How to Tell If Someone Is Lying

A Person Has an Answer for Everything

Ask most people what they were doing last week and they’ll have to pause and think about it. That’s even more true of teenagers, who generally don’t have the capacity to tell an elaborate story on the fly. So when I call a child into my office and he seems totally rehearsed—there’s zero hesitation before he answers a question—well, that’s a dead giveaway.

Julia Chung has been an educator for 16 years, first as a high school teacher in Los Angeles and now as an assistant principal in Westchester County, New York.