It's true. We have slacked on the blogging of late. But can you really blame us? Where's YOUR blog?
Anyway, today is April Fool's day, a wondrous day dedicated to the pulling of pranks and reveling in the discomfort of others, and as these pranks were pulled and laughter caused incompetence in the classroom, I asked my students, "Where did this tradition come from?"
"That's why they made Google," they answered.
Now, my dictionaries are out of the recycling bin and the desks in Mr. M.'s classroom have been re-flipped. Ms. V. returned Mr. M.'s dry-erase markers, and the poor kid Mr. Math sent to the principal's office (all for a laugh) is home safe, and probably has stopped blushing by now. When I was in high school, I painted the toilet seats in the girls' restrooms with white paint, just the color that it would go unnoticed. I heard shrieks from the girls who sat on those seats. That was a good one. I think I spent all of art class mixing that paint and wandering the halls, ducking away when a teacher walked by.
I looked up the origins on Google, which led me to Wikipedia. My favorite explanation of the day is "to embarass the gullible." Apparently, it's a relic of the vernal equinox celebrations, and has roots in Chaucer's work. The Dutch are especially fond of All Fool's Day, so I guess it only makes sense that I would be, too.
See the Wiki history for yourself: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fools'_Day
