12:18 Friday afternoon was go-time. Drama teacher Abby Smith stopped her conversation mid-sentence with the group of girls she was lunching with, stood up on the table and started belting out “Said the night wind to the little lamb: Do you hear what I hear?” Two more colleagues stood up and sang the response. That was Ernie’s and my cue to leave the lunch line and join in. Given the choice between volume and quality, I went for volume. Several more colleagues poured out of the kitchen. Three more came in from the bathroom. The cafeteria started to fill up with teachers singing.
This –according to all the other flashmob video on Youtube- is where our students were supposed to stop talking, stop eating, and watch the performance with jaws dropped and eyes wide.
The problem was our 225 middle school students looked up from their braised beef with bok choi lunches, said to themselves “Hey, look at that, my seventh grade math teacher is standing right behind me belting out ‘a star, a star shining in the night’ at the top of his lungs” and then promptly went back to eating their lunches and discussing the upcoming WonderGirls concert. The din from 225 kids eating and chatting was so loud, I couldn’t hear our lead singer. I –and most of the other teachers- had no idea where we were in the song. I just picked a verse and kept singing. It didn’t help when our principal came in with the cymbals and the sixth grade Bible teacher came in with a snare drum.
As my students would say, it was pretty much a fail.
An epic fail.
Which gives rise to the following koan: If a group of teachers perform a flashmob in the forest and nobody stops to listen, did it actually take place?
It was only three hours until we were dismissed for our two-week break. I went and found a quiet, remote corner of the school in which to hide and grade papers. I was afraid that my colleagues weren't speaking to me. And if they were, I wasn't sure that I wanted to hear what they had to say.
So much for my rising status among my peers.
We had several of the guys from the IT department videotape our would-be flashmob. We had plans to edit it and post it to Youtube so that it could go viral. But after our colossal failure, that won’t be happening.
So the answer to the question “Did it actually happen?” would be a resounding “no.” As far as the rest of the world in concerned, it never took place.
-Jack
And now that it’s 2011, can we officially pronounce the era of the flashmob over. Flashmobs are so 2009. I -for one- am done. No more singing in food courts for me.picture: Elise performing the cello as part of the elementary Christmas program.
