'Sweg' or 'Down the Youtube Rabbithole'

I sat down this morning to put together a lesson for this Friday. It is spring break (or spring burp, or spring pause, or whatever term you want to use) after all, so, as most teachers tend to do, I have been working on lessons. I am going to be out on Friday at the annual Writers' and Artists' Retreat at Rock Springs, so I need to have an enlightening and engaging lesson ready for my kids, especially my freshmen. So, I was looking for a couple specific video clips that would fit nicely into the what I had developed in my mind. Then it happened. I should have felt the Earth beginning to give way beneath me, but before I could stop it from happening, I was descending into a swirl of lights and sounds that washed over me and took me deeper and deeper.

This has happened before, and I have somehow managed to swim to the surface, gasping for breath, wondering how I could have given up the minutes, sometimes the hours, of my life to that vortex of bits and bytes. And then I would do it again. And again. Sometimes, I am not even draw in by its blackhole-like gravity; sometimes I jump in headfirst, happily, and swim as deeply as possible, smiling and laughing the whole time. Some of you know of what I speak. You have been there too, haven't you? You have tumbled down the Youtube Rabbithole.

Youtube is a seemingly endless universe of videos. Some are professionally produced. Most are not. Most are ameteur offerings of questionable quality. However, there are some truly entertaining, educational, and enlightening nuggets among the heaps of worthlessness. One of the greatest aspects of Youtube is that I can access videos that I would otherwise never see. Sometimes, that is amazing. Sometimes it is frightening.

On this fine morning, I started with TED Talks. These videos are lectures, lessons, presentations, and discussions by quite possibly the most varied collections of educators ever assembled. Many of them are not what we would call "traditional" educators, and they offer some of the most interesting insights. One presenter is a part of the Hip Hop Shakespeare Company, and his name is Akala. I have used one of his presentations with my classes, and I really enjoy what he has to offer.

I easily found one of the clips I was hoping to use in my lesson for Friday, mainly because a valued colleague of mine, Laura Miller, had found it first and emailed it to me. It is a boiled down and yet meaningful explanation of slam poetry and the process one might use to write it.  From there, I was able to locate a talk from Sarah Kay, a spoken word poet and teacher. That is when I should have felt the whirlpool beginning to rotate beneath me. But I didn't. I was doomed. Youtube has this little feature on the righthand side which suggests other videos one might want to view. Sometimes this list makes sense, and it is extremely useful in locating related clips. Sometimes, it is just the gateway dealer standing on the corner of the alley, not yet in the shadows and the filth, still safe and in the lamplight, but on the edge of something shadowing, something shady. Once he shakes your hand, slips you that first taste of what looks harmless and fun, there is no turning back. You are hooked and will only go deeper. At first you think you can handle it. It's just a video man, and I know what I am doing.  Yeah, right. Then three hours later, you look up, bleary eyed and numb, your coffee cup still half full but cold, the laundry still piled on the window seat and in need of folding, and kids wondering where their daddy went. Ok the last part is hyperbole; Dylan is still in bed, and Emily just came in and asked me a questions, but still, you get the point.

I had "wasted" three hours looking at videos ranging from TED Talks, to ADD Poetry, from "Rap God" to Def Poetry Jam, from lyrics video (full of grammatical errors and misspellings) to rambling video blogs. Was it really a waste though. I had never heard of ADD Poetry's channel before, and it has some great pieces on it, although I cannot use most of them in class. I found the "Fat Guy Poetry" clip that a student had told me about and that I wanted for the lesson. I found numerous new songs that I had never heard, and I saw examples of some truly horrible poetry. Was Alice's trip down the rabbithole a waste of time? Definitely not. And neither was this tumble. I will admit that I would be hard pressed to explain why some of my previous trips through the "suggestions" lists should be considered worthwhile, although I am sure I can develop a definition of "worthwhile" that would, in turn, support each and every internet excursion as somehow valuable. However, today's tumble yielded so many useful gems, few could argue that it was not time well-spent.  Odds are, I will end up diving headlong into the tempest once more, looking to repeat the outcome, and, more importantly, the adventure.

I feel that I owe any of you who are still held here some sort of reward for staying here this long. So, here you have it. George Watsky is a spoken word poet and artist who have a wide variety of clips on Youtube. He is interesting, and, I think, talented. His list of suggestions of the right led me to this video. It made me laugh. You will probably know why fairly quickly. Enjoy.