At this point, I have been a teacher for four years. I think four years are enough to start developing some traditions that you follow every year. One of my many annual traditions is to hand-write a personal letter to each of my students and give it to them on the last day of school, usually in the month of May. Another annual tradition is my April fool's prank.
Over the past three years, my prank has been pretty standard. I would devise a quiz of some sort of my students, the entire first page would be serious, science-based questions. When the kids turned the page over, the second page would be filled with nerdy science jokes. For example... have you heard that the moon is broke? It's down to its last quarter!!! Is it just me, or are these science jokes getting cornea and cornea?! Yeah, I know. Pretty epic. But it has always gotten a smile out of my students.
Apparently the generation gap is also becoming smaller and smaller. The students I taught four years ago are not the same by any measure compared to the students I teach now. I feel the students and the parents of kids four years ago were very laid back and could really laugh at a joke. That was a huge part of the reason that my April fool's pranks would work spectacularly well. In fact, last year, I managed to get at least two students in each class to voluntarily stand up and yell out "I ate my poo!" in the middle of the quiz.
This year, I was in a quandary as to what to implement for an April fool's joke. I had already done the fake test thing several times. And let's face it, it is the oldest trick in the book. Oldest, yet most effective. I settled for performing a mix of pranks on my kids, depending on what period they were in. While I did get a mild "ha-ha" reaction, I was surprised and very disappointed to see that kids these days, are not easily amused. I actually had a few kids panic over my fake test prank and look at me all worried, asking me what they were supposed to do if they couldn't answer page two. It is now all about the grade.
So, is the current generation of kids really that worried about their grade that they can't take a joke anymore? Or do we live in a society where we are so ready to play the victim that we are expecting the worst to happen to us at any given point in time? It is so easy to offend and be offended these days. Have we forgotten what it is like to sit back and enjoy a simple April fool's prank without panicking?
Also, why is there a generation gap between the freshmen (9th grade) and the juniors (11th grade)? Aren't generations supposed to span a decade or more?
We live in interesting times and I am curious to see how technology, culture, social media and ideas play a role in our evolution as a whole.
In conclusion, I am very disappointed that today is April fool's day and nobody has announced to me yet that Donald Trump running for President is just a big, fat Republican gag! :P
Thank you Clueless, for waking up the slumbering blogger beast! ;)
Over the past three years, my prank has been pretty standard. I would devise a quiz of some sort of my students, the entire first page would be serious, science-based questions. When the kids turned the page over, the second page would be filled with nerdy science jokes. For example... have you heard that the moon is broke? It's down to its last quarter!!! Is it just me, or are these science jokes getting cornea and cornea?! Yeah, I know. Pretty epic. But it has always gotten a smile out of my students.
Apparently the generation gap is also becoming smaller and smaller. The students I taught four years ago are not the same by any measure compared to the students I teach now. I feel the students and the parents of kids four years ago were very laid back and could really laugh at a joke. That was a huge part of the reason that my April fool's pranks would work spectacularly well. In fact, last year, I managed to get at least two students in each class to voluntarily stand up and yell out "I ate my poo!" in the middle of the quiz.
This year, I was in a quandary as to what to implement for an April fool's joke. I had already done the fake test thing several times. And let's face it, it is the oldest trick in the book. Oldest, yet most effective. I settled for performing a mix of pranks on my kids, depending on what period they were in. While I did get a mild "ha-ha" reaction, I was surprised and very disappointed to see that kids these days, are not easily amused. I actually had a few kids panic over my fake test prank and look at me all worried, asking me what they were supposed to do if they couldn't answer page two. It is now all about the grade.
So, is the current generation of kids really that worried about their grade that they can't take a joke anymore? Or do we live in a society where we are so ready to play the victim that we are expecting the worst to happen to us at any given point in time? It is so easy to offend and be offended these days. Have we forgotten what it is like to sit back and enjoy a simple April fool's prank without panicking?
Also, why is there a generation gap between the freshmen (9th grade) and the juniors (11th grade)? Aren't generations supposed to span a decade or more?
We live in interesting times and I am curious to see how technology, culture, social media and ideas play a role in our evolution as a whole.
In conclusion, I am very disappointed that today is April fool's day and nobody has announced to me yet that Donald Trump running for President is just a big, fat Republican gag! :P
Thank you Clueless, for waking up the slumbering blogger beast! ;)
1 comment:
You mean the generation gap is getting bigger and bigger, right? :P
But, yeah, I used to think that all the time about my students too... maybe we're the ones getting older and losing touch with what appeals to the youngsters these days?
I'm glad you're doing this! Looking forward to your posts all this month! :D
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