The Story of a Flashmob Dance

The AP Psychology national exams took place in early May.  In the weeks between the exam and the end of school, I'm able to do some more creative and fun activities with my students.  This year we some great psychology-related movies, but added something new to the routine way my courses have concluded.  We set out to execute a flashmob dance in the school.

At this point, I must give proper credit to the inspiration for this idea.  Since I met her, my GF has expressed a strong desire to take part in a flashmob.  I don't remember exactly why, but a few months ago I realized it would be a really cool thing to plan with students.  I told GF about the idea and once she overcame her disappointment of realizing she wouldn't be able to participate in mine, she was very supportive :)  A fortunate thing happened next.  On a random Friday after school around that time, I was goofing off with some colleagues, just blowing off some steam.  My principal stopped in and joined in with our winding down from the week.  Then, I'm not sure why, but he chose to share with us the wonderful YouTube sensation known as "The Honey Badger".  Correction, I know exactly why he chose to share it with us.  Simply put, the Honey Badger pretty badass.  We then got in to one of those YouTube show and tell sessions that sometimes happen.  Before he left, he shared a story about the party he attended the previous weekend and how an actual white tiger cub was there and how party goers played with it on a bed like it was a domestic pet.  WTF?  100% true, I promise.  The main thing I took from this online video sharing circle was that my principal is as cool as I suspected and he would probably be open to my classes throwing down a flashmob.  I spoke with him the following Monday.  Boom!

We had about two weeks to really prepare, which was good, but there was little time to waste.  A group of about three or four students and myself met about four times to choreograph.  We had to find a way to incorporate the 50 to 60 students who expressed interest in dancing too.  We agreed that the mob should slowly build and suddenly grow to the full group to give a element of surprise to those who witnessed it.  The initial song I suggested didn't inspire the students and we quickly settled on Angel by Akon instead.  I simply provided the location and general attitude I wanted from the dance and the students planned the rest.  It was really impressive how fast and how creative they were.  Within short time, we were prepared to show the three separate classes that wanted to participate.  After only 2 practice sessions for each class, the mob was ready to go.  We were nervous and excited to see how the three classes would blend during the dance, because we never practiced as one group.

The dance was planned to affect as many students as possible, but could not interfere with the actual schedule of the school.  We chose to dance in the main lobby of our school about ten minutes before homeroom began.  To gather witnesses, I had a popular colleague of mine announce "If you want to be in a good mood come to the lobby now.  Repeat, if you want to be in a good mood come to the lobby."  We had not planned for the number of students and staff who showed up.  It was crowded!

As we started, the music was difficult to hear over the large crowd, but the students caught up quickly.  Some people present were unable to clearly see the entire dance.  Nevertheless, my students went for it and we had blast!  The actual track of the song has been laid over the original sound, because the crowd noise drowned out the music.

Man, it was a good time and I'll remember it for a long time.  My students really enjoyed themselves and we received some nice comments from many people.