Ainee Fatima, an English and media studies teacher at East Leyden High School, has become an internet star for promoting her idea to use do-it-yourself memes to grade her students’ exams.
A video posted on Twitter has generated millions of views from fellow teachers and others who were browsing. Fatima, 27, said she never imagined her idea going viral. According to her Twitter page, the video has been viewed more than 10 million times.
“It was the last thing on my mind,” she said. “I posted it to Twitter as a joke.”
Fatima said the idea came to her one day while grading papers.
“I thought about how our texting culture and social media culture are so involved with memes,” she said. “We use them all the time. I thought, ‘why not?’ My class is a big fan of memes.”
Fatima took to her computer to create a template and printed the memes on stickers, displaying the face of a “confused” Nick Young and a “positive” Gordon Ramsay face.
Adrian Navarro, a senior at East Leyden High School, said he was happy about the meme grading, saying, “it was funny.” Fatima said when some students failed to get a sticker on their exam, they approached her asking for one
Fatima presented her idea to colleagues and the head of her department the morning before the video went viral. She said they laughed, and they thought it was a good idea.
Fatima said students like the stickers so much they are looking forward to taking their next exam.
Fatima is in middle of her first year of teaching at East Leyden High School. She said that bringing forth her idea has been helpful in getting her acclimated to the school.
“I feel very much welcomed,” she said.
Navarro said he enjoys being in Fatima’s class.
“She’s bringing new ways on how to teach,” he said.