Give your teacher the gift of insight, paper clip and rubber band included.

Professor Speks is a miscellaneous item item wearable by all classes. It is a pair of black, thick-rimmed glasses held together with a rubber band and paper clip, similar to the glasses seen on the Professor's Peculiarity.

When a player with a free account upgrades to a premium account by purchasing an item in the Mann Co. Store, they are presented with an option to select, via their Steam friends list, the name of the person who referred them to (or helped them the most with) Team Fortress 2. Any existing premium account player who is selected in this fashion receives the Professor Speks. Contrary to what is implied on the free-to-play FAQ page, coaching new players is in no way a prerequisite for obtaining the Speks. As long as the recipient is on the free account user's Steam friends list, they are eligible to receive the item.

The in-game backpack description of the Speks includes a unique line which reads: "New Users Helped: X", where "X" indicates the number of new users the player has helped. If a player receives multiple votes from free account users, they do not receive a duplicate item. Rather, the description information on their existing Professor Speks updates to reflect the new count.