Backward Day

What the day is

Backward Day is observed on January 31. Clothes go on back to front, dinner is served at breakfast, names are spelled in reverse, and the day generally runs against its usual grain.

It is aimed squarely at children, and it is mostly kept in elementary schools and at home rather than anywhere official.

Origin and background

The origin of the observance is not documented, and no founder or sponsoring organization is reliably known. It has spread through schools, which is the usual route for days of this kind.

The end of January is a reasonable slot for it. It falls in the long, dark middle of the school year, after the holidays and well before spring, which is precisely when classrooms need something silly.

There is a real idea underneath the silliness. Doing routine things in an unfamiliar order forces attention onto steps that have become automatic, which is why reversal shows up in teaching and in creative practice: working a problem backward from the answer, reading a sentence in reverse to catch typos, or running a process from its end to find where it actually begins. Children find this funny, which is a good way of learning it.

How to take part

• Wear something backward. A sweater or a cap is the standard, and easy to undo when the joke wears off.
• Serve dinner for breakfast and breakfast for dinner. This is the version children remember.
• Walk a familiar route in reverse and notice how unfamiliar it looks.
• Spell names backward, or write a note in mirror writing and read it in a mirror.
• Say goodbye when you arrive and hello when you leave, for as long as the household tolerates it.
• If you have work to do, try the grown-up version: start from the finished result and work back to what has to be true for it.

Set an end time. The joke is better for stopping before everyone is tired of it.