justplainbil

Just Plain Bill

Observations of a Substitute Teacher IX

Holding the Hands of the Future

Just the other day, as I was pondering a great question from one of my third-grade students, I realized my students will be the leaders and decision-makers in a generation or so.

We’d been talking about robots, what they can do and what they can’t do. The discussion morphed into the area of whether a robot had “feelings.” One student had seen the movie 2001, Space Odyssey, and brought up the subject of HAL 9000, the robot that accompanied the astronauts into space.

HAL had a memorable line in the movie when he was asked to let Dave, the crew chief on the mission, open the space ship door to let him in. HAL’s classic line was, “I’m sorry, Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

This line from the movie gave rise to Malika’s question, “Can HAL have emotions, ‘cause he said, ‘I’m sorry…’ Doesn’t he have to have emotions to say that?”

Needless to say, I didn’t have an answer to that question. Plus, I hoped the students would discuss that question themselves – and they did.

This gave rise to all kinds of research on their iPads and from books in the library. That spontaneous lesson became the highlight of the week, in addition to several students having fun repeating HAL’s “I’m sorry, Dave…” response during the week. 

These future leaders are some very bright and inquisitive minds, possessing terrific senses of humor too!