I always like it when my students are smarter than I am. Let me give you an example from today: My classes are revising their drafts of memoirs, and one of the kids came up to ask my opinion about a sentence in her first paragraph. I was clinging to the red balance bar oblivious to the fact that soon I would be seeing another shade of red-- blood red.
"That's great!" I told her.
"But does oblivious sound right, there?" she asked me.
"Sure," I answered. "You don't know you're going to fall soon. You're definitely oblivious."
"But doesn't oblivious mean I should know I'm going to fall, like I'm supposed to be aware of it, but I'm not?"
She had a point about the implications of the word. Her usage seemed right to me, but I had to stop and think about the nuances of oblivion. I questioned her about the bars-- how high they were and how she got up there and whether they were meant to be climbed on as she was doing. She and two other students gave me a lively discourse on the playground design at their elementary school, even drawing a diagram of the equipment. I listened carefully.
"Well," I said when they had finished, "I think you were oblivious to the danger. You should have known you might fall."
"But I climbed them every day," she said. "Everybody did. I never thought they were... ooooohhhh! I was oblivious! Thanks!" and off she went to finish her draft.
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