Saturday, January 7, 2012

Flash Mobs, Movie Stars, and Life's Disappointments

photo source
I'm not really a dancer.  Well, unless I am in the car and alone...then I am basically amazing.

This week has been all about reviewing for semester exams for my little 7th graders.  As a much needed little boost to their grades I thought I would be the benevolent teacher and allow a little extra credit.  The kids could sing and dance to the song 'Elbow Room' by School House Rocks. It has been a parade of awkward fun while we "review" Manifest Destiny. One of my classes decided that singing by themselves would be too embarrassing so they asked if they could do it as a class.  I informed them no.  Then two, or three looked at each other smiled and asked in unison, "Can we do a flash mob?"  This has been on my own bucket list for some time.  But this takes me back to my first sentence...I'm not so much a dancer but I can totally facilitate.

After getting permission we only had 40 minutes to prepare our dance.  Not a ton of time...and most of the little dancers were in the same category with their dance ability as myself...bless their hearts.  We did it!  They were adorable even though we had some problems with our sound.

Take a look.



Afterward the kids were walking on clouds...the class went right to my class where we were high five-ing ourselves and one of the students had her phone out to monitor our response on her Facebook.  With every comment the kids were loving life.They were pretty sure the video would go viral and we would all end up on Ellen.  Who doesn't love some Ellen?

The kids started to quiet down then my little Facebook watcher shouted out, "OH MY GOD!  The guy from Modern Family is eating lunch at our school right now!" Everyone was pretty sure that it was a hoax to try to out shine us.  We sent a spy down and were saddened to find out we had been out shined.

There he is...


Now if you look carefully at the picture..do you see the fashionable lady with the khaki sweater?  This dear friend of mine is a huge fan of the show and had just introduced herself to him and asked if she could get a picture with him when they were finished eating.  Eric Stonestreet, Cameron on the show, said that would be fine.

My friend went back to her room, beside herself with anticipation to get her picture with him.  She ran down there toward the end of lunch and he had left.  No picture.  This resulted in huge, upset trauma.

I told her to not freak out just get on Facebook and get one of the pictures that the kids had taken. Earlier this same day she had gone on and on about how evil Facebook was...so my suggestion was not accepted with any kind of excitement. I got the pictures for her...less than a minute on Facebook and her dream had come true there were a series of pictures of her walking away after talking to him.

We all learned several lessons:

  1. When you think you are the coolest thing out there, you can quickly be out done. 
  2. Always make sure you have good sound when doing a flash mob. 
  3. Be careful of the things you chose to rage against because it may one day save your sanity.   




2 comments:

  1. I love the flash mob! My 7th grade daughter would definitely enjoy doing something like that. It certainly was more fun than writing an essay for that extra credit. :)

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  2. That was so cute. I found it very entertaining and think your students did an awesome job.

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