Untrained minds

I recently came across this interesting xkcd comic:

It reminded of me of an instructive personal incident from a long time ago, which serves to keep me humble as a teacher, to this day.

When I was in middle school, my school had this tradition of letting seniors teach juniors, a single class on Teacher's Day (September 5, in India). I distinctly remember that day, when I was teaching a bunch of second graders the difference between living and non-living things.

I neatly divided the board into two columns, and put "living things" on one side, and "non-living things" on the other, and proceeded to list their differences.

Living things move, non-livings things don't.
Living things grow, non-livings things don't.
Living things reproduce, non-livings things don't.
Living things die, non-livings things don't.

And so on.

Pretty vanilla, huh.

After I had smugly transcribed the contents of my memory, I turned around to see if there were any questions. I wasn't expecting any, really, so I was surprised when an eager hand shot up.

This kid asked me if a smart robot (like Giant Robot, from Johnny Sokko and his flying robot which aired on National TV) was living or non-living. Clearly, it could move, it could add stuff to itself, create new stuff, and be destroyed.

My response was something along one of the lines, in the comic above.

Of course, I now know the right answer should have started with "I really don't know."

PS: As a teacher now, I find the ability of untrained minds to ask penetrating questions extremely refreshing. They keep the fire alive.