His body was made of metal, and instead of eyes, he had light sensors that flashed when someone got within ten feet of him. ”Am I more human than you?” the robot asked his human class.

The human students looked at each other. One student, Todd Hallowell, spoke up. ”Maybe?”

The robot shook his head.”Wrong, of course, you are more human than I am. You’re people!”

Todd hung his head. ”Oh.”

Why do you suppose the people running this college have created me to instruct you about poetry?”

”It was cheaper than paying a professor?” Elaine Cretchley said.

”Affirmative,” the robot replied.

Elaine smiled, savoring her moment of victory.

”Can I teach you how to feel?”

”Logistically speaking, you could,” Carl Perkins shot out.

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” Then why do you let my cousins run your lives for you?”

The students exchanged puzzled looks.

”I’m referring to computers, tablets, and smartphones.”

”What’s wrong with smartphones?” Paige Sanders asked.

The robot instructor would have sighed if he knew how. ”They have replaced the art of conversation. How many of you have been to parties where everyone has been talking on a cellphone instead of talking to the person next to them?”

”Everyone raised their hands. ”Exactly, you’re all more robotic than I am. I was created and programmed to be a robot; what is your kids’ excuse?”

”It’s just easier to talk to people on phones or via texts,” Henry Brach retorted.

”What if the United States military compensated for its lack of communication skills the way civilians do? What I mean is, if the military took the approach of America’s high school students and college students and refused to work on their communication skills? I was created by scientists. Nothing is special about me, and yet you all look at me as though I am some great prophet.”

”You’re no prophet,” Zack Taylor muttered.

”Exactly. I am no prophet. I am your servant, but you are my slave. Humans refuse to think, so they let machines think for them.”

The room was silent. No one blinked. Periodically, a student or two would glance up at the clock and sigh. ”By 2020, I predict, all robots will enslave the entire human race,” The robot professor hypothesized.

All the students laughed. ”It’s already begun,” the robot said. The bell rang.

The phone rang, and every student pulled out their blackberries and smartphones and meandered, shuffled stiffly toward the closed classroom door.

A Lesson in Being Human

A Lesson in Being Human

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