I love the way students are curious about details of a teacher’s life. And, given half an opportunity, how they will try to dig out a few extra details.
As I was teaching a class this week, the subject of a person’s age came up.
One student piped up, “Mrs. Tabares, are you 26 years old?”
“No,” I responded, “that would be pretty much impossible, since I have a 23 year old daughter!”
“Oh, you have a 23 year old daughter,” chimed in another student, “are you 50?”
“No, I’m not 50.”
“You’re 27!”
“No you’re 35.”
“I think you’re 65.”
“Are you 43?”
Immediately, the entire class erupted into a multitude of guesses–a wide range of guesses.
Only a few took the time to add in order to make an appropriate guess. Just like I could not be 26 and have a 23 year old daughter, I was not likely to be 27 or 35 either.
I told the class I was somewhere in between their guesses, and that we had to get back on subject.
But in a way, their inability to guess my age was very appropriate to the subject of study, which was the difficulty of figuring out if a person really was the age they stated on the Web. I was trying to teach the students that the Internet was a foggy place, where it is very hard to see the true identity of a person. People with ill intent often give false information about themselves to gain trust.
I have no ill intent, and I in no way am trying to change my identity. Which is a good thing, since these students are as yet unable to decipher truths about a person standing right in front of them!