It’s a common phrase that a good teacher will also learn a lot from their students. Speaking as a tour guide, I do find that to be true. For clarification, my job isn’t just to lead people, I am also there to share history, stories and information- to teach. But little did I know just how much I would learn. Especially from kids. They really are the future of the world. Never has that been so apparent to me than one rainy morning when a very shy, but sweet, 9-year-old girl joined my tour. She spent most of the first ten minutes hiding behind her mom, but by the time we landed at Liberty Island she was starting to warm up. Pretty soon she was standing right up front, listening, asking questions- until…she said she had a question for me.
“Miss Gabby! Did you know…..that the Statue of Liberty is holding an iPad?!”
“……A what?”
“An iPad! You know, like a flat computer.”
Now, needless to say, no matter how much you know or don’t know about the Statue of Liberty, I’m pretty sure you knew that she is not holding an iPad. Not only were iPad’s not around in 1886, but I don’t think that Apple was the powerful, compelling symbol Auguste Bartholdi was going for. I felt like at some point I should probably tell her the truth, but she was so confident and so positive, and I was also a bit curious….
“Who told you that?”
“My teacher.”
“Your teacher?!”
(Even her parents joined me in my shock, who was teaching her this?????)
“Yes! My teacher said the Statue of Liberty is holding a tablet. A tablet that says July 4, 1776.”
Ha! There it was. The mystery had been solved. This sweet, yet confused, little girl assumed that when her teacher said tablet, she meant iPad. Ahh…the future. I laughed quite a bit. The whole group did. Truthfully, I was actually quite relieved that there weren’t really teachers spreading untrue stories. Plus, credit where credit is due, she did remember the date exactly. Many people I meet don’t even know what the roman numerals mean, so, I give her points for that. So, this time around I didn’t learn anything new about the statue specifically, I did learn, however, that word association is very different for kids of a certain age and that as much as we may forget or try to deny, Apple has really taken over the world.