For a minute it appeared as if most of my choices were going to be absent. Then one showed up and things got odd.

Part of our responsibilities at the school where I work is to assign, correct, chase down, listen to, choose, correct, cajole and threaten students during the speech contest phase of the year. For high school, we assign the speech topics at the end of the autumn term. Students, in theory, have the winter break to finish it. The first four classes in January and February are spent correcting mistakes and listening to students perform their speeches.

The trouble is, most students already know, more or less, who is going to go to the contest and who is going to win once they get there. (Kind of like me being forced to enter a slam dunk contest against Michael Jordan and Zach LaVine. Spoiler: I’m not going to win.)

Once the best two from each class are chosen, we then spend time 1) convincing the students that, yes, they actually must go and 2) chasing down copies of their speeches. This year, one of my students performed a speech that was good enough to win the class. He then refused to 1) give me a copy and 2) go to the contest. This means one of two things: he improvised or he cheated. In the end, he claimed the former but I suspect he was using someone else’s speech. Because he has a fairly passive homeroom teacher, he was able to argue his way out and someone else went in his place.

Then, today, my first two choices were absent from the contest. On the one hand I like this because it shortens the contest a bit, but it looks bad for me. Then, towards the end of the contest, the emcee made surprise announcement. “Mr. X is absent, but Mr. C has arrived and will give his speech instead.” My student walked up to the podium.

Students in the audience started yelling “fix,” “it’s rigged,” or “hacks”. (Not really. Most were not aware there were still speakers at the front.)

My student, was in jeans and a hoodie as if he’d been hanging out with his friends and suddenly remembered he had an appointment. He gave a good speech, and I suspect would have won if he’d been on time and been in uniform. Instead he didn’t place.

Now we’re done with speech contests until next year. We already know who will probably win, but maybe he’ll show up late and out of uniform.