Frazz by Jef Mallett for April 01, 2024

Another great one, Jef!

I used to tell my students that the School Board has decided that students didn’t have a good enough vocabulary, and that there would be an End of Level Test on vocabulary this year as well as the usual ones on reading, math, and science.

Then I’d let the map up to reveal a list of 13 words. I told the students to get out their dictionaries, and that they had fifteen minutes to define each word in their own words and use it correctly in a sentence.

Since they were used to being overtested, they got right at it.

After a minute or so, I would stop and circle the first letter of each word. The first word was always hirsute.

The first letters would spell out, “H A HA APRIL FOOL”!

Mrs. Olsen has set him a quandary. Which is the trick? Do the assignment and then find it wasn’t really meant. Or not do it and bag his average? Best to do it and not hand it in until he finds out.

Mrs. Olsen knows all the pranks. She probably used them herself, long time past.

Never mess with the pros.

That’s some catch, that April Catch-22.

Hirsute, acrimonious, hegemony, aliquot, alacrity, parsimonious, recidivism, impecunious, lilliputian, fatuous, obeisance, obfuscate, and loquacious?

Nice for Mrs. Olsen to zing Caulfield.

Sounds like a hair-raising experience for your students.

She’s on to you, kid.