National One Sock Day

Canada has a holiday called "National One Sock Day." Long ago, when Canada had just been founded, there was a great divide between the rich and the poor. The rich were extremely wealthy and the poor were extremely poor, so much so that they couldn't afford socks. One day a year the rich would take off one of their socks and give it to the poor. All day long both the poor and the rich would wear one sock so that it was not obvious who was rich and who was poor. Canadians today honor their forefathers by still following the practice of wearing only one sock on April 1st.

At least that was the teachers and staff's story on the first morning of April. When I explained this to my upper level students, one of the students immediately took off one of his socks but the others were skeptical or apathetic. So at the end of class, I spoke to them again, "You know, as an American I think National One Sock Day is a bit silly, but I know this is a very important day in Canada as their ancestors are honored in the act of wearing one sock. So, even though I think it's ridiculous, I am wearing only one sock. I would think about this and wear only one sock today as well. All of ESLI is actually getting together at 10:50 to take a school photo of National One Sock Day to put on the website to show we care about Canada. I recommend you think about this and take one of your socks off."

Then I had my beginner students. It was obvious they thought I was crazy and weren't even considering what I was saying. But when we left together for the photo, they saw other students with only one sock and then darted back into our classroom to take off one of their socks.

Here's the photo. It was taken before we teachers and staff yelled "April Fools!"