«"Hey teacher, are we numbskulls?" This surprising
question was asked by my students with a smirk,
but also with a slightly downcast look, signalling
"we ask in jest, but not really." Since it was probably too embarrassing, two of them came to ask.
I don’t remember my answer; it was probably a
canned repartee, given the cognitive overload
of the end of the course and the fact that it was a
good curveball. As a teacher, I sometimes have
these boilerplate answers that—like astrological
predictions—are just vague enough to apply to a
thousand situations. But when the chaos of the
course was over, I felt like I’d missed something.
Besides, what does it mean to be a numbskull?
We sometimes forget how much courage it takes
to ask a teacher a question about something other
than the chart on page 22 of the course notes.
Feeling guilty of having extinguished a spark of
student courage through a lack of availability,
I suggested to the two students that they take the
time to revisit the question.» -- AQPC
