Fandom High School

"I thought we could talk about a specific type of lying today," Lito said, "which I am not so experienced with myself, which is lying using statistics. Your American author Mark Twain, I believe it was, said, 'There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.' But how is this? Statistics are just numbers, if they say there are 30,000 people in a town then that's just a fact, no? But it depends on how you ask the question, and how you frame the answers. A politician may say, 'The majority of people support my plan,' and then you look at the actual numbers and find out that 'the majority' is fifty-one percent, but only if you include the ten percent who had no opinion, because hey, they didn't oppose his plan, no? Or a person might ask ten people, 'Do you support stealing from honest, hard-working citizens?' and then publish their results as 'One hundred percent of those surveyed are against raising taxes.' So you have to be careful to know what the numbers actually say, and how those numbers were arrived at. Now, how else might one lie using statistics?"

"Today, I thought we could workshop," Lito told his students. "I want you to think about a lie you told that didn't work. Why didn't it work? What could you have changed to avoid being caught? That sort of thing. You don't have to share with the class if you don't want to, but it could be useful."

Today, Lito had written one word on the blackboard: Accomplices.

"Nothing happens in a vacuum, no?" (Nomi pointed out, "Except a space walk," but he ignored her.) "When you lie, you have your audience, but you also have any people you have involved in your lie. If you tell your mother you went to the bookstore, because your roommate wanted a book of bird calls, but your roommate in reality has no interest in the subject, imagine their confusion when on Parents' Weekend your father, who has actually taken up birding, attempts to discuss different types of orioles with them. This is a disaster. You want to avoid it. And it's not always going to be possible to avoid involving others entirely. So, before you involve other people, consider how you are going to deal with that. Maybe the other person is in a coma, so you don't have to worry about them blowing your cover--" Wolfgang paused in the middle of what he was doing to toss one of his lock picks at Lito's head; while to the students' eyes nothing happened, Lito flinched and protested, "Ow!" covering his temple with his hand. After a moment he recovered and, after glaring at a particular patch of empty air for a moment, continued, "That's not usually going to be the case, though, so how do you account for it? One option is to bring this person in on your story, but they may not wish to be untruthful to help you out, so you need to consider that possibility before involving them. Or if you stick closer to the truth--maybe your roommate who doesn't like birds likes cats, so the fictional book was about cats--you're less likely to cause confusion and be found out as a result.

"So. I want you to consider someone in your life, and tell me a convincing lie about what you did over the weekend involving that person."

"Today, we're going to continue working more on the fine art of body language," Lito declared at the beginning of today's class. "There are several 'tells' that may give away a liar, but one you may not have considered is being too still in an effort to control those tells. You may, for instance, have noticed that when you lie you shuffle your feet, or fidget with your hands, so you stand with your feet firmly planted and your hands clasped." Lito demonstrated, and said, "Well, now you look like you are at attention. Not exactly less suspicious, no? So let's practice standing naturally while telling enormous fibs. Pair up, and I'm not going to assign you a subject because I find it's easier to lie convincingly when it feels a bit silly, or like acting. I'm going to let you decide what you should lie to your partner about."

"To construct a successful falsehood," Lito began this week's class, "you must know your audience. You must know what they want to hear, and what they will believe. These are two different things. Take our hypothetical from last week, your parents asking you where you were last night, when you were at a bar being illegally served alcohol. Now, of course, you could tell your parents, 'I was at the library all night,' and they might even believe that, if they have no inkling whatsoever that you are the kind of person who might instead have spent the night at the bar. Certainly they probably want to believe that. But if they do know you well enough to suspect that might not be true, then your goose is cooked. Maybe you can brazen your way out of it on elaboration: 'I had a project I left until the last minute, it was a real scramble, be lucky if I get a C,' and then they think, 'Oh, that sounds more like him.' But then you risk tripping yourself up. So it's better to come up with something they'll believe on the first go: 'Oh, I was at the coffee shop,' or something like that. Maybe you even admit to a lesser sin to avoid admitting to the major one, maybe you were loitering and being a teenage nuisance in the park. It all depends on your audience."

Lito clapped his hands together and said, "Now. Let's say you have something very expensive. Let's say...some new shoes. And I am...not me, because I don't know you that well, but perhaps I am your roommate, yes, and I am suspicious. Where did you get those shoes, or the money for those shoes? You're on the spot. What am I going to believe? Lie to me."

"I know what you're thinking," Lito told his students once he was sure they were all accounted for. "'But Mr. Rodriguez, I thought honesty was a virtue,' and it is. But it's not the only virtue, and you never know when a lie will be useful. A little lie can smooth over a lot of social interactions. It could save your relationship. Or even your life. Or it can be your entire life's work. Take me, I'm an actor. If you reduce my job to its most basic parts, it's lying convincingly, and memorizing scripts.

"So, today, you are going to introduce yourselves. And by the way, if anyone would like to be a teacher's assistant, please see me after class. Now. Please," he said, perching on the edge of his desk and opening his hands to them. "Lie to me."