There have been few moments in my life in which I have been speechless. I mean, really. I'm a "Commie." Any self-respecting communication scholar has something to say about most issues. While my students often give me cause to pause, I am usually able to respond with reasonable articulation.
Not today.
I played a game with my students in class designed to eliminate the "um, like, you know" plague. All students were seated in a horseshoe, and one would stand in the open space in the "hot spot." They would be peppered with personal or trivia questions from each student in the horseshoe to throw them off and cause them to stumble in their speech. Their project was to get through each member of the class without using a disfluency. Most students had a great time with this. We had quite a few awkward "would you rather..." questions, one or two variations of "If you had to be bald for the rest of your life to save mine, would you do it?", and the occasional "List three countries that start with M."
I have two male students that I entirely appreciate. They are smart-mouthed, goofy, and pretty geeky. They are funny kids, and they have started to call me "Teach," usually pronounced with a Brooklyn accent. One of them stood in the "hot spot" today and got all the way through the class to the third to last person, his friend. This one, certain that he would throw off the speaker, rattled off with a blank face, "Favorite sexual fantasy?" As I was forming my face into the the"Teach is disappointed in your inappropriateness" look, the one speaking said without hesitation, "Teach" and jerked his thumb in my direction.
Speechless. I mean, really. Apart from awkwardly laughing and pretending like nothing happened, what would you have said to a full class of tittering 18 year olds?
