A joke is a very serious thing.
– Winston Churchill
It’s difficult to be funny in China. I know, right? All those people, and you’d think it would be easier for a viral case of the giggles. Evidently not.
I’m a little worried the same may be true for the teaching profession.
A few days ago, I wrote about a faculty volleyball game at SLA. The comments I received about the post both on and offline led me to wonder and worry a little that educators aren’t bringing the funny as much as they should.
We have to laugh.
In my second year of teaching, the middle school team I taught on had lunch together once a week in our team prep room. Every once in a while, we would order Chinese food.
The kid of the team, I imparted some cultural wisdom to my colleagues as we finished our meal one day.
“You know how to read your fortune, right?” I said.
Everyone looked at me.
“You read it aloud and you add ‘in bed’ to the end.”
Everyone on the team saw me as young and impetuous. If they didn’t see me as their son, they saw me as their little brother. I was to be humored.
One teacher on our team was all business. She was there to teach and the children were there to learn. Anything else during class time was to be corrected. What’s more, the rest of the teachers and I knew very little about her. “Touchy feely” was certainly not a phrase we used to describe her.
We began to open our fortune cookies. I was trepidacious as we grew nearer and nearer her turn.
Finally, the moment arrived.
“You will be lucky in many things.”
Nothing.
Such a buzzkill.
Two second later.
“…in bed.”
And we were ruined. For 5 minutes, this stoic pillar of order and reason laughed uncontrollably, her face beet red. And we all joined in.
It was a rare moment of total levity.
We needed it.
In rest of my time on that team, every once in a while, I’d pass a colleague and have to stifle a giggle as they whispered “…in bed.”
Whether it’s the jokes section of Reader’s Digest or the Onion News Network, funny must be injected into the day if your’e going to make it in teaching and be able to relate to people in any kind of way that makes them want to relate to you.
So here’s my question – Where’s your funny? I’m serious. Where do you look for the humor during your day. Is it a book or a website?
We can and do share our daily trials. We share how our students make us proud. We share frustrations with our administrations and the newest tools we’ve found. Take a moment, today, and share the funny.
I’ll start it off.
