The Smart Board of Doom

Salma Ahmed

Editor-in-Chief

“High School Students in Menoufia watch a dancer on the smart board….The Governor of Menoufia forms a committee to examine the incident and threatens those responsible for serious measures…Video and photos,” read the headline in Arabic to an article published in a respectable Egyptian news outlet.

Despite it being far too long for a headline, it told the story as is.

Recently, smart boards have made their way to Egyptian public schools, giving teachers a new tool to have their students interact more during their lectures and facilitate the teaching process.

The article tells of how students shared the video that circulated around Facebook to cause such a fuss and eventually get the governor involved.

The video, taken using a low-quality mobile camera, showed a number of highschool students watching and dancing along to a video of a belly dancer on their newly equipped smart board. It featured the students dancing along and clapping as the video played.

It was later released that the video was taken in an all-boys school located in Menoufia. 

The Undersecretary of the Ministry of Education, Menoufia Governorate ordered the dismissal of 22 students and the investigation of 15 teachers, all at the school.

The involvement of the teacher under investigation remains questionable but it appears like the authorities needed a scapegoat for the ‘ills’ of the teenage boys. And who is better to blame than a bunch of underpaid and overworked teachers who rely on tutoring to make enough money to survive.

Personally, it all seems like a PR stunt. If the video was not shared online and quickly went viral in the country, no one would have cared about what the highschoolers did in school.

Yet, since it ended up being watched by every Egyptian with a smartphone, the authorities had to interfere to appear to be doing their job.

Through my eyes, the students didn’t do anything wrong. It was disrespectful but not wrong. The video is no different from any of those you’d stop by as you scroll through any social media platform’s feed.

If the teenagers were dancing along to anything, literally anything, other than a belly dancer in a skintight dress showcasing body, they wouldn’t have faced such backlash. The oppression of women embracing their sexuality has definitely played a role in the video being received so negatively.

Subtract the belly dancing and it would’ve just been a regular video of highschool students misbehaving, with no need for any governor’s involvement.

This incident brings along a different discussion in regards to the countrys’ future.

Egypt recently welcomed its 100 millionth citizen. And with this viral clip implying that schools have lost control over their students, it raises the question of how the country is going to deal with its ever expanding population.

If a group of hyper teenagers having fun has caused such a public disturbance, it becomes hard to imagine that there will come a time when they comprise a large percentage of the population, expectedly within the coming decades.

It provides a warning and enough time for something to be done about it. Important questions must be asked about the education system – whether it’s too restrictive umin an increasingly competitive world. Questions about the continued objectification of women, sexuality and social norms should also borne addressed as the country’s population spirals out of control.