WESTWOOD—Teaching Assistant Victoria Ivanov was reportedly just basking in students’ dumbfounded silence following a “vague question” in this week’s discussion for an upper-division political science class. “It was one of the best sections I’ve taught. Students can gain a lot from learning to dwell in stupefied silence for a while,” Ivanov said while adding one last rhetorical question to next week’s lecture slides. “I really felt a connection in that classroom after I inflected a general statement as a question and gave little to no indication of what kind of answer I was looking for. But it got even better when I became disappointed in them for not mentioning a very niche concept from this week’s readings.” At press time, Ivanov was refraining from making any further commentary by maintaining a slight smirk and raising her eyebrows.
