Monday chuckles

May 17, 2021

What happens when you put the most introverted kid and the most extroverted kid together in the front row.

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Lots of luck, kids — you’re going to need it

May 3, 2021

Words of wisdom for graduates from Anthony Sacramone. 

What do we mean when we say that this is a “commencement”? Is it truly a new beginning, or merely a paradoxical designation for the end of your education? The answer will depend primarily on how much debt you have accumulated. Seeing as this fine institution gouges the working and middle classes to the same extent as other, even better, fine institutions, I will wager that your best years are behind you.

So where does that leave your mortarboarded selves, other than staring blankly into the void like a gaggle of stupefied monks trapped in a Stanley Kubrick movie? As a great superintendent of higher education once declaimed, “Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life.” I disagree. If such were the case, where would that leave CNN? Or Buzzfeed? Or at least five Cabinet appointees?

What is Truth? When that question was famously asked, Socrates was already dead, and so we knew that Truth was something you only thought you knew, like which Kardashian to follow on Instagram, but was in reality too elusive to grasp, otherwise you’d be like Socrates, which is to say dead. And so continuing education was born.

Allow me to tell a story so inappropriate it can only end in a subpoena. Oh forget it. What can I say that won’t result in a riot or another iteration of that crazy Hitler video where he’s suddenly screaming about piñatas and cultural appropriation? What has happened to our great universities, and even our crappy ones? Where did the spirit of debate, free inquiry, and open exchange of ideas flee to? Flanders? And what ever happened to Flanders? How do you lose a whole damn country? Moreover, could Lincoln and Douglas have held their historic debates in this censorious climate, or would they, too, have been deplatformed, forced to do that stupid Joe Rogan podcast and drop F-bombs every five minutes? Read the rest of this entry »

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School daze

April 14, 2021

Miss Carlson assigned her fifth graders to write an essay entitled “If I Were a Millionaire.”

All of the students began writing, except for one girl who sat at her desk with her arms folded.

“What’s the matter, Chloe?” asked the teacher. “Why aren’t you writing?”

“I’m waiting for my secretary,” said Chloe.

Miss Carlson gave her an A+.

❧  ❧  ❧  ❧  ❧

My sister’s son flunked out of college. I asked her if the kid had flunked out because of a lack of brains. “Yes,” she said. “Alack and a lass.”

❧  ❧  ❧  ❧  ❧

At seven o’clock in the morning, Billy’s mother called to him, “Billy, get up — it’s time to get ready for school.”  

There was no answer. Billy’s mother called again, ”Billy, get up! It’s time to get ready for school!”  

Still there was no answer. Billy’s mother went to his room and shook him. 

“Billy! Get up and get ready for school!” 

“I’m not going to school, Mom,” said Billy. “All the kids hate me.”

“Doesn’t make any difference,” said his mother. “Get up and get ready for school!”

“But Mom, all the teachers hate me too.”

“I don’t care! Get up and get ready for school!”

“But Mom, why should I go to school when everyone there hates me?’

“Why? I’ll tell you why! Because you’re the principal!”

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Hooked on phonics

April 7, 2021

Mrs. Jordan’s first grade students were in the school library, browsing through picture books, when little Emily suddenly said, “Hey, look at this! It’s a frickin’ elephant!”

Mrs. Jordan was shocked. “What did you say?” she asked.

“I said it’s a frickin’ elephant,” Emily replied. “It says so right here on the picture.”

Mrs. Jordan took the book and looked at it, and sure enough, the child was right:

AFRICAN ELEPHANT

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Happy April 1st

April 1, 2021

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English major jocularity

March 30, 2021

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Bored of education

March 22, 2021

When seven-year-old Alice got home from school, her mother asked her what she’d learned that day.

“We learned how to make babies,” said Alice.

Alice’s mother was shocked. She sent her daughter outside to play, then she called Alice’s teacher to complain that the things she was teaching were not appropriate for second graders.

“Did you ask her to explain how it’s done?” said the teacher.

“No,” said the mother.

“Ask her, then call me back,” said the teacher.

Alice’s mother went outside to where her daughter was playing and asked her, “So how do you make babies?”

Alice replied, “You drop the ‘y’ and add ‘ies’.”

Some assembly required

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Why you should check your child’s homework

January 8, 2021

An oldie but goodie.

Miss Smith asked her second graders to draw a picture showing what they wanted to be when they grew up. Madeleine Martin, seven years old, turned in this drawing:

Miss Smith was shocked. She sent a note home to the girl’s mother asking for clarification.

The following day the teacher received this reply:

       Dear Miss Smith,

I wish to assure you that I am not now, nor have I ever been, an exotic dancer. I work at Home Depot, and I told Madeleine how hectic it was last week right before the big blizzard hit. We thought we’d sold every snow shovel we had in stock, but then I found one more in the back room, and several customers were fighting over who would get it. Madeleine’s drawing doesn’t show me dancing around a pole. It shows me selling the last snow shovel Home Depot had. From now on I will check her homework more carefully before she turns it in.

Sincerely,
Mrs. Martin

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Bored of education

October 12, 2020

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Best first-day-of-school photo

September 3, 2020

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