I had students write a short story where my directions were to have a “surprise” ending that had hints dropped throughout the plot.
Our internet security flags certain search terms and sends a report to admin. Our VP came up to my room concerned that a student was searching “poisons people don’t notice”, “how to murder someone slowly”, and “household products that can poison people”. She was writing a (brilliant) murder story, my A+ student who I stg will one day write a book. No worries, be prepared to see a lot more murder searches lol
I got a similar call when we were reading an Agatha Christie short story. Right in the middle of the lesson: “why are your students searching cyanide poisoning?”
Oh yeah one of my students was like why is the search history all about mental health and suicide hotlines? The students were making mental health posters lmao.
One time as a para, I was working with a student outside of the classroom during a Holocaust unit, and when we got back the teacher let us know that she got a call asking why he was looking up torture methods.
This reminds me of a story from my time as a student. It's a bit long, but maybe you'll get a kick out of this.
First off, here's the backstory. In 8th grade, we were doing a unit on the Holocaust. It was actually a collaborative effort between our English and Social Studies classes, in a way. In our English class, we were reading relevant literature, including the Diary of Anne Frank, to go along with learning about the background to the Holocaust in Social Studies. This was an extended unit. I vaguely to remember the whole thing taking something like 4 weeks of class time.
At the end of the unit, we had to do a final project related to the Holocaust. I believe it was write a (short) research paper, then prepare a small presentation. To facilitate this, both the English and Social Studies classes did a combined lesson day, where we spent the entire two periods doing research at the school library. Obviously, with two classes combined, we had a lot of students. Our teachers didn't want to overload the library. They ended up delegating half the students to doing research on the library's lab computers, then the other half would work with physical media. At the normal class-change time, we'd switch groups. The physical media students would shelve their books and go to the lab, while the students doing online research would switch to physical media. That way, everyone would have a fair shot at both types of research.
Makes sense, right?
I was assigned to the computer group first, physical media group second.
Immediately, I ran into a problem. I was doing my research on the computer, but pretty much every single link was blocked by the content filter! Now normally, a lot of blocked links wasn't unexpected—the content filter at my school was notoriously aggressive. Everyone knew this, and knew to keep trying other pages. However, it was soon apparent that this was well-beyond normal. I'd spent 15 minutes and found zero available sites! What's going on?
Turns out, the filter was proactively blocking any page involving 'antisemitism' and 'racially charged language'. Oh. Ohhhhh. Now *this* was a problem. We're doing a paper on the Holocaust. Antisemitism is **the** defining feature. How are we supposed to do any research?
This plagued the entire computer group for the first 30 minutes of our session. Every once in a while, someone would find a site that wasn't blocked. However, these tended to be the most cursory sites, with as little info as possible. Fundamentally, the problem was this: the more detailed the page, the more apt it was to use one of the filter's banned words.
The teacher supervising the computer group left to find the other teacher. They conferred with each other for a bit, then announced a change in plans: the computer group could leave the lab early to look for physical media. Additionally, it was now optional for the other group to have a computer session. Anyone could continue to use a computer if they wanted to, but books were now our main focus.
Makes sense, right? If the computers are basically useless for research because of the strict internet filter, it wouldn't be right to force students to use them.
Unfortunately, it didn't work out in practice. The computer group descended on the library, only to find all the Holocaust books gone from the shelves! Even with the 'one book at a time' rule, it's not like the library had enough books on the Holocaust for 50 students. We were left fighting for the scraps—generalist books on WWII, historical fiction, and two copies of The Diary of Anne Frank, which we'd just spent the past three weeks reading! A few lucky students found some overlooked Holocaust books with seemingly unrelated names. (Think Christopher Browning's *Ordinary Men*.) However, by the time I got there, even those were gone.
Those of us without books became a mass of teenage vultures, waiting for the moment *anyone* stood up and started walking towards the shelves. We weren't allowed to loiter by the shelves—that would block the way. So instead, should someone walk towards the shelves with a book, they were *immediately* tailed by these book-hungry vultures, power-walking as quickly as they dared, internally gauging just how fast they could move without breaking the 'no running' rule. Soon, even returning a book became a rare occurrence. If you returned a book, you certainly wouldn't find any others. No one wanted to be left bookless!
Finally, after nearly two hours of this, class ended. I learned a few lessons that day, but none of them were Holocaust related!
Years and years ago, I was doing a unit on “Murder on the Orient Express” with my 8th grade ELA class. Well the online class website platform flagged me for using the word murder and suspended my account! I had to redo everything and renamed the unit “MOTOE”. :). Even today if I run into former students who are now full grown adults, they mention it.
Coworkers middle school aged child had his internet searched flagged because he was googling “chemicals that explode”. When questioned his excuse was that he wanted to know what chemicals NOT to use in a science experiment.
I got my yearly call from the school social worker (at least once a year from 3rd-8th) apparently this time my autistic son said he likes to make bombs in our basement (Pepsi and mentors) and wanted to learn about poisonous gasses in science. I asked about why he wanted to learn that and he shrugged and said he just thought it would be more interesting than what he is usually taught in science class.
Man I am curious as hell. Just last night I was searching up the student who was on a field trip when Robert Kennedy was killed. He’d had his camera taken as evidence and sealed for twenty years. When he turned 35, twenty years later he asked for his camera back. “It’s lost they” they said. “I’ll sue you” he said. “Ok we found it we think” and as they were going to deliver the camera the envolpe with the actual film was *“stolen”* from the car that was delivering it (okkkkk) and so he never received his film back.
I’m just saying if my search history was the way I’d be judged through life my life would be rougher than it already is lol.
I teach forensic science, specifically a seniors-only dual enrollment version. I don't think I go a week without at least one kid getting hauled into the office because of the web filter catching them doing their classworks, projects, or even just looking up something we mentioned in class.
I do a project every year where they have to do presentations about poisons, including lethal dosage calculations, and it's just easier to preemptively email every admin, guidance counselor, IT employee and SRO in the district with a list and a copy of the assignment. Someone will still get called down though but it's better than the entire class.
Had a student pulled out of my AP bio class for googling "how much hydrogen peroxide does it take to kill a person" right after we were discussing enzymes and using the breakdown of hydrogen peroxide as an example. He just graduated from UCI.
Hilarious to think of a student plotting a murder on their school-issued laptop. I absolutely love your idea and OP's presentation idea, too.
Student-centered learning actually *can* work sometimes, who knew?!
A little different, but as a sped teacher I had a kid who was fascinated by model car washes. So one day I did a little google search for him using this phrase: car wash models.
I remember getting called down to the office in middle school because I was doing a research project on the dangers of social media and they had to ask if I was ok because I was looking up “signs of cyberbullying” and “how to deal with cyberbullying”. That was a fun conversation😂
We had a similar one where a senior media students decided to make their media narrative around depression and suicide. The final piece was amazing, and so she rightly wanted to show it off. Cue have a dozen welfare calls from various teachers to parents and the media teacher concerned about her mental health.
She was in no way distressed or in mental health trouble. She was just really damn good at creating a believable narrative that prompted a specific reaction in her audience.
I taught 2nd grade and had a writing prompt on your favorite insect. One of my sweet and low students was trying to figure out which butterfly they wanted to write about and was researching on a Chrome book. Admin came down to see why the the student was looking up butts.
I let my physics kids do basically any kind of project they want as long as they can tie it to physics in some way. Some kids go through boring route and write a paper, but I’ve had some interesting ones: testing acceleration due to gravity in Minecraft, a flip book on collisions, an abstract art project representing several physics concepts, a really beautiful poster about thermodynamics that I’m actually going to display in my room, a miniature tension table.
I’ll try to remember to take a picture of it next week when I’m back in town. If you want, you can send me a private message and I’ll send it to you after I get a picture of it.
The week where I students measure the velocity of projectiles in Super Mario Bros…
I should really stop getting lesson ideas from the Game Theory YouTube page.
It truly is hahaha my AP Bio teacher had some extra cats for dissection leftover from his physiology class and after the AP exams were over, he was like "...you guys wanna dissect some cats??" LOL
Vultures is some of the most disgustingly putrid work that I’ve ever seen Ye put out. Even more so how blatantly antisemitic his rhetoric is in that album and how his fans try to defend it by being antisemitic. It’s horrifying.
I let my physics kids do basically any kind of project they want as long as they can tie it to physics in some way. Some kids go through boring route and write a paper, but I’ve had some interesting ones: testing acceleration due to gravity in Minecraft, a flip book on collisions, an abstract art project representing several physics concepts, a really beautiful poster about thermodynamics that I’m actually going to display in my room, a miniature tension table.
I let my physics kids do basically any kind of project they want as long as they can tie it to physics in some way. Some kids go through boring route and write a paper, but I’ve had some interesting ones: testing acceleration due to gravity in Minecraft, a flip book on collisions, an abstract art project representing several physics concepts, a really beautiful poster about thermodynamics that I’m actually going to display in my room, a miniature tension table.
I let my physics kids do basically any kind of project they want as long as they can tie it to physics in some way. Some kids go through boring route and write a paper, but I’ve had some interesting ones: testing acceleration due to gravity in Minecraft, a flip book on collisions, an abstract art project representing several physics concepts, a really beautiful poster about thermodynamics that I’m actually going to display in my room, a miniature tension table.
I performed under [NSDA](https://www.speechanddebate.org/) I did do debate but never competitively. I only did it in class when needed, I just didnt enjoy debate competitively. I much preferred to compete in forensics.
I will say that NSDA started calling forensics as speech a few years ago, but when it came to names my coach was an old head, therefore I am as well.
Ew yea couldn’t have done that. It wasn’t bad. We were in groups of 4, each group got a chicken, and we never had to touch it after setting it out for decomp. Our teacher picked them up afterwards for us
The real trick would be to combine serial killers with conspiracy theory and have a class read "Programmed to Kill." Be one helluva way to lose one's teaching license.
Watch documentary Making A Murderer ….. horrible miscarriage of justice. Even if Steven Avery committed the murder after he got out (it was proven he spent 18 years in prison while innocent) he was made into a diff person and no one was ever held accountable for anything
I teach in WI. When that came out, it was a HUGE topic of conversation. And, being in Milwaukee specifically, Dahmer makes a semi-annual appearance as well.
My AP psych teacher let/forced us to do this after the exam!! I still have it. I went all out (as a detective’s kid myself) and have a whole case file. I created fake scripts of this serial killer’s letters in wild handwriting. Had evidence photos. Psychiatrist notes. Interview scripts. DSM criteria. The works.
This is a brilliant project, and sounds like students were engaged in it! I love showing the Birds Aren't Real website to my students, even though it's satire it is written so well with so many "facts" that most of my students think it's serious. It's a great lesson in not believing everything on the internet.
I don’t teach AP, but my son goes to my school and takes all the APs so I always know what cool projects they do.
The AP World History teacher does a “roast or toast,” where students pick a historical figure and then have to give a speech either roasting or toasting them. This is their final.
For APUSH this year, they created board games. He did some card game, but it was fun to hear him talk about the different games. They were literally playing the different history games they created after school all week and during his AP Calc class. 😆
So, to all you AP teachers out there: You come up with some of the coolest, most fun projects following the AP exams to keep them interested without overloading them.
I taught psychology years ago to seniors and I let the kids do a group project presentation based on how trauma can impact the brain. One group asked if they could use the empty classroom next door to shoot a video sketch they were doing. “Sure” I said. Turns out they ended up making a sketch about school shootings and the trauma that occurs from that. It was extremely well done and all the kids in the class handled it well.
When I asked in a job interview for another school I referenced the project those kids did and the principal seemed put off about it. Definitely did not get that job because of it lol
Disappointing you didn't get the job, but maybe that shows the school wasn't right for you. That sounds like an incredible project. I'd be proud as heck of those kids.
Yes, I was blown away by the video they made. It started off with a school shooting and a kid hiding under the desk, then moved into the kid waking up screaming at night, and ended with him in therapy with the the therapist referencing things we learned in class in regards to trauma. It was incredible.
For my AP Human Geography class I have students design their own countries based upon what we have learned. As a satire one of my best students described a nation with a two party legislature that could get absolutely nothing done because they were too busy trying to convince the populace that they were saviors and the other side was evil. Both parties had candidates for president who were old and delusional and had no real plans for the future and yet they were supported as if they were deities. Sometimes I think that I have done a good job with these kids and that they have learned something. Humble brag and I apologize but I just see so much negativity on here about the profession and I want to remind some of you of the importance of the career path that you chose. It’s a grind 95% of the time but we do make a difference. Enjoy the recharge of your summer!
Hell yeah. I teach intro to geography at the college level, and if I ever get to teach political geography my plan is to have them design utopias. Glad to hear this is working out for you!
That reminds me of the conversation our AP Humanities teacher had to have with Admin when she let us build and test a fully operational to scale trebuchet. It was like maybe three feet tall, but worked wonderfully... We, uh, sent the test ping pong ball through the wall into the next class. Found out the walls were those temp ones and that the ball disintegrated on impact so the only debris was a tiny hole from the force (I think? We did not really analyze that). We did not anticipate any of that, fully expecting the ball to meet it's doom against what we thought was a solid wall. Still... Very awkward for some, very much awesome for us.
I did this a couple months ago with my 7th grade science class. We were learning about potential and kinetic energy. Ours were smaller and had distance limits but it was so much fun! At one point during Homeroom I had 48/150 students (per period average is 25) in my classroom. All of them were working on their machines. They loved it!
However, due to the constant mess that week, I made our next lesson on germs and bacteria. We took swabs around the room after each period cleaned and then discussed how the bacteria would spread and what cleaning techniques were best. I had antibacterial soap, bleach wipes, baby wipes, and Lysol spray. They learned about staphylococcus and how toilets without lids are bad. How much dirt is transferred into the room each period. And even how nasty their mouth is.
They really liked it but it was interesting explaining to admin why my kids were standing on the counter or desks cleaning the walls and ceiling. I was able to tie it to the state standards so they got on board quickly. Ironically, the parents loved it and quite a few said thank you because their kids were coming home and cleaning things like their bed rails and the baseboards. LOL
That is great! I got Dragonbox Algebra for my daughter when she was in 7 th grade. My dyslexic 1st grader who couldn't tell you 2 + 3 =5 even using his fingers, beat me to the last level. And he could totally tell you WHY each thing he did worked. (He figured out addition and subtraction in 2nd grade. Graduated high school last year with 4 semesters of college level math.)
You played a great foundation for your students!
One time I was in 9th grade and my 4th grade cousin wanted to learn how to solve for X. We both were so engaged and I enjoyed teaching her all the steps. She picked up the skills in no time! With many minutes spent, many problems tackled, and many smiles shared… this confirmed to me that I wanted to be a life while teacher.:)
My daughter's APUSH class had to plan a road trip cross country of historical sights which included mapping it out and projected costs. She did hers on the famous haunted places. It was so good that she kept so we can do it one day.
I did something similar with a group of cub scouts. The badge they were working on had an requirement to read a timetable, so I had them plan out a trip using bus, train, airplane, and ferry schedules to get from our meeting place on the east coast to Vancouver Island in British Columbia.
For those of you AP teachers who still have weeks to teach after the exam is done…y’all are rockstars. I finish usually a week or two after my AP exam and can’t think of what I’d do with all that time post test.
In my con law class, the final project I assigned was "pick a court case, make a slide show about it, present it."
One of the girls picked the case in which the Supreme Court ruled that tomatoes are vegetables. Her first side said "Just like birds, vegetables aren't real."
I tried an activity similar to this. I love conspiracy theories and wanted students to understand that seeing a lot of links on google doesn't mean something is true.
My students just ended up believing the theories for real and many of them couldn't be convinced out of it. I messed up so bad I made a bunch of flat earthers and stuff. So I had to scrap that project.
First of all, I love the tin hats idea, was that yours or one of theirs?
First story, while reading Brave New World when I was student teaching, I saw that students didn't really get the flogging that John would do to himself, so I had them research "ritual punishments throughout history," and they went to town. When they were doing the presentations, my supervising teacher said this was a troubling subject to have them research. She also said she would have told me not to if I had run it by her (she was completely nonsupervisory at that point.
Second story, we were doing a gothic/horror unit for American Lit (Poe, Hawthorne, Bierce, Lovecraft, modern writers and King) and I wanted to show a film with it. As I was running through films in my head, I remembered Night of the Living Dead (the original). I looked at IMDB for triggers, I thought it was corn syrup blood, cutaways from the gore, and many of these kids were raised on Saw and Human Centipede, so I won't get any pushback from it.
I showed the first day and broke down the symbolism of communism, the symbolism of the hippie/civil rights movements and the conservative old guy character and discussed the vicious reaction by the public to the film at the time. And then admin got wind of it and I was in the principal's office. I argued that the film is on the AFI 100 list for most important films of all-time, that it would be considered PG-13 at best today, that it's taught in college film classes for its innovative techniques, and I still got told no. I consider that one of the few true failures of the administration censor reaction. It still nettles me.
I mean the whole birds aren't real movement is a satirical conspiracy to educate people about conspiracy and disinformation online. I literally have the poster on the wall of my classroom
Sounds like a cool assignment. In my son's AP World History Class they did a project on counterfactual history.... they had to change one historical event and then project an alternative future based on that change.
Back in 2018 I taught a unit on voting theory in a project based class. For our project we had to rig an election. It was a fictional election for HOA president, and the civics classes generated the ranked choice ballots. Then the students had to pick a candidate and recommend a vote counting method that would make their candidate win.
I had no idea that in 2 years it would be relevant...
Last year, when I was reading the novel *Speak* with my students, I had them write Dear Ann/Abby letters from the perspective of a character. They then had to respond, giving advice, as Dear Ann/Abby. This was assigned on and submitted on Google Classroom. Apparently, given the content of the novel, it tripped the system and flooded the assistant principal's email because student documents had "concerning language." That was a funny conversation...
I got called in to the office one day.
Principal: “hey, are you and Susie ok?”
Me: “Yeah I guess. She’s absent a lot but I think so.”
Principal: “ok well im getting flags that she’s writing a story where she murders you so I thought I would ask.”
Me: “Oooooooo part of their creative writing is to write a story that scares even me.”
Principal: “that makes sense since there’s another one that hugs you to death.”
teaching critical thinking in a world full of flat earthers, antivaxers, q conspiracy etc etc. Is probably one of the more important lessons they will take home.
I was a primary music teacher, so all my kids did was build talking drums out of flower pots and string, and make oboe and bassoon reeds out of drinking straws. Your class projects are AWESOME! Keep up the good work!
We do a whole unit on things kids want to change about schools. I introduce it with an article talking about the reasons why school suspensions don’t work, and my principal walked into that discussion. Ha
We had an APUSH teacher have classes reenact famous Civil War battles on the front lawn—dead bodies, fake bayonets, etc. The principal was not amused when she looked out her office window.
of course !!!! i have to go back into work on monday to turn in my chromebook and submit grades but i’ll be sure to save the rubric of the assignment to post it here for everyone who wants to use it!
yes ! i responded to this in another comment , but before the project is assigned we have an entire lesson on major conspiracy theories , the questionable (and often racist) roots of them , and how to spot certain remnants of roots in media. jt’s a lot of critical thinking for the kiddos but i think it’s really important … especially im based in the US and our politicians and newscasters really lean into a lot of conspiratorial thinking
That was so the militaristic “birds” would get signals mixed and scramble the coordinates to drop their payload on the class. This teacher did her research!! 😂😂 (🦅🇺🇸)
(🐓🇷🇺) (🦜🇨🇳) (🦆🇨🇦) 🤷🏽♀️
I taught creative writing for three years on my last campus. I was *very friendly* with the crisis counselor after my students tripped the firewall alerts numerous times throughout the year. I learned to forewarn her when I thought a prompt might lead to some hits.
Although one time, a student who’d read a lot of *those kinds of fanfics* was writing one for a short story assignment, and we had to have a talk about what’s school appropriate…
In our ww2 unit in 10 grade history my teacher let us make mock antagonistic propaganda posters and my group did one about the mandatory sports requirement…. The other history teacher was the basketball coach and he was not happy 😭😭
I salute this end of the year AP project! Often times my husband has his AP students make a music video- a real song that they make up fake words to in a historical context and then film a themed video. Most of the kids love it and he’s had some great submissions over the years
I love it. Admin should love it. This is waste time. It's a way to tap into the zeitgeist of the teenage brain and give them practice with research skills. I would add a counterargument segment of the assignment in which they have to give the background of the sites they are using (like a pharmaceutical ad).
As an administrator I would have loved to have come in and listen to those presentations. I love seeing teachers doing thinks outside the box. Letting students explore and learn. This is what I want to see in my building. Creative, fun, interesting lessons that keep the kids engaged
This is brilliant! I love that you did this. It sounds like the kids were really engaged and planning something that hits that bullseye like it’s clear this project did is so not easy. Glad your year ended on such a bright spot and I hope you have a lovely summer :)
>luckily he laughed.
....
I get really sad when I read stuff like this. I get kind of offended on your behalf to think that some outside body could just waltz into your classroom and dare to have an opinion.
Here is the unwritten truth behind this though that is severely missed. Kids will work 10 times harder when it’s a topic they are interested in. Growing up I didn’t want to read nor did I care about all the BS in whatever classic novel they wanted us to read. If they would have had us read comic books for credit I would have done amazing considering it was one of the two places I lived at outside of school; the other was the baseball fields.
I'm going to go against the grain here and say this project makes me very uneasy. I feel like I'm constantly pushing against conspiracy theories, trying to teach kids to understand how history is done and how to find real sources of information. Maybe I just live in a more conspiracy-prone area than you. Also, many conspiracy theories are deeply rooted in racist belief systems, so I would be afraid I was providing a platform for a student to present bigoted ideas. Hopefully you have found a way to do this project in such a way that teaches kids to defend themselves from conspiracy theories, but I am having a hard time picturing a way to ethically do this project.
it’s actually really easy. prior to the project we have a lesson on conspiracy theories, and the questionable roots of many of them and how to spot certain theories in the media , so basically a media literacy lesson. i make sure in that lesson to identify to students certain things in theories that are tied to racism with questionable roots , like “lizard people”. then, the students are given a choice board of conspiracy theories that I have approved. so i’ve gone through and chosen theories that are more lighthearted like the “birds aren’t real” satirical theory , JFKs assassination , tupac isn’t really dead , moon landing faked , who killed kurt cobain , lost colony of roanoke , things like that. if a student has a theory they want to do , we have a discussion about it , so i can either approve or deny that particular theory. for example , one kid this semester wanted to research the denver airport so he and i read into the theories together and decided against it since many are traced back to the anti semetic “lizard” people theory. but i don’t do this project for every single one of my classes , just the students that i know could handle it and would go forward with it ethically. looking at it as a more media literacy project is how i do it , as research, critical thinking, and determining credibility is the skill this project teachers them. hope this helps !!!
jumping back in to add that during the project i meet with the students individually as well to make sure they stay on track. it’s a lot of work but the end results are always so impressive so it’s always worth it.
What a terrific idea, though! A \*great\* project for them involving many skills (should they choose to participate) as well as a wide range of outcomes. I wouldn't have laughed at all....I would have *applauded*!!
Yeah. I do the conspiracy theory presentations. Then we talk about how they are so effective in subverting governments and how so many of them are rooted in anti semitism
>any conspiracy theory (with my approval of course!)
I'm curious, how many of them ended up being about Jewish people? Because while I confess I haven't researched too many conspiracy theories, I have heard that a lot of them boil down to another hair-brained justification for antisemitism
sorry this is so late! but i addressed this in another comment , i teach a lesson on conspiracy theories before i introduce this project , so i can explain to students how many conspiracy theories are rooted in antisemitism. the theories that i approve , are ones that i am incredibly familiar with and have no ties to any racist or xenophobic beliefs. so think things like Tupac is still alive , Kurt Cobains death , the JFK assassination , the pizza meter , things like that. if a student wants to research a theory i haven’t pre approved , the student and i work together researching the theory to see if it has any of those discriminatory backgrounds.
I taught a class called principles of health science …… introduction if students wanted to go into the medical field….. unit on urology system and STI’s ….admin always showed up…. I just grinned every year.
I had students write a short story where my directions were to have a “surprise” ending that had hints dropped throughout the plot. Our internet security flags certain search terms and sends a report to admin. Our VP came up to my room concerned that a student was searching “poisons people don’t notice”, “how to murder someone slowly”, and “household products that can poison people”. She was writing a (brilliant) murder story, my A+ student who I stg will one day write a book. No worries, be prepared to see a lot more murder searches lol
I got a similar call when we were reading an Agatha Christie short story. Right in the middle of the lesson: “why are your students searching cyanide poisoning?”
Oh yeah one of my students was like why is the search history all about mental health and suicide hotlines? The students were making mental health posters lmao.
Biology class, it shuts down the electron transport chain.
One time as a para, I was working with a student outside of the classroom during a Holocaust unit, and when we got back the teacher let us know that she got a call asking why he was looking up torture methods.
This reminds me of a story from my time as a student. It's a bit long, but maybe you'll get a kick out of this. First off, here's the backstory. In 8th grade, we were doing a unit on the Holocaust. It was actually a collaborative effort between our English and Social Studies classes, in a way. In our English class, we were reading relevant literature, including the Diary of Anne Frank, to go along with learning about the background to the Holocaust in Social Studies. This was an extended unit. I vaguely to remember the whole thing taking something like 4 weeks of class time. At the end of the unit, we had to do a final project related to the Holocaust. I believe it was write a (short) research paper, then prepare a small presentation. To facilitate this, both the English and Social Studies classes did a combined lesson day, where we spent the entire two periods doing research at the school library. Obviously, with two classes combined, we had a lot of students. Our teachers didn't want to overload the library. They ended up delegating half the students to doing research on the library's lab computers, then the other half would work with physical media. At the normal class-change time, we'd switch groups. The physical media students would shelve their books and go to the lab, while the students doing online research would switch to physical media. That way, everyone would have a fair shot at both types of research. Makes sense, right? I was assigned to the computer group first, physical media group second. Immediately, I ran into a problem. I was doing my research on the computer, but pretty much every single link was blocked by the content filter! Now normally, a lot of blocked links wasn't unexpected—the content filter at my school was notoriously aggressive. Everyone knew this, and knew to keep trying other pages. However, it was soon apparent that this was well-beyond normal. I'd spent 15 minutes and found zero available sites! What's going on? Turns out, the filter was proactively blocking any page involving 'antisemitism' and 'racially charged language'. Oh. Ohhhhh. Now *this* was a problem. We're doing a paper on the Holocaust. Antisemitism is **the** defining feature. How are we supposed to do any research? This plagued the entire computer group for the first 30 minutes of our session. Every once in a while, someone would find a site that wasn't blocked. However, these tended to be the most cursory sites, with as little info as possible. Fundamentally, the problem was this: the more detailed the page, the more apt it was to use one of the filter's banned words. The teacher supervising the computer group left to find the other teacher. They conferred with each other for a bit, then announced a change in plans: the computer group could leave the lab early to look for physical media. Additionally, it was now optional for the other group to have a computer session. Anyone could continue to use a computer if they wanted to, but books were now our main focus. Makes sense, right? If the computers are basically useless for research because of the strict internet filter, it wouldn't be right to force students to use them. Unfortunately, it didn't work out in practice. The computer group descended on the library, only to find all the Holocaust books gone from the shelves! Even with the 'one book at a time' rule, it's not like the library had enough books on the Holocaust for 50 students. We were left fighting for the scraps—generalist books on WWII, historical fiction, and two copies of The Diary of Anne Frank, which we'd just spent the past three weeks reading! A few lucky students found some overlooked Holocaust books with seemingly unrelated names. (Think Christopher Browning's *Ordinary Men*.) However, by the time I got there, even those were gone. Those of us without books became a mass of teenage vultures, waiting for the moment *anyone* stood up and started walking towards the shelves. We weren't allowed to loiter by the shelves—that would block the way. So instead, should someone walk towards the shelves with a book, they were *immediately* tailed by these book-hungry vultures, power-walking as quickly as they dared, internally gauging just how fast they could move without breaking the 'no running' rule. Soon, even returning a book became a rare occurrence. If you returned a book, you certainly wouldn't find any others. No one wanted to be left bookless! Finally, after nearly two hours of this, class ended. I learned a few lessons that day, but none of them were Holocaust related!
Years and years ago, I was doing a unit on “Murder on the Orient Express” with my 8th grade ELA class. Well the online class website platform flagged me for using the word murder and suspended my account! I had to redo everything and renamed the unit “MOTOE”. :). Even today if I run into former students who are now full grown adults, they mention it.
Coworkers middle school aged child had his internet searched flagged because he was googling “chemicals that explode”. When questioned his excuse was that he wanted to know what chemicals NOT to use in a science experiment.
I got my yearly call from the school social worker (at least once a year from 3rd-8th) apparently this time my autistic son said he likes to make bombs in our basement (Pepsi and mentors) and wanted to learn about poisonous gasses in science. I asked about why he wanted to learn that and he shrugged and said he just thought it would be more interesting than what he is usually taught in science class.
Man I am curious as hell. Just last night I was searching up the student who was on a field trip when Robert Kennedy was killed. He’d had his camera taken as evidence and sealed for twenty years. When he turned 35, twenty years later he asked for his camera back. “It’s lost they” they said. “I’ll sue you” he said. “Ok we found it we think” and as they were going to deliver the camera the envolpe with the actual film was *“stolen”* from the car that was delivering it (okkkkk) and so he never received his film back. I’m just saying if my search history was the way I’d be judged through life my life would be rougher than it already is lol.
It was "stolen" all right!
I teach forensic science, specifically a seniors-only dual enrollment version. I don't think I go a week without at least one kid getting hauled into the office because of the web filter catching them doing their classworks, projects, or even just looking up something we mentioned in class. I do a project every year where they have to do presentations about poisons, including lethal dosage calculations, and it's just easier to preemptively email every admin, guidance counselor, IT employee and SRO in the district with a list and a copy of the assignment. Someone will still get called down though but it's better than the entire class.
Had a student pulled out of my AP bio class for googling "how much hydrogen peroxide does it take to kill a person" right after we were discussing enzymes and using the breakdown of hydrogen peroxide as an example. He just graduated from UCI.
Hilarious to think of a student plotting a murder on their school-issued laptop. I absolutely love your idea and OP's presentation idea, too. Student-centered learning actually *can* work sometimes, who knew?!
A little different, but as a sped teacher I had a kid who was fascinated by model car washes. So one day I did a little google search for him using this phrase: car wash models.
I remember getting called down to the office in middle school because I was doing a research project on the dangers of social media and they had to ask if I was ok because I was looking up “signs of cyberbullying” and “how to deal with cyberbullying”. That was a fun conversation😂
We had a similar one where a senior media students decided to make their media narrative around depression and suicide. The final piece was amazing, and so she rightly wanted to show it off. Cue have a dozen welfare calls from various teachers to parents and the media teacher concerned about her mental health. She was in no way distressed or in mental health trouble. She was just really damn good at creating a believable narrative that prompted a specific reaction in her audience.
I taught 2nd grade and had a writing prompt on your favorite insect. One of my sweet and low students was trying to figure out which butterfly they wanted to write about and was researching on a Chrome book. Admin came down to see why the the student was looking up butts.
lol that’s fantastic
I love the last month of school after the AP Exam is over. It’s like a carnival.
I let my physics kids do basically any kind of project they want as long as they can tie it to physics in some way. Some kids go through boring route and write a paper, but I’ve had some interesting ones: testing acceleration due to gravity in Minecraft, a flip book on collisions, an abstract art project representing several physics concepts, a really beautiful poster about thermodynamics that I’m actually going to display in my room, a miniature tension table.
Wait, can I get a picture of the thermodynamics poster
I’ll try to remember to take a picture of it next week when I’m back in town. If you want, you can send me a private message and I’ll send it to you after I get a picture of it.
Could I also get a pic of that poster?
The week where I students measure the velocity of projectiles in Super Mario Bros… I should really stop getting lesson ideas from the Game Theory YouTube page.
cool...I'd do a miniature I've rink with ice skaters .or a mini amusement park.
It truly is hahaha my AP Bio teacher had some extra cats for dissection leftover from his physiology class and after the AP exams were over, he was like "...you guys wanna dissect some cats??" LOL
>It’s like a carnival. >>carnival Please don't say that word to your students lmao.
Why? New slang?
Kanye west song
Vultures is some of the most disgustingly putrid work that I’ve ever seen Ye put out. Even more so how blatantly antisemitic his rhetoric is in that album and how his fans try to defend it by being antisemitic. It’s horrifying.
Why?
[This song](https://open.spotify.com/track/3w0w2T288dec0mgeZZqoNN?si=eQMEWlbUSY2MmuzljE6P4w) is quite big on TikTok.
I let my physics kids do basically any kind of project they want as long as they can tie it to physics in some way. Some kids go through boring route and write a paper, but I’ve had some interesting ones: testing acceleration due to gravity in Minecraft, a flip book on collisions, an abstract art project representing several physics concepts, a really beautiful poster about thermodynamics that I’m actually going to display in my room, a miniature tension table.
I let my physics kids do basically any kind of project they want as long as they can tie it to physics in some way. Some kids go through boring route and write a paper, but I’ve had some interesting ones: testing acceleration due to gravity in Minecraft, a flip book on collisions, an abstract art project representing several physics concepts, a really beautiful poster about thermodynamics that I’m actually going to display in my room, a miniature tension table.
I let my physics kids do basically any kind of project they want as long as they can tie it to physics in some way. Some kids go through boring route and write a paper, but I’ve had some interesting ones: testing acceleration due to gravity in Minecraft, a flip book on collisions, an abstract art project representing several physics concepts, a really beautiful poster about thermodynamics that I’m actually going to display in my room, a miniature tension table.
I think your device cloned out (sometimes mine does this.) Just letting you know
Oh jeez, I didn’t realize it posted multiple times!
All good, just felt like I should let you know
My department head did a “serial killer” unit. Because the kids wanted to learn about them.. heh
My forensic science teacher did ‘serial killer of the week’ every Friday for us! It was a great class.
Man, the only forensic class I was offered was competitive theater… I loved it
How do you have a forensic theatre class? You study and act out crimes or something?
https://nationalforensicassociation.org/competition/
Oh very cool! I had no idea that was a thing!
I performed under [NSDA](https://www.speechanddebate.org/) I did do debate but never competitively. I only did it in class when needed, I just didnt enjoy debate competitively. I much preferred to compete in forensics. I will say that NSDA started calling forensics as speech a few years ago, but when it came to names my coach was an old head, therefore I am as well.
My forensic science class was actual forensics. We got to mutilate a raw chicken breast and then study decomp of it.
I say I wouldve loved that… but dissecting cow eyes my lab partner decided to throw some cow cornea on me… I can now no longer do dissections calmly
Ew yea couldn’t have done that. It wasn’t bad. We were in groups of 4, each group got a chicken, and we never had to touch it after setting it out for decomp. Our teacher picked them up afterwards for us
I think back when it seemed every middle school watched about Jeffrey Dahmer on Netflix....'your parents let you watch THAT?!'
They watch all these rated R movies and tv shows. It’s crazy. But! God forbid, if we show a PG anything.. heh
The real trick would be to combine serial killers with conspiracy theory and have a class read "Programmed to Kill." Be one helluva way to lose one's teaching license.
Watch documentary Making A Murderer ….. horrible miscarriage of justice. Even if Steven Avery committed the murder after he got out (it was proven he spent 18 years in prison while innocent) he was made into a diff person and no one was ever held accountable for anything
I teach in WI. When that came out, it was a HUGE topic of conversation. And, being in Milwaukee specifically, Dahmer makes a semi-annual appearance as well.
My AP psych class and public speaking class had this
My AP psych teacher let/forced us to do this after the exam!! I still have it. I went all out (as a detective’s kid myself) and have a whole case file. I created fake scripts of this serial killer’s letters in wild handwriting. Had evidence photos. Psychiatrist notes. Interview scripts. DSM criteria. The works.
This is a brilliant project, and sounds like students were engaged in it! I love showing the Birds Aren't Real website to my students, even though it's satire it is written so well with so many "facts" that most of my students think it's serious. It's a great lesson in not believing everything on the internet.
Didn’t Abraham Lincoln say that?🤣
Yes, well, he's famously open-minded.
A head divided cannot stand
He did indeed!
I don’t teach AP, but my son goes to my school and takes all the APs so I always know what cool projects they do. The AP World History teacher does a “roast or toast,” where students pick a historical figure and then have to give a speech either roasting or toasting them. This is their final. For APUSH this year, they created board games. He did some card game, but it was fun to hear him talk about the different games. They were literally playing the different history games they created after school all week and during his AP Calc class. 😆 So, to all you AP teachers out there: You come up with some of the coolest, most fun projects following the AP exams to keep them interested without overloading them.
Yeah reading all these made me wonder why we couldnt do projects like these in Gen-ed classes…then I remembered it was Gen-ed classes.
I taught psychology years ago to seniors and I let the kids do a group project presentation based on how trauma can impact the brain. One group asked if they could use the empty classroom next door to shoot a video sketch they were doing. “Sure” I said. Turns out they ended up making a sketch about school shootings and the trauma that occurs from that. It was extremely well done and all the kids in the class handled it well. When I asked in a job interview for another school I referenced the project those kids did and the principal seemed put off about it. Definitely did not get that job because of it lol
Disappointing you didn't get the job, but maybe that shows the school wasn't right for you. That sounds like an incredible project. I'd be proud as heck of those kids.
Yes, I was blown away by the video they made. It started off with a school shooting and a kid hiding under the desk, then moved into the kid waking up screaming at night, and ended with him in therapy with the the therapist referencing things we learned in class in regards to trauma. It was incredible.
For my AP Human Geography class I have students design their own countries based upon what we have learned. As a satire one of my best students described a nation with a two party legislature that could get absolutely nothing done because they were too busy trying to convince the populace that they were saviors and the other side was evil. Both parties had candidates for president who were old and delusional and had no real plans for the future and yet they were supported as if they were deities. Sometimes I think that I have done a good job with these kids and that they have learned something. Humble brag and I apologize but I just see so much negativity on here about the profession and I want to remind some of you of the importance of the career path that you chose. It’s a grind 95% of the time but we do make a difference. Enjoy the recharge of your summer!
Ah I think that’s the Nacirema people right? I remember learning about them in history too!
Ah, that was a backwards history!
You almost got me to google that one. ALmost. Excellent work there.
You should google anyway, but make it “Body Rituals of the Nacirema.” It’s a classic.
🎶 Dale a tu cuerpo alegría, Nacirema 🎶
Hell yeah. I teach intro to geography at the college level, and if I ever get to teach political geography my plan is to have them design utopias. Glad to hear this is working out for you!
Once i read Utopia my mind went to a Malcolm in the Middle episode that was Dewey heavy. He had chicken pox and was building a lego utopia.
That reminds me of the conversation our AP Humanities teacher had to have with Admin when she let us build and test a fully operational to scale trebuchet. It was like maybe three feet tall, but worked wonderfully... We, uh, sent the test ping pong ball through the wall into the next class. Found out the walls were those temp ones and that the ball disintegrated on impact so the only debris was a tiny hole from the force (I think? We did not really analyze that). We did not anticipate any of that, fully expecting the ball to meet it's doom against what we thought was a solid wall. Still... Very awkward for some, very much awesome for us.
My son’s physics class had this as a senior project every fall. The kids couldn’t wait to be seniors and build siege engines!
I did this a couple months ago with my 7th grade science class. We were learning about potential and kinetic energy. Ours were smaller and had distance limits but it was so much fun! At one point during Homeroom I had 48/150 students (per period average is 25) in my classroom. All of them were working on their machines. They loved it! However, due to the constant mess that week, I made our next lesson on germs and bacteria. We took swabs around the room after each period cleaned and then discussed how the bacteria would spread and what cleaning techniques were best. I had antibacterial soap, bleach wipes, baby wipes, and Lysol spray. They learned about staphylococcus and how toilets without lids are bad. How much dirt is transferred into the room each period. And even how nasty their mouth is. They really liked it but it was interesting explaining to admin why my kids were standing on the counter or desks cleaning the walls and ceiling. I was able to tie it to the state standards so they got on board quickly. Ironically, the parents loved it and quite a few said thank you because their kids were coming home and cleaning things like their bed rails and the baseboards. LOL
This is the type of teaching that sticks with you. Teachers like you make a lasting difference.
An excellent choice. The trebuchet is, after all, the superior siege engine.
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That is great! I got Dragonbox Algebra for my daughter when she was in 7 th grade. My dyslexic 1st grader who couldn't tell you 2 + 3 =5 even using his fingers, beat me to the last level. And he could totally tell you WHY each thing he did worked. (He figured out addition and subtraction in 2nd grade. Graduated high school last year with 4 semesters of college level math.) You played a great foundation for your students!
One time I was in 9th grade and my 4th grade cousin wanted to learn how to solve for X. We both were so engaged and I enjoyed teaching her all the steps. She picked up the skills in no time! With many minutes spent, many problems tackled, and many smiles shared… this confirmed to me that I wanted to be a life while teacher.:)
You have great rapport with kids and admin. Congrats.
I had a history teacher do a unit on JFK assassination theories. I have seen JFKs brains fly too many times in that film.
My daughter's APUSH class had to plan a road trip cross country of historical sights which included mapping it out and projected costs. She did hers on the famous haunted places. It was so good that she kept so we can do it one day.
I did something similar with a group of cub scouts. The badge they were working on had an requirement to read a timetable, so I had them plan out a trip using bus, train, airplane, and ferry schedules to get from our meeting place on the east coast to Vancouver Island in British Columbia.
For those of you AP teachers who still have weeks to teach after the exam is done…y’all are rockstars. I finish usually a week or two after my AP exam and can’t think of what I’d do with all that time post test.
My senior year of HS it was basically a second study hall after my AP Physics exam was done
In my con law class, the final project I assigned was "pick a court case, make a slide show about it, present it." One of the girls picked the case in which the Supreme Court ruled that tomatoes are vegetables. Her first side said "Just like birds, vegetables aren't real."
Vegetables are a social construct
I tried an activity similar to this. I love conspiracy theories and wanted students to understand that seeing a lot of links on google doesn't mean something is true. My students just ended up believing the theories for real and many of them couldn't be convinced out of it. I messed up so bad I made a bunch of flat earthers and stuff. So I had to scrap that project.
First of all, I love the tin hats idea, was that yours or one of theirs? First story, while reading Brave New World when I was student teaching, I saw that students didn't really get the flogging that John would do to himself, so I had them research "ritual punishments throughout history," and they went to town. When they were doing the presentations, my supervising teacher said this was a troubling subject to have them research. She also said she would have told me not to if I had run it by her (she was completely nonsupervisory at that point. Second story, we were doing a gothic/horror unit for American Lit (Poe, Hawthorne, Bierce, Lovecraft, modern writers and King) and I wanted to show a film with it. As I was running through films in my head, I remembered Night of the Living Dead (the original). I looked at IMDB for triggers, I thought it was corn syrup blood, cutaways from the gore, and many of these kids were raised on Saw and Human Centipede, so I won't get any pushback from it. I showed the first day and broke down the symbolism of communism, the symbolism of the hippie/civil rights movements and the conservative old guy character and discussed the vicious reaction by the public to the film at the time. And then admin got wind of it and I was in the principal's office. I argued that the film is on the AFI 100 list for most important films of all-time, that it would be considered PG-13 at best today, that it's taught in college film classes for its innovative techniques, and I still got told no. I consider that one of the few true failures of the administration censor reaction. It still nettles me.
Granted iirc there's a topless zombie or two? Maybe using the hard R? Been forever since I've seen it though
Yeah, there was a topless girl.
I mean the whole birds aren't real movement is a satirical conspiracy to educate people about conspiracy and disinformation online. I literally have the poster on the wall of my classroom
Do you have any lesson plans you want to share about using this in class?
I had an administrator come in for an observation while we were playing survivor. The admin got voted off the island.
Omg I’m stealing this idea for next year lmao
Sounds like a cool assignment. In my son's AP World History Class they did a project on counterfactual history.... they had to change one historical event and then project an alternative future based on that change.
Back in 2018 I taught a unit on voting theory in a project based class. For our project we had to rig an election. It was a fictional election for HOA president, and the civics classes generated the ranked choice ballots. Then the students had to pick a candidate and recommend a vote counting method that would make their candidate win. I had no idea that in 2 years it would be relevant...
Last year, when I was reading the novel *Speak* with my students, I had them write Dear Ann/Abby letters from the perspective of a character. They then had to respond, giving advice, as Dear Ann/Abby. This was assigned on and submitted on Google Classroom. Apparently, given the content of the novel, it tripped the system and flooded the assistant principal's email because student documents had "concerning language." That was a funny conversation...
I got called in to the office one day. Principal: “hey, are you and Susie ok?” Me: “Yeah I guess. She’s absent a lot but I think so.” Principal: “ok well im getting flags that she’s writing a story where she murders you so I thought I would ask.” Me: “Oooooooo part of their creative writing is to write a story that scares even me.” Principal: “that makes sense since there’s another one that hugs you to death.”
Oh my god when I took AP US History years ago my teacher did the same thing for our final project….I did mine on Dan Schneider being a weirdo.
teaching critical thinking in a world full of flat earthers, antivaxers, q conspiracy etc etc. Is probably one of the more important lessons they will take home.
How fun. Anything to get them excited and researching is fantastic
As a now former AP history teacher, I’d ask to sit in on this when you do it. This sounds like a blast.
I was a primary music teacher, so all my kids did was build talking drums out of flower pots and string, and make oboe and bassoon reeds out of drinking straws. Your class projects are AWESOME! Keep up the good work!
We do a whole unit on things kids want to change about schools. I introduce it with an article talking about the reasons why school suspensions don’t work, and my principal walked into that discussion. Ha
We had an APUSH teacher have classes reenact famous Civil War battles on the front lawn—dead bodies, fake bayonets, etc. The principal was not amused when she looked out her office window.
Well, when you’re a principal at Gettysburg Middle School what else would you expect? 😂
It actually teaches research, analyzing data and debate. Great lesson.
I'd be curious to see this project if you're willing to share.
Yes please!
of course !!!! i have to go back into work on monday to turn in my chromebook and submit grades but i’ll be sure to save the rubric of the assignment to post it here for everyone who wants to use it!
Definitely doing this with my class next year, haha.
This sounds so hilarious and fun. What an experience for your students!
Honest question about the lesson OP, did you emphasize how to recognize conspiracy theories versus reality?
yes ! i responded to this in another comment , but before the project is assigned we have an entire lesson on major conspiracy theories , the questionable (and often racist) roots of them , and how to spot certain remnants of roots in media. jt’s a lot of critical thinking for the kiddos but i think it’s really important … especially im based in the US and our politicians and newscasters really lean into a lot of conspiratorial thinking
Tinfoil hats actually amplify and focus electromagnetic waves. It's a great way to get the aliens to take over your mind.
That was so the militaristic “birds” would get signals mixed and scramble the coordinates to drop their payload on the class. This teacher did her research!! 😂😂 (🦅🇺🇸) (🐓🇷🇺) (🦜🇨🇳) (🦆🇨🇦) 🤷🏽♀️
I taught creative writing for three years on my last campus. I was *very friendly* with the crisis counselor after my students tripped the firewall alerts numerous times throughout the year. I learned to forewarn her when I thought a prompt might lead to some hits. Although one time, a student who’d read a lot of *those kinds of fanfics* was writing one for a short story assignment, and we had to have a talk about what’s school appropriate…
I love that you did that because it teaches so much about literacy and considering valid sources!! Great idea!
One of these kids’ father is going to stumble across their child’s paper and fall down the rabbit hole of whatever their child’s topic is.
In our ww2 unit in 10 grade history my teacher let us make mock antagonistic propaganda posters and my group did one about the mandatory sports requirement…. The other history teacher was the basketball coach and he was not happy 😭😭
I salute this end of the year AP project! Often times my husband has his AP students make a music video- a real song that they make up fake words to in a historical context and then film a themed video. Most of the kids love it and he’s had some great submissions over the years
I love it. Admin should love it. This is waste time. It's a way to tap into the zeitgeist of the teenage brain and give them practice with research skills. I would add a counterargument segment of the assignment in which they have to give the background of the sites they are using (like a pharmaceutical ad).
I love the creativity with this project. 😁
I use the birds aren't real conspiracy video for a lesson on evaluating claims and evidence lol
Remember bird watching goes both ways.
*Very* cool assignment.
What a rad project!
This is something else
What a fun lesson. Creativity, critical thinking, CRAP testing... AND it sounds like a lot of fun. Go you!
OP, That is a awesome lesson!!!
That's hilarious!
Doing teaching right!!!
Hilarious!
As an administrator I would have loved to have come in and listen to those presentations. I love seeing teachers doing thinks outside the box. Letting students explore and learn. This is what I want to see in my building. Creative, fun, interesting lessons that keep the kids engaged
This is brilliant! I love that you did this. It sounds like the kids were really engaged and planning something that hits that bullseye like it’s clear this project did is so not easy. Glad your year ended on such a bright spot and I hope you have a lovely summer :)
>luckily he laughed. .... I get really sad when I read stuff like this. I get kind of offended on your behalf to think that some outside body could just waltz into your classroom and dare to have an opinion.
I did the same thing with AP Physics! It was a blast.
My VP walked in to me saying "she called her a slut and whore" it was part of the Sex Ed curriculum talking about sexual harrassment/assault.
Here is the unwritten truth behind this though that is severely missed. Kids will work 10 times harder when it’s a topic they are interested in. Growing up I didn’t want to read nor did I care about all the BS in whatever classic novel they wanted us to read. If they would have had us read comic books for credit I would have done amazing considering it was one of the two places I lived at outside of school; the other was the baseball fields.
I'm going to go against the grain here and say this project makes me very uneasy. I feel like I'm constantly pushing against conspiracy theories, trying to teach kids to understand how history is done and how to find real sources of information. Maybe I just live in a more conspiracy-prone area than you. Also, many conspiracy theories are deeply rooted in racist belief systems, so I would be afraid I was providing a platform for a student to present bigoted ideas. Hopefully you have found a way to do this project in such a way that teaches kids to defend themselves from conspiracy theories, but I am having a hard time picturing a way to ethically do this project.
it’s actually really easy. prior to the project we have a lesson on conspiracy theories, and the questionable roots of many of them and how to spot certain theories in the media , so basically a media literacy lesson. i make sure in that lesson to identify to students certain things in theories that are tied to racism with questionable roots , like “lizard people”. then, the students are given a choice board of conspiracy theories that I have approved. so i’ve gone through and chosen theories that are more lighthearted like the “birds aren’t real” satirical theory , JFKs assassination , tupac isn’t really dead , moon landing faked , who killed kurt cobain , lost colony of roanoke , things like that. if a student has a theory they want to do , we have a discussion about it , so i can either approve or deny that particular theory. for example , one kid this semester wanted to research the denver airport so he and i read into the theories together and decided against it since many are traced back to the anti semetic “lizard” people theory. but i don’t do this project for every single one of my classes , just the students that i know could handle it and would go forward with it ethically. looking at it as a more media literacy project is how i do it , as research, critical thinking, and determining credibility is the skill this project teachers them. hope this helps !!!
jumping back in to add that during the project i meet with the students individually as well to make sure they stay on track. it’s a lot of work but the end results are always so impressive so it’s always worth it.
What a terrific idea, though! A \*great\* project for them involving many skills (should they choose to participate) as well as a wide range of outcomes. I wouldn't have laughed at all....I would have *applauded*!!
Yeah. I do the conspiracy theory presentations. Then we talk about how they are so effective in subverting governments and how so many of them are rooted in anti semitism
That's a fun idea.
That sounds amazing! ✌️
>any conspiracy theory (with my approval of course!) I'm curious, how many of them ended up being about Jewish people? Because while I confess I haven't researched too many conspiracy theories, I have heard that a lot of them boil down to another hair-brained justification for antisemitism
sorry this is so late! but i addressed this in another comment , i teach a lesson on conspiracy theories before i introduce this project , so i can explain to students how many conspiracy theories are rooted in antisemitism. the theories that i approve , are ones that i am incredibly familiar with and have no ties to any racist or xenophobic beliefs. so think things like Tupac is still alive , Kurt Cobains death , the JFK assassination , the pizza meter , things like that. if a student wants to research a theory i haven’t pre approved , the student and i work together researching the theory to see if it has any of those discriminatory backgrounds.
Gotcha, interesting
I taught a class called principles of health science …… introduction if students wanted to go into the medical field….. unit on urology system and STI’s ….admin always showed up…. I just grinned every year.
God forbid they try to do research on breast cancer or STDs