Maths and the male anatomy

I had forgotten all about this prank. Seeing the daffodils emerging again this spring brought back the memory of a well planned stroke pulled by a fellow reprobate at the West London Comprehensive.

His task was to teach Coordinates. Using a grid marked out as below, the point A on the grid has the coordinates (-2,3) for example.

The Maths department was in the main school building, on the floor above the reception area and Head’s Office.

Classrooms in the “maths corridor” looked out over the driveway into the school. There was a great view of the main school gates and a neat and tidily kept lawn, which lead to the reception area.

Deciding to break with convention and jazz up the lesson the teacher used the lawn at the front of the school as the class grid. He had pre-marked out the grid lines with pegs and garden string. Daffodil bulbs were used to mark the coordinates.

A list of coordinates was given to his class and it did not take long for the group of students to go outside and plot the points by burying a bulb in the correct location.

The bulbs took till the spring to sprout and reveal the pattern that they made. The view at ground level of the flowers appeared random. It was only when you looked from the classroom that the crude, cartoon like, diagram of the male anatomy became clearer.