Extracurricular (Humor)

Back in in the spring of 1972 the City of Chicago and the Chicago Board of Education were tearing down a number of buildings around Morgan Park High School to expand the campus. It was planned that 8 houses and 2 businesses (one a 3 story brick build) would be removed between March 29th and April 3rd and that access to the school building would be limited to just two paths. MANY caution signs were posted. I then came across newspaper articles where the ‘Society for the Conservation of Gravity’ (Google it!) was trying to introduce an ordinance requiring all tall building to be built horizontally because the elevators were using up too much gravity and we might run out.

SO -- I decided to see what would happen if gravity were to be turned off. I wrote the attached ‘Official’ looking memo and put it in everyone’s mailbox before the end of the day on Tuesday.

Wednesday morning I got there early and set up my City of Chicago Traffic signal (don’t ask) at the Tee on the third floor timed for 6 seconds green, two seconds yellow and 8 seconds red. I also posted several ‘REACUE AREA’ signs on top of the lockers. I got the first three students of mine to walk separately along the corridor and obey the traffic signal. Not too surprisingly EVERYONE else obeyed it.

My first period class found out they had a sub for their second period trig class! I then provided some heavy twine for each one. Since their classroom was directly opposite my door I wanted to watch what would happen. At the start of second period I was telling my class to watch when one of my female students who was fairly tall said she could make herself stiff enough to be picked up by the ankles and neck without bending. (LIGHT BULB!) I had her lay across my doorway below the window and had two guys start to pick her up as I swung the door open. The trig class started to rise saying ‘”I feel it going off.” The sub ran to the front and grabbed the chalk rail and started screaming “GET ME A ROPE, FOR GOD’S SAKE GET ME ROPE, DON’T LET ME FLOAT AWAY!” I had to cover a couple of extra trig classes as they couldn’t get another sub.

At the end of the day as I was going to sign out, one of our young English teachers who happened to have a foot, leg or hip problem and walked with a cane accosted me because she didn’t know how far 3 microns was so she parked over three blocks away and walked in. It took a couple of years but we finally became somewhat cordial to each other. She died several years ago and I went to her wake. As I was greeting her family her son said “Oh you’re the one she has been mad at all these years”.

For many years my students would hear or talk about this April Fools prank. That slowly faded away until I started getting the children of my former students whose parents had told them.

I guess this is a pretty good(?) legacy. At least they remembered something I did in class.

Back in 2011 there were a bunch of stories about how some new computers are able to understand voice commands. SO -- I decided that the new application could come in useful and I wrote up the attached 'Restroom Trip Policy' and put it in the faculty mail boxes just before we left school on March 31, 2011. I told the Assistant Principal about it and he left early. As usual, very few read the entire text. The next day, Friday, April 1, there was a bit of chaos in the office about the memo and the school received visits from representatives of both the CPS central office and the CTU. Both were sent to see me. My first comment to them was "Please read the last sentence." After reading it they both promptly turned around and left giggling. I did receive a 2 page letter from CPS reminding me of the guidelines regarding using 'Official CPS Letterhead'. (Look at the letterhead - 75th floor of a 12 story building? -and Calling Mr. Cub at (773) 404-2827 gets you Wrigley Field!)

In one of the teacher classes I was in at IIT we were shown how to make a cheap and simple Turkey (or Chicken) clucker (See this video).

For many years my wife and I would go to Seattle over Thanksgiving to visit her family. SO -- I decided to provide the cup, string and cotton swab and show my classes how to make one. Since we usually left on Monday evening before Thanksgiving, I passed out the cup, string and cloth and had every student make one on Monday. The next ting I told them was that I wanted to hear the 'Clucks' during passing time. By the end of the day things would get quite noisy and a lot of teachers were annoyed. When I returned the Monday after Thanksgiving I heard that several had tried to talk to me on Tuesday or Wednesday only to find a substitute in my room. Great Fun!

However, one year I found one of my better students serving out a 4 day In House suspension. When asked what he did he wouldn't say but one of his friends said it was because of me. Since I wasn't there, I was curious. After asking around I found out what he had done. Turns out that, on Wednesday, he took a box into this English class and part way through the class he let go a turkey Cluck. When the teacher asked what that was, he replied that he had a turkey in the box. He did this a couple of more times until the teacher got quite annoyed. She came over and picked up the box and said it feel empty. He assured her that there was a turkey in the box so she opened it to find ---

a picture of her! OUT TO ISS! (He happened to pick a teacher with no sense of humor - I would have laughed.)

I guess the moral of this story is 'know who you are kidding with'.

For several years we had an annual Reading and Writing week where EVERY teacher, including shop and PE teaches, was required to spend a week on reading and another week on writing. There were many rules as to what type of material was to be used. Scientific papers were NOT considered proper reading because most of them did not have a 'story' that was open to interpretation. We had to pick passages or chapters from books 'suggested' by the English Department. For reading. Likewise, writing lab reports was NOT considered proper because there was no room for 'innovation'. For the writing week were required to have the students write 5 different types of pages , expository, questioning, etc.

This year the Reading and Writing week hit just before the AP Exams and we were told we could NOT continue the review but had to do the Reading/Writing assignments.

SO - I made up the attached 'Official' bulletin about also having a Science and Math week and put it in everyone's mailbox on Friday afternoon.

(Side note - I shared an office behind 347 with Lee Slick (Physics/Chemistry) and Ed Scanlon (Biology).

On Monday morning Ed came upstairs with this very confused look and stack of papers and asked why he was set upon in the office and there were so many papers in his mailbox.

I too was a bit confused until I looked at the sheets - apparently Mr. Heery, who always comes in early, had seen the bulletin and added one line to the bottom that said "On second thought return these sheets to Mr. Scanlon and ask him for more information.

We both has a good laugh and Ed managed to dodge several irate faculty members.

In January sometime in the late 1990's we got a memo from the Area Office that we had to submit our mid-term exams to the Area Office so they could compile an area wide set of exams to standardize the midterms across the schools in our area. Basically they wanted to copy our work and then get credit for creating these exams. I came up with the idea to copy-wright our exams and put the copy-wright symbol © on our exams with a note that they could not be used without the express written permission of the author. I made 4 copies of my suggestion and gave one to the department chairs of the English, Language, Social Studies and Science Departments.

On Records Day (typically the last day of January) the principal started his meeting by announcing that "Everyone should ignore the illegal and misleading letter that was distributed about copy-writing the exams." There was lots of confusion because only the 4 chairs and I new about this. A lot of teachers thought it was Jerry Moore's doing and crowded him during the break. He also had no clue about what was going on. A couple of days later the principal figured out it was me and called me in to tell me he was putting a 'Letter of Reprimand' in my Permanent File. (OH HORRORS!) When I eventually got the notice of the reprimand from the CPS central office with a copy of the letter, I proudly posted it on my cabinet window.