My student turned in the most weird "Living History" project I've ever seen.

The stinky green crap "Living History" assignments we give at the end of each year are one of my least best parts of my job as a middle school history teacher. Kids should get together with their grandparents and record their first memories on film, tape, or pen and paper so that future generations can see them (and so they can get better grades).

Since this is something I've done for 17 years, I thought this time's projects would be just as boring, if not more so. I went home, opened a bottle of wine and got ready for a long night of hearing things like, "At your age, I only wore two pairs of trousers," "My brother got hit with a newspaper for throwing a baseball into a neighbor's yard," and, of course, "those innocent, old-fashioned comments that were so incredibly sexist and racist you had to laugh."

Via was my girl. She was skinny, quiet, and always got Bs in school, so I thought her project would be just as dull as mine. That's probably why what I saw that night made me feel so badly. When I clicked on the "interview" one, my screen froze twice and then showed a blurry picture of a living room. It looked like the hell of a hoarder.

Via was curled up in a couch and holding a notepad. She looked like a scared cat. A man with a serious face sat across from her, smoking, and looked at her with hope.

From behind the camera, a soft female voice said, "Go ahead." Via's owlish eyes went back and forth between…