The Teacher's Revenge: An April Fools' Guide for Pranking Students

When I was a student teacher with what I consider to be a very good sense of humor, April Fools' Day was a day that I felt like I could let my creativity shine. While students are usually the ones trying to pull pranks on their teachers during this day, the teachers can easily turn the tables on their students. Now, you would obviously need to know your students before trying to pull off some of these pranks. I wouldn't recommend trying any of these if you are substituting on April 1^st; these should be left to the teachers that have already developed a rapport with their students.

When it comes to pulling off an April Fools' prank on your students, you have to remember one thing: you need to be able to play off the prank deadpan. If you crack or even show the slightest hint that you're playing a joke on the students then they will quickly pick up on it, thusly killing the time and effort you put into these concoctions.

I am going to provide you with some basic guidelines for three of my favorite pranks to pull on students. If you want to put your own tweaks on my methods, by all means, please do so. My expertise is in the middle school setting, so if you work with high school students, you may need to adjust these methods. This list is just meant as a starting point for your own ideas; be creative.

1) The Ol' Switcheroo

Materials needed:

Basic lesson plans (optional)
Cooperation from your fellow teachers

Set-up:

This is a very basic prank that you can play on your students. You will need to get the cooperation of your fellow teachers to pull this one off, as you will be switching classrooms with them. You could either spend the entire class teaching another subject, or you can just start the class off and switch rooms after the beginning. This prank works best when you combine it with the Phantom Quiz.

Pay-off:

Again, this is a very simple prank that is really just meant to set the students off-guard for perhaps another prank that you are going to play on them later. You will be teaching another teacher's subject for this class, which is why you may want to have basic lesson plans for whatever teacher will be taking over your class, or like suggested, you could combine this prank with the Phantom Quiz. Not every prank needs to be above and beyond, because honestly, if your students see that you're putting the effort in to "come down to their level" a little bit, I have found it to be a great way to further build rapport with your students.

2) Phantom Quiz

Materials needed:

A quiz (five to ten questions) that you have made for whatever subject you are currently teaching

Set-up:

This prank works best if you already have a quiz scheduled for this day. This way you are able to pull off the prank without the suspicion of the students. Like any subtle prank, you don't want to tip your hand at all. Have the students come to class and get ready for the day, explain to them that there is a quiz today, and go about your normal routine for administering tests/quizzes for your students. Depending on your students' abilities to follow directions, this prank could have a huge pay-off for you.

Pay-off:

While this quiz should look like any normal quiz that you give your classes, there should be one glaring difference between the two. On your written instructions at the top of the test, you must include some variation of the following line: "Do not answer any of the questions on this test. Instead, draw a picture of (such and such). After doing this, put your pencils down and DO NOT say anything to your fellow classmates." You can change this line to anything you want from not writing anything on the paper, to just writing the alphabet. After passing out the quiz just sit back and watch the expression on your students' faces. The students that usually follow and read directions should catch on pretty quickly, while the rest should end up sitting hard at work. Only give about five minutes for the completion of the quiz and then tell the student to put their pencils down. Collect the quizzes and then go over the answers as a class. Once going over the answers, inform all of the students that the ones that actually wrote down the answers to the questions will not receive credit for their quiz as they did not follow directions. What you actually want to do with the quizzes is of course up to you. I used the questions as an informal assessment of the students' knowledge on the subject, as I could see what the students knew after going over the answers orally. I also gave a little bit of extra credit to the students that actually followed the directions, but didn't penalize any of the students that did not follow the directions. Again, the details are there for you to tweak.

3) The Traveling Trumpet

Materials needed:

Remote Fart Machine (Can be found her )

Set-up:

This prank may not be suitable for all teachers. I can sometimes have a juvenile sense of humor, which really can pay off when working with middle school students. For this prank, all your really need is a toy fart machine that you can find at most joke stores. Like I said, this joke isn't for all teachers. If you really want to be creative, you can buy a couple of them and store them in different areas of the classroom to not isolate the sound in a single area.

Pay-off:

This is really a prank that you can make seem like you have nothing to do with if you don't want to. I look at this prank as more of a joke than anything; this is really just a way to have a little fun in the classroom. My classroom had a podium in the front of the room, so it made it easier to control the devices without really attracting any suspicion from my students. You want to make sure you're using the device at the most inopportune times; while you're leaning down to grab something, writing something on the board, and even when students are talking. If you really want to play it up, you can pretend to get mad and demand someone to come forward for doing it. While this isn't exactly playing a prank ON the students, it's still a way to infuse a little comedy into your classroom on a day that warrants it

While I had a great time playing these pranks on my students last year, I have to give it to them for pulling one over on me. During my sixth period class, after playing my Phantom Quiz prank on them, I had the students doing some silent work at their desks for the rest of class. My cooperating teacher had asked me to run and make a couple copies for her, which I gladly obliged. However, when I stepped out of the classroom I had a feeling that something was going on. Why wouldn't she make the copies herself, as I was the one running the classroom at the time? Either way, I brushed the notion off, made the copies, and came back to a quiet classroom.

Sitting in the back of the classroom, working on correcting some papers, the clock stuck 11:15 and one of my students started coughing. Thinking nothing of it, I just kept about my work. Then more and more students started coughing, and all of the students actually fell out of their desks on the floor and pretended to be dead. At this point, I couldn't help but be laughing hysterically for two reasons. My students actually worked together with each other to accomplish something (which could be a rarity for this class) and that there was one student that was still sitting at his desk and looking around in disbelief. He had gone to the bathroom when the students devised this plan and was not aware of what was going on.

Hopefully my pranks have given you a start on ideas that you can use in your classroom on this wondrous day of pranks and practical jokes. If you'd like to share your own ideas, please feel free to leave them in the comment section below. Thank you, and happy pranking!