The Smartboard Ghost of Room 24: The Case of the Cursed Cursor

I was in the midst of a riveting lesson on poetry. The children stared, immersed in the content, at the Smartboard when one of my little honeys inexplicably got up from her seat in the darkened room and slowly moved toward my computer...reaching for the mouse. "Josie!" I snapped, breaking her hypnotic spell, "What are you doing? Get away from there!" She turned robotically at me, pointing a shaking finger at the wall behind me, "But Mrs. Mosiman...look."

I turned...and like the rest of the class, was stuck dumb in horror. The cursor on the Smartboard was moving...of its own volition...methodically...deliberately...across the screen. Students closed their eyes, cupped frightened hands over their mouths to hold back screams of terror, or just stared as goose bumps swept over their skin. A screen was minimized before our astonished eyes. The cursed cursor moved to the "Start" button and did an inventory of the choices filed there.

It was time to pretend to be an adult. "There must be an explanation for this," I stated firmly, walking to the phone (which was located conveniently next to the door in case I would need to hastily retreat should a poltergeist re-enactment occur. Remember the saying...Women and children first. WOMEN and then children...) to call the only exorcist I knew equipped to deal with this paranormal occurrence: My IT guy. My fears were almost immediately calmed because he answered the phone on the first ring. That NEVER happens as our IT guy is a bit of a ghost himself. "It was me..." he said in lieu of a greeting, "I'm sorry. I was trying to override a problem in Room 21 and clicked on you guys instead." He laughed as I explained our concerns--not realizing that several children were, at that moment, being revived from varying states of hyperventilating. I feared, at the least, reports of nightmares...at the worse, documented cases of PTSD. I discovered that none of my students would ever be stupid enough to "check out that strange sound in the attic" or think, "Oh my...Disposable Character #4 has been down in the basement for too long...maybe I should see what's keeping him." Like the Cowardly Lion, we "do believe in ghosts...we do believe in ghosts...we do.. we do...we do...believe in ghosts." And I finally have a reason to genuinely fear using technology in the classroom.