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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Okay--if I'm seriously violating a copyright law, somebody tell me and I'll delete this. It's a great (to me) news story, and I could NOT find a site to link to that didn't have advertisements on it, so I'm just going to blame copy the entire Associated Press article here:
5th-grader points out mistake at Smithsonian
11-year-old catches sign error that has rankled staffers for 27 years
updated 9:10 p.m. ET, Wed., April. 2, 2008
ALLEGAN, Mich. - Is fifth-grader Kenton Stufflebeam smarter than the Smithsonian?
The 11-year-old boy, who lives in Allegan but attends Alamo Elementary School near Kalamazoo, went with his family during winter break to the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History in Washington.
Since it opened in 1981, millions of people have paraded past the museum's Tower of Time, a display involving prehistoric time. Not one visitor had reported anything amiss with the exhibit until Kenton noticed that a notation, in bold lettering, identified the Precambrian as an era.
Kenton knew that was wrong. His fifth-grade teacher, John Chapman, had nearly made the same mistake in a classroom earth-science lesson before catching himself.
"I knew Mr. Chapman wouldn't tell all these students" bad information, the boy told the Kalamazoo Gazette for a story published Wednesday.
So Kevin Stufflebeam took his son to the museum's information desk to report Kenton's concern on a comment form. Last week, the boy received a letter from the museum acknowledging that his observation was "spot on."
"The Precambrian is a dimensionless unit of time, which embraces all the time between the origin of Earth and the beginning of the Cambrian Period of geologic time," the letter says.
The solution to the problem would not involve advanced science but rather simply painting over the word "era," the note says.
"We did forward a copy of the comment and our paleobiology department's response to the head of the exhibits department," said Lorraine Ramsdell, educational technician for the museum.
While no previous visitors to the museum had brought up the error, it has long rankled the paleobiology department's staff, who noticed it even before the Tower of Time was erected 27 years ago, she said.
"The question is, why was it put up with that on it in the first place?" Ramsdell said.
Excited as he was to receive the correspondence from museum officials, he couldn't help but point out that it was addressed to Kenton Slufflebeam.
In Allegany.
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I love this kind of story - kids paying attention and noticing things that nobody else notices. I also like it when the kids are courageous and caring enough to speak up and the "teachers" patient enough to listen and honest enough to admit error.
This could have a profound affect on this kid, his teacher, and classmates.
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Joined: Feb 2008
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old hand
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old hand
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I also like it when the kids are courageous and caring enough to speak up and the "teachers" patient enough to listen and honest enough to admit error. Just curious, what is the purpose/implication/connotation of your quotation marks? Thanks!
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Joined: Jan 2002
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It's not clear to me whether the Smithsonian staff can be said to be the boy's teachers, per se. However, in some sense they are teachers. Moreover, many of a student's most important teachers do not have the title, including parents, older siblings, friends, colleagues, and other mentors. In the broadest sense, it's good when any of these teachers (with or without the quotes) can admit error.
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old hand
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old hand
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Thanks for that! I agree with you 100%. :0)
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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That sent off a letter to the kid thanking him for his pointing out their error. They spelled his name wrong and the name of his hometown wrong.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Two Thmithsonian thlips on the keyboard or a little deliberate
touch of revenge?
Last edited by BranShea; 04/04/08 11:28 AM.
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addict
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when the kids are courageous and caring ...the "teachers" patient enough Oh, you had me looking for a mis-placed apostrophe somewhere in the story for "the teacher 's patient" since "the kids are courageous". You switched mood(? or whatever that is) mid-sentence.
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
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For the last name, I'm guessing maybe they couldn't read the handwriting... They might (should) have looked up the name of the town, however; it would have to be one heck of a finishing flourish, to look like a y at the end of a word.
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