A Brief History of Astrology

"A long, long time ago, shortly after man began to live in caves, two intrepid cave men went outside at night and looked at the prehistoric sky in all it's beauty and splendor. Back then, everything was much more radiant, closer somehow, and these two primitive men faced the beauty that God Almighty himself had placed above their humble planet.
One of the men stared in awe before coughing slightly and scratching the back of his head with a club. He grunted something at the other caveman, which loosely translated to this:
'I wonder what's on the televison?'
The other cave man agreed that God's beauty and splendor was, indeed, nothing compared to a nice, warm cup of dinosaur brains and an episode of 'prehistoric survivor' so the two went inside and refused to look up ever again."

Dr. Abrams finished his story, and made several strange marks on the chalkboard. His students were speechless. "Any questions?" He asked. "I'm not going to go over this again, and it will be on the test."
A particularly bold girl raised her hand. "They watched Survivor? Back before electricity was invented?"
"Of course they did," Dr. Abrams said matter-of-factly. "Why else do you think cavemen had such huge foreheads? It was from all that boggling at TV they did."

"This is ridiculous," A student yelled.
"What's rididculous," Abrams sniffed, "Is that you just earned yourself an F for the day, Jeremy."
The student called Jeremy fell quiet, and Dr. Abrams turned back to the chalkboard. He had drawn a small picture of two cavemen watching TV and drew a small arrow leading away from it.

"Weeks later, the Greeks came out of their underground lair and began to live a utopian society. They had been enslaved by the Earth itself, and were understandably confused when night fell and the stars blazed into life again. They began to play an ancient game called "connect the dots, and started to amuse themselves by drawing pictures in the air. Thus, the constellations were given names." Dr. Abrams said, drawing a picture of a Greek city.

"If they were bored, why didn't they just borrow a tv from the cavemen?" someone asked.
"The cavemen all died. Horribly," Dr. Abrams said. "Everyone knows that. It's science. They took with them the television, which wouldn't exist again until someone found a fossilized one in the early 1900's. Now please try to stay serious, here."
"The Earth had them enslaved?" The unfortunate Jeremy asked. "Why?"
"To tell you the truth, I have no idea," Abrams admitted. "I tried asking the Earth, but I think it's giving me the silent treatment. Anyway, this is Astronomy class, not ancient history,"

"Funny we never heard about any of this in history class," A student said with a little bit of sarcasm. Dr. Abrams didn't catch it.
"Yeah, funny, that." Abrams sniffed. "To continue, soon thereafter, the Greeks launched all the other planets into the solar system, and watched as they began to take on strange orbits through some of the more important constellations. These 'special' sky pictures became the zodiacs, and for almost whole decades people would follow the paths of them and watch as the planets would soar into certain signs and affect different people."

"Astrology?"

"The primitive form of it, Sarah," Abrams said. "They wouldn't know exactly what each planet did until a while later. Almost thirty years, I'd say. This would place the timeline at about 1960."

"1960?!" Jeremy exploded. "This is complete and utter garbage. The Greeks did not launch the other planets into space, the Earth never imprisoned anyone, and the earth is older than two hundred! What kind of crap are you trying to feed us?"

"That's just the kind of answer I'd expect from a member of the unwashed masses," Abrams said calmly. "Double F for you today, Jeremy."
Jeremy refused to be stopped. "Yeah, so what? This class is bogus anyway. Your'e not really a professor, are you?"
Abrams was indignant. "Young man, I'll have you know that I got my teaching degree at St. Stellums, and have taught over four-hundred students the way of truth. I have never before been affronted like this!"

"Isn't St. Stellums a mental institution?" Sarah asked quietly.
"Of course it is, Sarah. An institution for people with advanced mental prowess."
"I thought it was a nut house," Jeremy sniffed.
"You're on thin ice as it is, buddy," Abrams pointed a finger at him.

Gerald, always the peacemaker, raised a hand. "Errr, Dr. Abrams, you said that no one would know much about astrology until 1960?"
"Ah, yes," Abrams said. "Not until Madam Fortunas opened her buisness."
"The prostitute?" Someone asked.
"No, that was Madam Luscias." Abrams said, wistfully pushing his glasses up his nose. "Madam Fortunas, the magical woman of mystery."
"A fortune teller?" Jeremy shouted annoyingly.
"No, you dumb bastard," Abrams bellowed. "A woman of mystery. It was her that figured out what, say, Neptune's effects were while in Saggitarius and what Venus did in Aquarius."

"How?" A student asked.
"Not sure," Abrams said. "I did mention she was a very mysterious woman, didn't I?"
The bell rang, signaling that the students should make their way to the next class. As everyone stood up to leave, two men in white coats came in and wrapped Dr. Abrams up in a straightjacket.
"Your homework this weekend," He said as if nothing was happening, "Is to grab a paper, read your horoscope, and write a three page paper on how the experience changed your life. I'll see you all... monday?" The final word was directed at one of the white coated men, who shook his head and whispered something into Abrams' ear.
"Scratch that, Monday's my electroshock appointment," he giggled. "Tuesday, then. That paper had better be good, too."

The students yawned and walked to their next class, history, where they watched a large, burly man in a luchador mask demonstrate how George Washington Carver had to physically wrestle the peanut into submission before he could discover all those marvellous uses for it.

High school is just filled with great learning experiences like that.