Mr. Keith - The Hot Chocolate Man
This article was last updated on: September 11th of 2022
"You may be thinking right now, “Yee-ha, no math!” Actually, we use a lot of math in this class at the basic algebra level and it is the same type of math used day in and day out in class, and in most people’s regular lives."
- Mr. Keith on the use of math in his classroom, 2015.
"That's only because Mr. Keith's tests were fucking rigged."
- Devin Abood on his mediocre grade in 8th grade science, 06/28/18.
Background
Mr. Danny "Dan" Keith, also known as "Chief Keith" or the "Hot Chocolate Man", is a former 8th grade science teacher at Williamston Community Schools. We do not know exactly when he joined the district, but he claimed to have been at the district for almost 30 years in 2017. He had worked in both Williamston High School and Williamston Middle School. He taught science classes and has taught engineering in the past. Unfortunately, we do not know much about Mr. Keith's personal life or education. He is probably in his 60s, and his wife Mrs. Keith is known for making tasty deserts and worked a job relating to the school cancellation process. Outside of the classroom, Mr. Keith designed a weather resistant marker for the headstone of Civil War veterans at a Willamstown township cemetery. He was frequently involved in the Kid's College Summer Camp at MSU. In June 2022, at the end of the 2021 - 2022 school year, Mr. Keith retired.
Career at Williamston High School
Mr. Keith worked at Williamston High School from at least the 2014-2015 school year all the way to the 2016-2017 school year. He was spotted in one of the infamous (and now deleted) bathroom party videos by Evan Fox from the early 2010s. His high salary is further proof that he has been in the district for decades at least. During his time at the high school, he inhabited the F5 classroom and taught Principles of Engineering and Conceptual Physics. He may have also been in the D4 classroom, as leftover science materials have been spotted in the nearby storage rooms. Mr. Keith may have taught other classes, but sadly we do not know much more than this.
Career at Williamston Middle School
Mr. Keith was transfered over to WMS in 2017, and took over the A9 classroom. This was an organized change by the school, as the previous teacher in that classroom, Mr. Travis, was sent over to the high school at the same time. Mr. Travis was the science and engineering teacher at the middle school, and so it made sense that they swapped positions. Perhaps they each wanted to teach different grade levels. Regardless, Mr. Keith has taught 8th grade science at the middle school from the 2017-2018 school year through the 2021 - 2022 school year. The engineering elective is no longer offered at the middle school, and hasn't been since this swap.
The Hot Chocolate Machine
Since he arrived at the middle school, or perhaps even before, Mr. Keith has maintained a hot chocolate machine in his classroom. This machine runs on cocoa mix he imports to his classroom in massive boxes, each full of about a dozen one-pound bags of cocoa. It takes about one full bag to fill the machine, and you have pour it into the machine slowly, otherwise cocoa powder will get everywhere. This powder is than mixed with hot water, producing hot chocolate. Mr. Keith did not run the machine for profit, instead, he provided it as a service to his students. Every Friday, he would allow the students in his class to purchase a hot chocolate from him for 50 cents (to cover the costs). Furthermore, Mr. Keith gave all students a "birthday hot chocolate pass", which all students are able to trade in on their respective birthdays to receive a free large hot chocolate. The hot chocolate machine is maintained by a student volunteer in Mr. Keith's first hour who arrives early. In exchange for maintaining the machine, the student receives a free hot chocolate every week. Ian Hampton was Mr. Keith's hot chocolate slave during the 2017-2018 school year.
According to WMS students, Mr. Keith expanded his operation in the 2019-2020 school year. Instead of selling the hot chocolate during his class, he moved his operation to the cafeteria. Students were able to purchase hot chocolate at the usual price during the A and B lunch periods. Since these lunch periods service more grades than just 8th, expanding his customer base by three fold, one may wonder if Mr. Keith is actually beginning to make money on this operation.
The Coffee Machine
In addition to the hot chocolate machine, Mr. Keith was also the proud owner of a coffee machine. This was also maintained by a student volunteer, but a different one from the hot chocolate machine. Instead of being paid through free hot chocolate, the coffee machine slave was paid through random items. One time in late 2017, the coffee machine slave was given a whole quart of orange juice. An entire quart, you literally can't make this shit up. Anyway, the coffee machine was heavily valued by the staff of Williamston Middle School. Many teachers come by throughout the day to grab a cup of coffee, including the radical Mr. Gere, who stopped by nearly every morning for a cup. However, unlike his monopoly with the hot chocolate machine, other teachers may have coffee machines of his own. His just happened to be full 100% of the time due to student labor and a stockpile of coffee beans.
NeatScience.com
Mr. Keith runs a website known as "NeatScience.com". This website was coded by Mr. Keith himself through very simple html, and it is used for a variety of things, mostly as a low budget Google Classroom. Mr. Keith constantly updates the website, making the materials from class easily accessible. However, he also has a variety of other things on the website, such as a recipe page full of recipes from Mr. and Mrs. Keith, including "Dan's Pretty Good Stuffed Shells". He used to have a link to a snow day calculator on the website but that was removed at some point. Whenever a student is sick or misses class, Mr. Keith expects said student to check NeatScience to see what they missed. In fact, if you ask Mr. Keith for literally anything he would probably respond with "Did you check NeatScience?".
Following his retirement, he re-purposed NeatScience into a personal site.
Behavior
Mr. Keith was very nice to most students, but can also be rather strict at times. For example, he always expected his students to act independently and didn't like to do anything extra to help them. When a student missed class, he expected that student to check NeatScience and for the other students to do the work in catching up that student for him. Aside from this, he was very charismatic and easygoing. If a student cursed in his class, he would usually not mind unless if the student was a regular disturbance to his class. This was rather unusual for a middle school teacher, and was probably due to his high school roots. His standard procedure for dealing with annoying students was to drag them out into the hallway and have a 1-1 conversation, and rarely resorts to using the questions or RTC. Mr. Keith tried to do as many experiments as possible, including the infamous egg drop test, starting fires with magnifying glasses, and much more. One time during a science experiment with rotational gravity, Mr. Keith demonstrated it by swinging a glass full of water on a platform around him. After a student accused Mr. Keith of putting "fake water" in the glass, Mr. Keith knocked the glass over, causing water to spill on the ground. He made some students to clean it up after.
However, according to many middle school students in 2020 and 2021, Mr. Keith's demeanor had changed for the worst. He reportedly became very lazy and unenthusiastic. He would kick students from meetings if they do not respond to him. The online year "broke" many teachers, and Mr. Keith may have been one of them.
Reception by Members of Willemstan
Despite Mr. Keith's awesome hot chocolate monopoly and general attitude, he was of very mixed reception. His occasional confrontational attitude can really rub people the wrong way, and his expectation for other students to do the work of absent students got old really fast. His handwriting was also horrible and sometimes hard to copy. However, Mr. Keith's worst flaw was by far his tests. He only gave out a handful of tests a year, and while this may seem great, the end result was that each test covered two or three months of material. Mr. Keith constantly gave lectures, which resulted in a lot of note taking. It was hard to tell between his lectures and random tangents. As a result, Mr. Keith's tests were absolutely brutal since they cover months of information on obscure lectures. Countless students had to retake his tests each semester. Despite these flaws, many students look back on Mr. Keith's class in a positive light.
Paycheck
In 2015, Mr. Keith was paid an annual $69,133. In 2016, Mr. Keith was paid an annual $69,896. In 2018, Mr. Keith was paid an annual $70,568. In 2019, Mr. Keith was paid an annual $71,318.
Sources
| 1. NeatScience.com - www.Neatscience.com | 2. NeatScience.com - Williamston High School Conceptual Physics | 3. Williamstowntownship.com - Summit and Foote Cemeteries |
| 4. GoWCS.net - WILLIAMSTON STUDENTS AND TEACHERS PARTICIPATE IN KIDS' COLLEGE SUMMER CAMP | 5. Spartan Newsroom - Williamston High to be national model | 6. GovSalaries.com - Keith Danny |