THE MYSTERY HISTORY TEACHER
www.teachcorps.blogs.com/mystery-history-teacher
Technology, Equality, and So Much More
Not to brag—well, maybe a little. Today’s lesson not only fulfills all the new district requirements, it also introduces a culturally relevant project that relates to my students’ unique home cultures. It even increases comfort with learning technology—our crunch time strategy of the day! First, we’re going to watch some online clips of marches from the civil rights movement and uprisings by oppressed people around the world. Afterward, we’ll have a class discussion about what all of these protests have in common. Then we’ll start a project in which students research the civil rights leader of their choice and discuss how this person’s techniques might apply to a current civil rights issue, like transformational change in our public schools. In your face, educational inequity!
COMMENTS
BackToTheClassics Please. Students are already comfortable enough with technology. At this point, a motivated student could get an entire college education through a smartphone. Or they could watch porn and play video games. Guess which one most of them would do.
TechTeacher1 If students like video games, why not experiment with game-based learning and #gamification? It’s up to us to become #techsavvyteachers and keep course content up-to-date and fun! Technology is the #futureofeducation, so get with the obgyn!
TechTeacher1 Oops. I meant get with the program, not obgyn. #stupidautocorrect
212 more comments on this post
“Ooh, Ms. Mahoney’s trying to show us something inappropriate!”
“Ms. Mahoney in trouble!”
The students were growing restless. Kaytee, meanwhile, was trying not to panic.
Last night, previewing protest videos on her laptop, she’d forgotten that the district’s Internet filters erred on the conservative side. The filter blocked not only profanity but language that might in any context apply to violence or pornography. Science websites mentioning horny toads or camel humps were out of luck, along with valid educational uses of the words hit, bang, blow, and spread.
If Kaytee had remembered this, she would not have chosen a video entitled “The Long, Hard Struggle for Black Equality in Action.” But she had, and now, instead of playing the video, the interactive white board displayed an ominous red X and a warning about potentially inappropriate content. She tried the Cesar Chavez clip, “Fighting for Improved Farm Hand Job Conditions.” Blocked. Even the seemingly clean-titled piece about international protests was blocked, which confused Kaytee until she realized the narrator’s first name was Dick.
Her shoulders slumped as the day’s lesson plan slipped from her grasp.
“Just go to YouTube, miss!” suggested Jonathan Rodriguez.
Kaytee shook her head, so dejected she said nothing to Jonathan about talking without raising his hand. “We can’t get YouTube on the school computers.”
Jonathan laughed. “Everyone knows how to get around that filter.”
Apparently, this was true, because the class began to bubble with purpose, calling out tips for getting around the content filters, until Brian Bingle said, “Y’all don’t need to all shout at her at the same time. Just let Jonathan do it.”
Perhaps it was a testament to Brian’s leadership skills that Kaytee did not protest. Or perhaps a whole day with no lesson plan was scarier than getting in trouble for tampering with the Internet filters. In any case, she stood to the side as Jonathan fiddled with the computer. Within thirty seconds the YouTube icon filled the board, and when the video started and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. began speaking, every face in the room turned to watch.
The day only got better from there: almost everyone participated in the discussion, and when Kaytee introduced the research project, there was barely a grumble. Three more classes passed, each of them engaged, as if riding the current of energy from the class before. This was the feeling of becoming a great teacher. This was what her racist father and mercenary brother and even her well-meaning aunt and mother would never understand. This was the reason Kaytee Mahoney had never stopped believing.
For the first time in a long time, she felt full after finishing her lunch. She sat at her desk, satisfied, with no desire to visit the vending machine at all. Instead, she passed the time by reading the comments on her blog. There were 244—another record. The interactive white board was still connected to her computer, so her words and the reactions they inspired lit up the whole wall, larger than life. TeachLikeABawzz said, Hope you don’t mind if I steal your lesson plans, LOL. Kaytee didn’t mind. Iluvtchingrm422 described a personal anthropology project in which students looked up their high schools on YouTube to see videos shared by their contemporaries.
A personal anthropology project! Kaytee loved the idea—loved her readers. She clicked the YouTube screen, searching for anthropology-quality videos from Brae Hill Valley High School. There were a couple of pep-rally cheers, some footage of O’Neal Rigby at Signing Day, a few clips from football games. There was the now-ubiquitous clip of Nick Wallabee and Dr. Barrios from How the Status Quo Stole Christmas, plus some segments of the follow-up show on Education Sensation TV. Unfortunately, that was about it. Kaytee’s excitement drooped as she imagined watching 180 hastily created collections of these videos. She was about to switch back over to her blog comments when something caught her eye.
“Bray Hill Vally Teacher Gets Knocked Down in Fight.” The misspelling of the school’s name must have kept it out of the top search results, because it had far more views than any of the videos above it.
A metallic taste filled Kaytee’s mouth as she clicked on the title.
The action, recorded on some student’s cell phone, had the same shaky, handheld quality of the street-protest videos she’d shown earlier in the day. This time, though, it was Michelle and Diamonique whose life-sized images filled the board, hands vise-gripped into each other’s hair as students around them shouted encouragement.
Then Kaytee saw herself on-screen, pushing through the crowd, aiming toward the action with a can of Raid, yelling, “Stop it! Oh my God, stop it!”
There was a clatter as the can hit the floor, and the camera turned briefly to follow it, zooming in on its label as shoes kicked it out of the way. The shot wobbled back up to show Kaytee, desperate and clumsy, reaching in from behind Diamonique, then falling backward, shrieking, “Ow! Oh my God!” The video ended on a freeze-frame of Kaytee, sprawled on the floor, one hand cupping the area below her eye.
She knew she shouldn’t read the comments.
Then, once she started reading, she knew she should stop.
But it was as if she’d fallen into quicksand. The words pulled her in, swallowing her, until there was nothing but the opinions of these strangers, laughing behind their screen names about how absolutely fucking hilarious it was to watch her get hurt. Also under discussion were the girls and their fighting skills, with a whole side debate about whether these bitches really could even fight anyway (mostly no to that, surprisingly), whether any bitches could even fight (yes to this, with a link that promised a close-up of a girl’s tooth getting knocked out), the body types of every visible female in the video and whether or not they might be worth fucking, and whether it was possible to get arrested for putting up a fight video on YouTube.
And then, just when it all seemed as if it couldn’t get any worse, LastMannStanding noticed the can of Raid.
TEACHER GOT SOME ROACH SPRAY. CAN YOU BLAME HER?
This was followed by a subcomment from BuildTheWall45: Hey, she figured out the new way to clean up our inner cities.
Mighty Righty: Thought that was what police target practice was for.
It kept going. Chains of subcomments formed under one another like the tunnels in an ant farm, growing more hateful the deeper Kaytee read.
ScrubBrush10: My only question, is why even try to teach them first? Just give every innercity teacher a can of raid at the beginning of the year
DeploreThis: Wed save a lot of money on welfair.
Tom: YOU STACK EM UP. I’LL GET THE BULLDOZER.
NoMoreTaxes: Next thing you know the elites will be trying to get raid out of the stores Filling innercity classrooms with roaches at taxpayers expense.
ScrubBrush10: Thats what there filled with now. And illegals.
Tom: Better idea… round up these animals that have taken over our iner cities and mass transport them to muslum countries so we can make room for the Islamic Ailiens that demand refuge.
There were pictures, too: Michelle and Diamonique’s heads Photoshopped onto the bodies of cockroaches. Images of the students superimposed onto a picture of a gas chamber. Then a still shot of Kaytee, holding the can of Raid straight in front of her, facing a crowd of Nazis who appeared to be saluting in return. She felt dizzy. The world seemed to be swirling around her, a tornado of hate heading straight in her direction.
As she stared at the Nazi photo, however, she realized something even worse.
She was not the hate’s target. She was its mascot.
The bell rang, dousing her in the icy reality of the moment. She was in school, lunch was over, and the hall was filling with noisy teenagers heading for her door. She clicked frantically at the corner of the screen, shutting the YouTube window only seconds before the first students entered the room.
But not before she noticed one last line at the bottom of the screen.
9,682 more comments on this video.