Dominic Chua
The Time Machine
We wanted to teach our students what good jokes looked like, and that if you want to play a good joke, it takes planning and effort.
Rafflesian Times
28
Those were really the days. I met one of my ex-students recently, and as we were catching up he said,‘ Wah you teachers ah, I’ ll never forget that National Day Flashcard joke.’
There was really a bigger point to all our pranks— we wanted to show the boys how to play pranks with more class. In the school’ s Grange Road days, one of the more common types of April Fools’ jokes involved getting teachers wet or dirty. For example, some boys went so far as rigging up a pail, filled with water, and another filled with flour, to a door— and then when female teachers went into class they would get soaked. It was really terrible.
We wanted to teach our students what good jokes looked like, and that if you want to play a good joke, it takes planning and effort. We also wanted to show our students not to take themselves too seriously, how to see the humour in life and how to laugh at themselves.