Rotten Tomato

An April Fool's Story It isn't bad enough that I have these particular students that like to play tricks on me, but to have them in class on April Fool's Day was not something I was looking forward to.

It wasn't until the morning of of the blessed day that I even realized that I should try to do something to them before they could do something to me. I think it actually came to me as I was walking down the main hallway to check my mail. First I checked my mail then paid a visit to the ISS (in school suspension) teacher. I made a few arrangements and then went on my way.

I let the students come in and do a couple of things like put a post-it over the light on my mouse so it didn't work and put a picture of Antonio Bandera's face over my mural of a Quetzal bird (they do this from time to time so it is nothing new). But when the bell rang I told them I didn't want to put up with it and sent two of them, with passes that I had already made, to the ISS room. They thought I was joking and laughed, ripped up the passes, and threw them away. It took me some time to convince them I was serious and to take the passes out of the trash can and send them on their way. I had to assign a student to take them because they didn't even know where it was.

From various reports I have learned that the ISS teacher was sufficiently mean to them for over 10 minutes and then sent them back to class with a "happy April Fools Day" note from me.

So where does the tomato come in?

In the meantime, I have one brick wall in my room that has a window ledge about 10 feet from the ground and someone had perched a tomato on it. The student's kept making comments like how long does it take a tomato to rot or look above your head. I decided that I wasn't going to give them the satisfaction of looking up every time they pointed or seeing my reaction when I figured it out. I waited until they were all gone to lunch to look around to discover what they had done. Honestly is that even creative?

After school I removed the tomato from its perch, went to the craft store, bought a similar looking fake tomato, then the next day placed it in the spot where the real one had been.

During the next class I saw student's look up and realize it was "still" there. I could almost see them wondering if they should say anything or not. There were comments throughout the class about how unaware I was and that I might have an "unpleasant" surprise come Monday. I played along by saying that I knew what they were talking about and that "maybe I am smarter than they think" but I said it in a way that would lead them to believe that I was trying to get them to believe that I thought I knew something that I really knew nothing about. They were laughing at me because it was still there and I clearly had done nothing about it.

To be continued...