If you ask a kid to close his mouth because he is talking too much and then realize that the kid thinks he can't close his mouth because he doesn't understand that he can actually breathe through his nose without the assistance of said mouth - what do you do? You instruct the kid to hold his lips together with his fingers and practice breathing in and out through the nose and you follow with a demonstration. Which, interestingly, isn't sufficient for proving that the kid can survive with a closed mouth, because the kid tries to mimic your methods, but repeatedly and frantically lets go of his lips and gasps for air. However, if the kid (being the genius that only a kid can be) asks for some tape - to secure his own mouth for this new and exciting experiment - and you just happen to have some duct tape on the desk for some other reason. It's only for the sake of science that you peel off a couple of inches and hand it to the kid. The duct tape becomes a learning apparatus - a tool used to enhance a kid's ability to see clearly that a person with a duct-taped mouth, can, in fact, breathe through their nose and survive. If the kid is so thrilled by the experiment that he wants to leave the duct tape on his mouth for the remainder of the class - and you "reluctantly" agree. It is only for scientific purposes - to continue to gather data about how long a person can live and breathe with no air movement through their mouth. If class enthusiasm is at an all time high because of the duct tape experiment and other students beg to be included.... well..., science is pretty wonderful, isn't it?
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It seems another teacher friend of mine, perhaps you've met, was able to convince her whole 9th grade math class to come one day with their mouths taped ear to ear "with their own tape from home" for 50 bonus points. Had to be the whole class or no one got any points. Had to be tape from home or else....
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