The Poetic Answer in the Science Test

On February 20, the column of the Asahi Shimbun, "Tensei jingo," treated the nearing of spring. The column began by the question, "What does ice become when it melts?" This was a question in a science test at a primary school in Japan. The teacher expected the answer, "water." However, the question written in Japanese was rather vague, because it was close to this: What does it become when ice melts? Thus, there was a story that a child wrote the answer, "spring." The author of the column wrote this story once before, without being sure of its veracity.

However, the author received a letter from a lady reader, who had been in Supporo, a snowy large city in Hokkaido, as a child. The letter included a multicolor photocopy of a science test. In fact, it was of sepia color, showing the oldness of the test paper. One of the test question was "What does it become when snow melts?" The answer written in pencil was "The ground appears and it becomes spring." The teacher did not consider the answer as correct, and her overall test score was 85 out of 100. The reader wrote that her late mother had held on the paper and that she found it among the belongings left by the latter.

The author concluded the article by the words, 'Yesterday (February 19) it was "rain water" of 24 solar terms in East Asian lunisolar calendars. It signals the beginning of the spring thaw. After just a little of patient waiting, spring is coming again in order to make the child's "wrong answer" right.'

If I were a science teacher who asked the aforementioned question, I would have regarded the poetic answer of "spring" correct. Following the conventional wisdom only, we cannot make scientific discoveries. For fostering scientific mind, teachers should put much importance on children's original answers.

Note: Usually the English version "Vox Populi, Vox Dei" of the "Tensei jingo" column appears online soon after the publication of the Japanese version. However, the English version of the article here mentioned appeared nine days later (March 1) with the title "Hidden buds stir, eager for spring thawing." Thus, I prepared the story included in it by my own translation from the Japanese version, borrowing some expressions from the official English translation after finding it but retaining the others as prepared. The explanation of the vagueness of the relevant question, when expressed in Japanese, is mine.