Music

Vancouver teacher suspended for playing the Lonely Island's "I'm On A Boat" in class

by Richard Howard

If you’ve seen Andy Sandberg and his Lonely Island cohorts’ digital shorts on Saturday Night Live, you know it’s not exactly high-brow humour (as titles like ‘Dick in a Box‘ and ‘Jizz In My Pants‘ might suggest). Still, they’re pretty harmless, right?

According to a consent resolution agreement posted online, the B.C. Teacher Regulation Branch would beg to differ. The document reveals that a Vancouver substitute teacher was suspended without pay for showing students the Lonely Island’s music video for “I’m On A Boat.”

In September 2015, substitute teacher Cory Ray Steeves played the video for his Grade 10 and Grade 12 classes as part of a lesson on satire, also showing the weird-af video ‘The Big Bad Wolf‘ by Duck Sauce to the younger students. The consent agreement somewhat hyperbolically claims “I’m On A Boat” consists “primarily of profanity” and pretty accurately claims “The Big Bad Wolf” depicts a bunch of people with human heads where their junk should be that pee and have sex (I’m paraphrasing).

Although Steeves warned the students that the videos could be offensive and offered them the chance to leave the room, the fact that one momma’s boy actually did failed to satiate the Regulatory Branch’s displeasure, and they chose to suspend the teacher for five days without pay. In order to resume teaching, Steeves was ordered to complete the course “Reinforcing Respectful Professional Boundaries.” Thanks a lot, Sandberg. This poor guy gets suspended, and you and T-Pain are off having sex with mermaids.