Practical Jokes · Mon Apr 24, 18:36 by Eleri Straker
I was talking to an old friend the other day and reminiscing about our school days. I remembered an incident that happened when I was in the fourth form – year 10 in today’s speak. The school I attended had two playing fields, one slightly higher than the other and separated by a piece of sloping ground some four feet wide. If one sat at the base of this slope, one could not be seen from the school buildings.
The sixth form at the time had quite a number of pranksters in it and on this particular autumn day this sixth form decided to have some fun with the teaching staff. During the lunch break they summoned all the younger students onto the lower playing field (there were only about five hundred students in the entire school – those were the days eh?) and told them that when the bell rang no one would go into the school buildings. Seemed weird, but as younger kids we assumed the sophisticated sixth-formers knew what they were doing, so on an agreed signal everyone lay down at the base of the slope and waited.
Moments later, the deputy head in his sweeping gown came out onto the terrace at the front of the building and rang the bell. Normally this would be greeted with all the students making their obedient way into the building. This time nothing happened. So he rang the bell again. No response.
Peeking over the top of the slope, we saw the deputy head turn on his well-polished heel and go back into the building. Egged on by the sixth form, we stayed where we were and waited.
After about five minutes, we took another peek and saw every member of the teaching staff, dressed in their black academic gowns forming a single line across the front of the school and striding down towards us with frightening determination. It was a scary sight.
We glanced at our leaders, who mouthed,“Wait,” then after an interminable minute yelled, “Now!”
As one, the entire student body leaped up and ran up the slope towards the approaching staff, yelling like banshees. We ran through the thin black line of teachers and dispersed into our respective classrooms where we waited with dread, the coming wrath.
Five minutes passed, as the tension grew, then our teacher swept in with a billowing of black gown. He walked to the front of the class, turned to face us, paused, clearly for dramatic effect, then said, “Good afternoon, open your text books at page twenty…”
Nothing was said about our prank then, or ever. Nothing apparently was said in all the other classes either. It was as if it had never happened. But I did notice that our teacher was trying very hard to hide a smile.
This was a very mild, innocent bit of silliness … in the same vein as the car on the roof of the chapel …or the sports car wedged into the bike racks (Yes, really!)… Which was treated by the staff in the manner in which the pranks were carried out. With humour and patience. That particular sixth form carried out numerous practical jokes on the teaching staff and each one was met with the same response. It made for a happy environment where it was fun as well as educational.
Can you imagine the response if things like this happened today? The school governors would be called in with the Ed. Psychs to work out what childhood traumas had made a bunch of students put a car on the roof… And can you imagine the nightmare for Health and Safety? The idea that teachers could actually enjoy and possibly be complicit in a prank would be unthinkable today. And this is a pity because I think that it makes schools poorer as students see school simply as a place to which they have to go and where teachers don’t have a sense of humour. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating dangerous or life-threatening stunts, but the occasional bit of silliness can’t be a bad thing if it makes us look a bit more human…. And as for a yellow Mini on the roof of the school chapel … that’s another story.
