Fandom High School

Well, Fraser certainly wasn't going to hold class when the school was almost impossible to get to. So, he'd called Fosse and had the diligent troll put a note on the classroom door.

Class canceled due to emergency on island. Please stay safe if you decide to go out and face the dangers. Hopefully, we'll be back next week.

B. Fraser

[Class, of course, is canceled because of Mr. Magic Dance]

There was a large television set up at the front of the room today and Fraser had brought in several trays of baked goods.

"It's the day before a long weekend so I didn't want to try and teach a lesson when I know your minds are probably elsewhere. Thus, we're going to watch a movie."

With that, Fraser turned the television on and got the movie running. While it queued up, he said, "It's applicable to the class so make sure you watch to see what you recognize. Enjoy the movie and please help yourself to some baked goods."

Fraser smiled and took a seat, settling in to watch the movie himself.

"Today, we're going to be talking a little bit about conspiracy theories," Fraser said, grateful that class gave him the opportunity to be up front and honest anyway. He wouldn't spout anything too bad in class. "Now, I don't know a lot about conspiracy theories but most of them are just from the minds of crackpots with nothing better to do."

Or maybe not. Fraser frowned.

"Conspiracy theories are, basically, a way to explain a current or historical event as the result of a secret plot by a group of conspirators of superhuman power and cunning. Conspiracy theories are rarely supported by any factual evidence and the evidence that there is can be refuted easily or explained away. It's very hard to prove a conspiracy theory but, despite that, these theories grow and become widely believed by groups of people. Does that make them crackpots too? Perhaps just easily influenced? Maybe they wanted to believe it in the first place? It's different for everyone. For today, we're going to see how well you can come up with conspiracy theories of your own. I'm going to hand out a list of historical events and I want you all to write down a conspiracy theory for one of those events. Be sure to try and be as far fetched as you'd like but think about who would believe it and how you could make people believe it without any factual evidence. Think about these before just going with the first thing you can think of. All right? You can start."

"Welcome back," Fraser greeted as the students filed into the classroom. "I hope you all had an enjoyable Homecoming weekend. Today, we're going to talk about Halloween. Now, I know some of you might not know what Halloween is or might not even celebrate it but Halloween is ripe for all kinds of myths and urban legends because of the holiday itself."

He paused and leaned against the desk at the front of the room. "Halloween, for those that don't know, is a rather secular holiday these days. It tends to revolve around candy, costumes and scares. Due to the sometimes frightening nature of the holiday, it tends to breed urban legends and myths of the scariest variety. One of the most common are the fear that the candy received by trick or treaters will be poisoned or containing some sort of foreign object. Now, there is a basis for this urban legend since this has happened before and that's why vigilance is so highly preached on this particular subject. Most of the time, it just means taking trick-or-treaters to houses you know and checking the candy once you're home. It's easily preventable but frightening nonetheless."

Fraser smiled though and shook his head. "Today, though, we're going to watch something that's a very enjoyable example of a Halloween urban legend. Some of you might have seen it as it is a classic and if this is your first time, I hope you enjoy it. I'm much older than all of you and I continually enjoy it. What I want you to look for in this story is fairly easy. Obviously, figure out what the legend is. It shouldn't be that hard to do. Once you've done that, figure out how this legend is spread and why it becomes so widely believed. And, if you can, figure out why people begin not to believe. Feel free to write this all down and hand it in. It's a fairly easy class but I hope you enjoy the movie."

With that, he started the movie and took a seat to watch.

Once again, Fraser was at the front of the classroom. His arms were crossed and he looked thoughtful as the students filed in.

"Welcome back. I hope you all had a productive weekend even if I feel it was probably slightly stressful," he said, nodding. "We've all made it through though so we can continue on with our lessons."

With that said, Fraser launched into the discussion. "Today, we're going to be talking about monsters under the bed. Or, more specifically, urban legends. If you don't know, an urban legend is a story of obscure origin with little or no supporting evidence. It's typically spread by word of mouth and a lot of the most famous urban legends contain elements of horror. For example, the Bunny Man bridge involves stories about a man dressed in a bunny suit who attacks people with an axe. Now, it seems far fetched but words have power and if someone told you this story and spoke it seriously, you might think twice."

Fraser shuddered to think of that urban legend being true. It was really creepy. "With urban legends, words have extreme power. Most often, urban legends are told from friend to friend, making them more personal. As the story is told, it evolves from person to person, often growing in terror and scope as it does. Why do you think most of the famous urban legends depict terror and horror? Is it because this is more interesting than an urban legend about something peaceful? Are words more powerful when there's fright involved? And how are these stories so believable when there's no evidence? Is it the personal factor? If my wife told me about one of the stories, I would be more inclined to believe her than if someone at the local grocery store told me. Let's discuss."

Fraser was standing in front of a table that was covered by a sheet when the students entered the room today. His arms were crossed and he looked thoughtful while everyone settled in.

"Good morning," he greeted, nodding at the class, "and welcome back. Today, we're going to be looking at biases in a simplistic sort of way. Everyone has biases, that's undeniable. It's how you deal with them that's important."

With that said, Fraser pulled the sheet off the table slowly to reveal several assorted plates of food. Some probably looked familiar, some did not. What Fraser didn't do was label the plates of food. It was going to be up to the students to choose what they want.

"Today, we're going to looking at biases with food. Now, it's simplistic and it's not always applicable but we even have biases with food. If you see something that looks inviting and smells good, you're more likely to try it than try something that looks bad and/or smells bad. You judge the food immediately without having tasted it. So, these dishes have no labels on them. It's going to be up to your eyes and your nose to decide if you want to try it. If you realize your biases are kicking in, that's fine, that happens. This is just a way to demonstrate that biases happen everywhere, even in something as mundane as food. So please, step up and look at the dishes. Take your pick on what you'd like to eat and see how you judge what you do eventually consume. Let's begin."

As the students filed into the classroom, they'd see Fraser standing at the front, leaning against the desk. The super straight posture he was so used to didn't seem needed right now.

"Good morning and welcome back," Fraser said, smiling at them all. "Today, we're going to get right into the lessons. I don't have a syllabus as I tend to stop following it halfway through so every week is going to be a surprise."

Whether that was good or bad, Fraser didn't know. "Today, we're going to be discussing extraterrestrial life. Now, that particular legend has been refuted time and time again to those of us on the island. There are people outside the island that still might not believe there really are other planets out there beyond our solar system and thus, they probably don't believe some people who are very much alive exist at all."

Fraser paused and pushed away from the desk. "Even if this island and it's amazing properties didn't exist, people would still be pushing the belief that extraterrestrial life existed because the universe is really too vast to just be us. That's just ridiculous, isn't it? Why would a universe that's probably comprised of an infinite number of solar systems, planets and stars be out there but we're the only ones living. Unfortunately, there are those people that believe that's true. They believe we're the only ones that are alive and they believe that the universes are ours."

Humanity was a selfish, selfish species. "Now, why do you think, presented with quite a bit of evidence, people would believe that we're alone in the universe? Isn't that short sighted and narrow minded at this day and age? It's true that Earth scientist might not have discovered extraterrestrial life on the planets in this system but that's not an indicator that they do not exist. Scientists need only to come here and find that other planets, other worlds and other universes truly do exist. So, today's activity is simple. We're all going to assume we're extraterrestrials. There's someone in front of you telling you that you do not exist and you never will. How would you convince them otherwise? Feel free to talk to each other and discuss your answers. Let's get started."