We Are the World

I am sure that you, reader, are aware that in the beginning of February a new 25 year anniversary version of “We are the World” was released to benefit the relief effort in Haiti.

Little known is that the songs secondary objective was to drive me to insanity.

Raj, who is another WorldTeacher here teaching English, introduced the song to his classes in a lesson about giving back to the community. Little did he know the evil that he unleashed. Hearing that the kids liked the song I downloaded the whole 8 minute 30 second long video to add to my collection of bribe videos. Each day if the class behaves and all students get their work done before the end of class I reward them with a music video or two up on the projector. This was Julia’s brainchild and is very nearly the sole reason that my classes’ behavior has improved so dramatically this semester.

So the day dawns where I debut the “We are the World” video in my classes and they are IN AWE. For the next three weeks every one of my class only wants to watch that video. Every day. Over and over. One class worked faster than I have ever seen them work so that they could actually have time to watch it three times on repeat. I can’t complain about their motivation. However watching this video a minimum of six time a day for weeks was starting to drive me insane.

Finally, a test day rolled around and they had to work on their test for the whole period and couldn’t watch the video. Peace for two days! Or so I thought… I let them listen to music while the work as it helps cut down on the talking (cheating), and what did they listen to? We are the World. On repeat. For a whole hour. Seriously. The best part is that three out of my five classes did this.

The craze has died, but I at least can now completely reenact the entire video including voice changes and auto-tune which I did for the entertainment of those near me on a bus with Thanh.

Here is my gift to you: