ELD. English Language Development. So, while they spoke English, they weren't fluent. This was the advanced group.
They had two worksheets. One of them asked them to write a story. The prompt asked them to imagine that they had a time machine and that they could go to any time past or future. When would they go? What would they do? Etc.
One boy was incensed by the question. Time travel is not possible, he explained. I agreed, but explained that this was a story, and he could make things up.
But he wasn't having it. It took a bit for me to get what was bothering him, but eventually I got the gist of what he was saying.
He could imagine someone building a machine that could take someone back in time. But, he argued, once you got there, you'd be all alone. Because the people in the past are now dead, so they wouldn't be there when you got there. Because they are now dead.
It's an interesting theory. One I haven't seen in any of the time travel theories before.
I, of course, argued that if you go back in time, you're going to the time when those people would have been alive. But he wasn't having it. He insisted that if you went back in time, you'd find empty cities.
Of course, he was all about how the Illuminati are real and various other conspiracy theories too. Not that one has to do with the other.
Sometimes I'm amazed at how their minds work.
This boy may have had people close to him like his grandparents already die or he is just a bit of a freak:) Let's hope he has no issues later in life
ReplyDeleteI hadn't really thought about that in time travel before that people would be dead from the past and I suppose not alive in the future??
ReplyDeletebetty
I disagree with that idea, although it is an interesting one. I mean, if you go back in time, you're going to when they were alive. Although... Yeah, that's why I had to share it.
DeleteYeah, that's a weird mind. The Illuminati?
ReplyDeleteWow. I like that: the people only exist now, but all the physical stuff of the world is still there. So you could go back to when you were a kid and get all your old comic books and Star Wars figures -- or other valuable stuff, all unguarded, and bring it forward to the future. Imagine: you could go back in time and get a Space Shuttle!
ReplyDeleteOr go to the (as yet unpopulated) future. Will there be buildings there? Probably not-- at least not the ones that haven't been built yet. So my house might be there if I went ten years in the future, but a hundred, maybe not, because the people who will build whatever would appear on it wouldn't exist yet.
That kid's a genius.
Also: It's somewhat similar to the idea behind Stephen King's "The Langoliers," which you should read or watch (I watched the TV movie) and maybe suggest to him.
I had a feeling you'd like this theory. It's fascinating.
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