Question of the Week Archives

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Carol - Riverhead, NY
My all time favorite was a repeat of what was done to me when I was a student. I gave my 7th and 8th grade computer class students a VERY important test that would 'determine their standings across the country'. I used questions from a MENSA IQ test with very specific instructions that they were to read the entire test before starting. Of course, no one did, so they all failed. They were not happy :( but they all wanted to take the test home to give to their parents! It was a really fun learning lesson that had a lasting effect. I have had students come back after a few years and comment that they ALWAYS follow the instructions because of that test. I may give it again this year!

Terri - Port Orchard, WA
A couple of years ago for an April Fools joke I decided to have an impromptu test. With a very straight face, as my first period class entered the room, I informed them that I was giving a 100 point test on everything they should know as an eighth grader. I passed the test out and had a seat at the front of the room. My class knows not to talk during a test, but I could hear, "Oh no, we learned this," or Holy ***t." After about 20 minutes, I stopped the class and asked how things were going. One of my very serious students looked green and was about to cry because she did not know any of the questions. That is when I said April Fools, I am not scoring the test. I told the class that the test they were taking was from an actual 8th grade test from 1855. Needless to say, I was pelted with paper snowballs for 30 seconds.

ACT
We were studying microbes and in previous lessons I had the students looking at various microbes under the microscopes. On 1 April I told them they were going to look at paramecium and drew the shape of a representative one on the board. I pointed out the shape of this microbe looked remarkable like the sole of a person's foot and that surprisingly these microbes were in fact often found in the shoes of people. With this gem of an idea the students, equipped with their trusty microscope, proceeded to take off their shoes and investigate. Low and behold after a short time they even shouted out in amazement when they found the footlike paramecium on their prepared slides they had made from the scraping of the inside of their shoes. I indicated my awe and wonder to the class, said I had to go and get my camera and returned to the budding biologists. I asked the them in which shoe, left or right they had the most luck at finding the paramecium and as a survey was taken mentioned that in the past the left shoe generally had a greater population of this microbe. Sure enough after some more time they also had confirmed this hypothesis. At this point I asked the people who had found them in their left shoe to raise the shoe into the air and proceeded to take a photo of the group of successful paramecium hunters.

At this point I asked them if they had written down the day's date in their logbooks along with their diagram of the paramecium. It was then they tweaked to the ruse. Lots of outrage and laughter!

Nevertheless this event had not run its course. On the following day I arrived at my office to be told that a couple of students had left something for me on my desk. It was a shoebox containing literally several hundreds of one centimeter paramecium that had been cut out of paper. I never did discover who had contributed to such an amazing feat!

GA
My favorite trick on April Fool's Day is to come in a tell the students to get out a sheet of paper and get ready for the test. They immediately start saying they weren't told we were having a test. I tell them that of course they were told several days before and ask if they haven't studied. I do it very seriously and get them all the way to actually getting ready to pass out test papers. Then I'll say April Fools! I've also come in and asked for their homework (which I never assigned). They begin to panic and start asking each other what the assignment was. Again, I'll carry it on for a few minutes and then tell them April Fools.