughing after reading his tweet.
At the time of publishing, his tweet has garnered 258,000 likes and 2,400 comments.
Bret said he was going to make sure to tell his students about how popular they are online.
Bret regularly posts conversations his students have with him that are sure to get any parent laughing.
He also has to deal with them laughing at his expense. But his weekly riddle sure does prove just how smart and mature that can be sometimes.
"They love riddles, especially ones that trick you a little like that, so they warmed up to it and tried to add their own variations to the puzzle later on," he told LittleThings.
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