Today I cried in front of my students. I tried so hard to hold back the tears as they welled up in the corners of my eyes but at a certain point you just have to let it go. Luckily, many of my students were losing the same fight against their ducts, tears were falling. After a moment I took a deep breath, cleared my eyes and looked around at everyone else who was barreled over, laughing uncontrollably.

I had got them!

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The lesson started off tame. I split them in to groups, went over some vocabulary and started a game. The concept was simple, I describe a scene, each team draws it and they get one point per scene if there are no errors in interpretation. Off they went, drawing extraterrestrials, cute puppies, faraway birds. I promised a prize for the winning team, stimulating some good ol’ competitiveness, and after about 40 minutes of mad drawing, the winners were determined. I handed them a bowl of peanuts.

I’m sure most people consider chocolate, candy, maybe pizza to be a nice prize, but not this teacher. Nonetheless, I don’t blame the winning team for their initial hesitation to dig in. A boy from the losing team asks gently if they are willing to share. How easily they fall prey to my trap! Never have their skills in sharing made me more proud, never have I felt more sinister! Before I know it, everyone is chowing down on the tasty morsels.

As the peanut passing continues, I tell the class that I have one last thing to show them. A video. Without explaining, I start the video which I recorded the day before in which I am sucking the salt from the same type of peanuts and spitting them in to the same bowl. They start to look around, one boy runs to the trash can, another spits peanuts in to a tissue. There are wails of disapproval, disgust…fear. I did it. I tricked a room full of sixteen year olds. I start laughing and then a few others start to laugh until everyone is edging tears. A timid whisper full of fear comes to my ear, “it was a joke?”

APRIL FOOL’S DAY KIDS, GO CAUSE TROUBLE!