Tag Archives: teachers

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Cycling Fibbing Friday

Pensitivity101 gave us more recycled questions from Teresa Grabs who was the Fibbing Friday originator:

1. What is the most intelligent life form on Earth?

Sasquatch, and their Asian cousins, Yeti, for staying so far away from humans that they are just rumors and myths.

2. Why did we really go to school?

So that Mum could congregate with the rest of the neighbourhood Wine For Lunch Bunch.  Sometimes mine would call Nan, and apologize.

3. What did teachers do during recess?

Lines!  Back in my day, it was Canadian Club.

4. How did you get to school?

With special dispensation from the local School Board, and only after Mom and Dad signed the Special Waiver, guaranteeing to hold them blameless.

5. What was life like before the Internet?

It was a lot like Real Life.  Since the advent of the Internet, it’s been a Cosmic Joke that no-one gets.

6. What is the best thing about social media?

Being able to opt out, and ignore its seductive siren call.  Using this life plan, I have personally rescued 47 IQ points from being destroyed.

7. What is your favorite thing to put chocolate sauce on?

That was a stripper Exotic Dancer, who called herself Cherry.  But that was long ago, and far away.  Now for an exciting evening, I put Ben-Gay on my right hip.

8. Doctors were all wrong…humans don’t need water. What do they need?

REVENGE!  👿  Tell the boss you don’t think that my work is up to company standard??  You’ll rue the day.

9. Dolphins are not mammals. What are they?

They are the Orca’s equivalent to the Internet.  If you are lucky enough to see one, it’s not just frolicking for humans.  It’s rushing an order to get Free Willy, tickets to the Taylor Shamu concert.

10. There is a Lost Dutchman’s Mine, but where is it?

The treasure-map said to go to the North Pole, turn west, and take 143 paces, but I think it’s up in Nelly’s room, behind the wallpaper.

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’23 A To Z Challenge –W

My Grandmother whooped a nun.

It would have been a lot funnier, if you had spelled it WHUPPED, which is already slang for ‘whipped.’  

Hillbillies!  😮  They live among us – and say/type things like ‘Yalls truck,’ instead of ‘your.’   😥

Apparently there are only so many IQ points, and they get divided among an increasing population – just not equally.  Be sure that your kids get theirs.  If you’re left with any, try to donate them to teachers.

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Adolescent Humor

Two boys were arguing when the teacher entered the room.
The teacher says, “Why are you arguing?”
One boy answers, “We found a ten dollar bill and decided to give it to whoever tells the biggest lie.”
“You should be ashamed of yourselves,” said the teacher, “When I was your age I didn’t even know what a lie was.”
The boys gave the ten dollars to the teacher.

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I’ve got to the age where I’ve gone from, “Maybe you shouldn’t say, or do, that.” to, “Oh Hell, let’s just see what happens!”

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Three pastors in the south were having lunch in a diner.
One said “Ya know, since summer started I’ve been having trouble with bats in my loft and attic at church. I’ve tried everything—noise, spray, cats—nothing seems to scare them away.
Another said “Yea, me too. I’ve got hundreds living in my belfry and in the narthex attic. I’ve even had the place fumigated, and they won’t go away.”
The third said, “I baptized all mine, and made them members of the church. Haven’t seen one back since!!!”

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A nun went into a liquor store and asked for a bottle of whisky.
“Whisky?”, the assistant asked, “I thought you nuns didn’t drink!”
“We don’t”, the nun replied, “This is for the Mother Superior’s constipation!”
She bought the whisky and left.
Later that night the assistant saw the same nun dead drunk on a park bench.
“I thought that was for the Mother Superior’s constipation?”, he said.
“It ish.” she replied, “When she sees me like this, she’ll shit herself!”

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A 70-year-old lady was stopped for speeding.  The police officer asked for her relevant documents, and she handed them out.  As he was going through them he remarked, “I see a concealed weapon carry permit here.  Do you have a firearm in the vehicle?

“Oh yes.” she replied, “I have a 9 mil in my purse, a magnum in the console here, and a .45 in the glove compartment.
Stunned, he said, Wow!  Three guns in one car!
She responded, “Well, I also have a pistol-grip shotgun in the trunk.”
“Jeeze, lady”, he said, “who are you afraid of?”

“NOBODY“

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Elementary School Comedy

The children were lined up for lunch at the cafeteria of a Catholic Elementary school.  At the head of the line was a big pile of apples.  A nun wrote a note that said, “Take only one.  God is watching.”

At the end of the table was a tray of cookies.  A young student made a note that said, “Take all you want.  God is keeping an eye on the apples.”

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Most people don’t know this, but you can eat organic, gluten-free food, without telling everyone around you.

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Police in Utah released video of an incident where a 4-year-old fired a single shot at them following an altercation involving the child’s father at a McDonald’s drive-thru. The restaurant manager said his Utah location had mistakenly received Happy Meal toys intended for Texas.

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Three doctors were playing golf. The heartless cardiologist led the gutless gastroenterologist by 3 strokes. The dermatologist didn’t care because he had no skin in the game.

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Funny, In Spite Of Everything
A farmer was standing by a fence along his property. Suddenly God appeared before him. God said “George, you have been a good man during your life. As a reward, I’m going to grant you one wish. But you must know that I will grant the same wish to your neighbor.” The farmer thought about it for a moment and said “kill my cow.”

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A blonde complained to her friend, “It was terrible at the movies last night! I had to change seats five times.” “Why? Did some guy bother you?” “Yeah. Eventually.”

When my kids text me “plz” because it’s shorter than “please,” I text back “no” because it’s shorter than “yes!”

Joe answered the knock on the door. Some kids in costumes said, “Give us candy or we’ll bad mouth you on social media!” Joe was taken aback. “Huh?” he said. The kids concluded, “Sorry, man, it’s trick or tweet!”

My new blonde girlfriend got all angry on me last night when she saw my phone. “Who in the hell is this Amber Alert?!”

I purchased a Senior’s GPS. Not only does it tell me how to get there, but why I wanted to go there in the first place.

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High School Comedy

Senior year religion class at my Catholic high school, our Deacon teacher asked, “What are the two words that you should never say to a Jehovah’s Witness?  The class was a wasteland of boredom.  Figuring, ‘what the Hell,’ I raised my hand and responded, ”Come in.”  Dead Silence!  You could hear a tumbleweed rolling by.
Just for the record, it’s “Happy Birthday.”

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The teacher announced that to practice spelling, each member of the class would say what their fathers did for a living and then spell the occupation.

Mary went first. “My Dad is a baker, b-a-k-e-r, and if he were here, he would give everyone a cookie.”

Next came Tommy. “My dad is a banker, b-a-n-k-e-r, and if he were here, he’d give each of us a quarter.”

Third came Jimmy. “My dad is an electrician.” But after struggling through a number of attempts to spell the word, the teacher asked him to sit and think about it for a moment while she called on someone else.

She then turned to Johnny. “My dad’s a bookie, b-o-o-k-i-e,” Johnny said. “And if he were here, he’d lay you 8 to 5 that Jimmy ain’t never gonna spell electrician.”

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TEA IS AN EVIL SUBSTANCE
Tea is much more dangerous than beer.  Please avoid drinking tea.

I discovered this last night.  I drank 15 beers up until 3:00 AM at the pub, while my wife was just drinking tea at home.  You should have seen how angry and violent she was when I got home.
I was peaceful and quiet, and headed to bed, but she shouted at me all night long, and into the next morning.
Please ladies, if you can’t handle your tea, just don’t drink it.

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I love it when I leave work early to surprise my wife at home, and she greets me with those three special words.
“Were you fired?”

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When my wife asked, “What’s your favorite position in bed?” I probably shouldn’t have said, “Near the wall so I can use my phone while it’s charging!”

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A woman called 911 complaining of difficulty breathing. The EMTs quickly arrived and placed a sensor on her finger to measure her pulse and blood oxygen. Then they began to gather her information. “What’s your age?” one asked. “Fifty-nine,” the patient answered, eyeing the blinking device on her finger. “What is that thing?” The EMT answered with a straight face, “It’s a lie detector. Now, what is your age?” “Sixty-three,” said the woman, sheepishly.

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The three-year-old emerged from the bathroom smiling. “I brushed my teeth!” she proudly announced. “And then I brushed Wilbur’s.” Her horrified mother explained she shouldn’t have brushed the dog’s teeth and now they’d have to get her a new toothbrush. The next day, the girl asked, “Mommy, why did I need a new toothbrush?” Her mother answered patiently, “Remember? You used your toothbrush to brush the dog’s teeth, so you got a new one.” The youngster replied, “But, Mommy: I didn’t use my toothbrush on Wilbur’s teeth, I used yours!”

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The fact that jellyfish have survived for 650 million years without a brain, gives hope for a lot of people.

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Flash Fiction #292

PHOTO PROMPT © Roger Bultot

AN ESSAY: BY ARCHON

My writing method – Teacher says to get marks, I have to make a story outline, then fill it in.
Doesn’t work.  I leave a space at the top, write the story, then build the outline.

I just open the mental floodgates and let the concepts spill out.  I take an idea from here, a pun from there, stitch it together like Frankenstein’s monster, and hope that creative lightning will weld it together into a coherent story.  Sometimes I win.  Sometimes you lose.  Then I use my patented,© push-broom, accurate, re-filing, storage system, ready for next time.

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If you’d like to join the fun, go to Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple site, and use her Wednesday photo as a prompt to write a complete 100 word story.

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Flash Fiction #288

 

PHOTO PROMPT © David Stewart

IN AUTUMN, A YOUNG MAN’S FANCY

It’s Labor Day??!  Time to go back to high school.  Oh thrill!  Oh joy! (Insert sarcasm here!)

Some more pencils
some more books
some more teachers’
dirty looks

All the fun and freedom of summer, gone for another year.  No more swimming.  No more camping.  It’s like walking the Last Mile.  I feel the will to live draining away.

Hmmm??  A hot new girl just moved into the neighborhood?  She’ll be on our bus??!  She’ll be in our class??!  Interestinger and interestinger!

I’m going to get my hormones rotated, and YES, I enrolled in the Drama course.  Bring it, school!

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If you’d like to join the Friday Fictioneers fun, go to Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple site and use her Wednesday photo as a prompt to write a complete 100 word story.

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Looking Back – Again

The weirdest things formerly taught in schools

Part Two:

Pluto is a planet

Kids used to be taught that our solar system has nine planets, and that Pluto was the ninth.

They were taught wrong. On August 24, 2006, the icy ball 7.5 billion kilometers away had its status downgraded to “dwarf planet,” courtesy of the International Astronomical Union.

It didn’t have enough gravity to clear its orbit of debris, which is one of the characteristics required to be considered a planet,” says Mary Colson, an eighth-grade teacher.

Darkroom skills

While some schools may for retro reasons offer photography darkroom courses, digital technology has largely killed the need to go into dark rooms and develop film in baths of toxic chemicals. Besides the dangerous chemicals, equipment and supplies for the outdated developing processes are hard to find.

Diagramming sentences

In the days of old, elementary students were taught to diagram sentences, to understand their underlying structure. These parts might include a subject, a verb, an object, adjectives, adverbs and so on. But the system developed by Reed and Kellogg fell out of favor as educators moved away from such regimented methods of analysis to freer forms of expression.

Using blackboards

The old blackboards and chalk first got downgraded by the introduction of computers and now are increasingly replaced by more versatile whiteboards, which can accommodate eye-catching marker colors and even serve as projection screens. Kids no longer have to clap together two chalk erasers to clean them, sending up clouds of particulate.

“Chalk really isn’t good for anything. It gets all over your hands and your clothes,” agrees a fifth-grade teacher in New Haven.

Note-taking

Before there were smartphones to photograph teacher presentations or record their lectures, students had to take notes—that is, on paper with pen. While technology may be more convenient, research shows that students have to pay more attention to what is being said or shown when they take notes, so they learn better.

Civics

Up to the 1960s, it was common to have separate high school civics courses, designed to teach students about community service and the government. But these courses have been slashed with school budgets, leaving the majority of schools civics-free. Some education experts believe that civics courses develop young people’s critical-thinking skills, making them more engaged in public debates and more likely to participate in elections.

Spelling

Apparently some students might have trouble spelling ABC as schools move away from explicit instruction in spelling, perhaps driven by computers and their easy spell-checks.

Writes a literary expert J. Richard Gentry in Psychology Today: “America has moved to a toxic system for delivering spelling instruction in spite of an extensive and evolving body of research showing that direct and explicit spelling instruction is required for students to master the Mechanics of reading and writing.”

Sewing

Teaching sewing skills to girls has become passé, as gender roles have become less strictly defined.  Still, with six in 10 adults unable to sew well or at all, there might be a rationae for both sexes learning to mend tears, and sew on buttons.

“We have shifted away from the anachronistic view that girls should sew as an acquired life skill. Now we would say that boys or girls who want to go into textiles [need to learn certain skills] and we would try not to be gender specific,” says Julie Nugent, chief executive of the Design and Technology Association.

Math drills

Again, calculators, smartphones and personal computers are making serious math drills less common in schools. But many educators push against the idea of always letting machines do the thinking for us, and losing the chance to exercise our mental chops. The benefits of math drills just add up.

Tough gym classes

Chances are, kids’ memories of gym class today are much different than their parents’. In the 1960s there was a push towards high-intensity fitness regimens. Today kids are more likely to be given choices that let them avoid team sports and sweaty workouts. However, with childhood obesity and sedentary lifestyles at an early age becoming an issue, a return to gym-class tough love might be in order.

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Look Back In Anger – And Nostalgia

The weirdest things formerly taught in schools

Part one:

In another day and age, girls in public school might be separated to learn sewing and cooking in home economics class, while boys went to shop class to learn carpentry and mechanics skills. Dead languages were taught to understand live ones. Learning how to take proper notes, develop neat handwriting, read sweep-hand clocks and how to actually spell words are among the other weird things formerly taught in schools.

Latin

Schools for the most part no longer veni, vidi, vici the classical languages, Latin and Ancient Greek. True, you can’t use them in your day-to-day conversation but their loss is also our loss. Studying Latin helps us better understand the grammar and vocabulary of other languages, such as English. And many professions have vocabulary steeped in Latin, including law and medicine.

Handwriting

In the era of keyboard, cursive writing classes are on the way out or gone at many schools.  But not all educators are happy about this.

There’s a myth that in the era of computers we don’t need handwriting. That’s not what our research is showing,” says a University of Washington professor who has co-authored studies on the topic and followed the same children every year for five years to track their development. “What we found was that children until about grade six were writing more words, writing faster and expressing more ideas if they could use handwriting—printing or cursive—than if they used the keyboard.”

Home economics

In times past, it was common for boys to take shop classes and for girls to do home economics, where they would learn to cook, fold sheets and so on, so they could become proficient homemakers. Well, presumptions about gender roles have changed and home economics is fast becoming a creaky relic of the past. That said, teaching both girls and boys practical life skills, like how to boil an egg or do their own laundry, might be a good thing.

Shop class

No, shop class wasn’t learning how to become a more proficient shopper. It taught, boys mostly, basic carpentry and mechanics skills. Liability issues, using machines that can lop off digits or ruin eyes, may be one reason that shop and the industrial arts are increasingly falling off the school map.

But a school in North Carolina makes the case: “Shop classes offer students with their hands. They let students test their inclinations toward possible careers in engineering, carpentry, or architecture.”

Typing

As with handwriting, typing is being whited out in schools, with the belief that kids today are born with keyboards in their hands and screens before their eyes. So, gone are the days where students have their fingers poised over typewriter keyboards, with the teacher intoning, “D-d-d, space.” However, even though self-taught youngsters may be reasonably proficient, they would have a great work advantage if they learned to keyboard at full speed.

Dewey Decimal System

The Dewey Decimal System, first introduced in the 1800s, is a numerical system used by libraries to classify their book holdings into subjects and subcategories. Kids needed to get lessons from librarians to learn how to use it, thumbing their way through card catalogues, so they could research school papers and other projects. With the internet, Dewey Decimal is now skipping class. Even librarians are questioning the need to teach it.

Dodgeball

Dodgeball used to be a standard gym class activity, with two teams lining up facing each other and then hurling balls at each other in a contest of elimination. Because some kids have better throwing arms—and accuracy—than others, injuries happened and now schools are increasingly banning the game.

Using slide rules

Before using calculators in math class, we had slide rules to make basic calculations, especially multiplication and division. The rulers, with a central sliding slip marked with logarithmic scales date back to the 17th century. They fell out of use in the 1970s when mass-produced pocket calculators became widely available. The last slide rule was manufactured on July 11, 1976.

Reading Analog Clocks

Elementary school students used to be taught that when the small hand was at three and the big hand at six that it was 3:30 and perhaps time to go home. A new generation raised on digital readouts, have trouble dealing with analog time-telling. So much so that some schools have actually removed analog clocks because mystified kids were turning up late for classes and exams.

Etiquette

Etiquette hasn’t been part of school curricula for a long time. However, some experts believe it would do kids good to get lessons in class to supplement what they are learning, or not learning, at home. How to do a proper handshake, tie a tie, and address your elders, are good things to know.

We’ll have some more nostalgia later.

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Kindergarten Comedy

My Kindergarten students are learning to read.  Recently one of them pointed to a picture in a book and said, “Look, a frickin’ elephant.”
Taking a deep breath, I asked why he had called it that.
“Cuz it says so in the book.”
And so it does – African elephant.

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My wife and I went into town and visited a shop. When we came out, there was a cop writing out a parking ticket. We went up to him and I said, “Come on man, how about giving a senior citizen a break?”

He just ignored us and continued writing the ticket.

I called him an “a**hole.” He glared at me and started writing another ticket for having worn-out tires.

So my wife called him a “s*ithead.”

He finished the second ticket and put it on the windshield with the first.

Then he started writing more tickets. This went on for about 20 minutes. The more we abused him, the more tickets he wrote. He finally finished, sneered at us and walked away.

Just then our bus arrived, and we got on it and went home.

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A young boy comes running down the street looking for a cop.

He finds one and then begs “Please, officer, come back to the bar with me, my father’s in a fight.”

Well, they get back to the bar and there’s three guys fighting like you wouldn’t believe.

After a while the cop turns to the kid and says “Okay, which one’s your father?”

The kid looks up at the cop and says, “I don’t know, officer, that’s what they’re fighting about.”

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A Polish man walks into a store and asks to buy 2 pounds of Polish sausage. The guy behind the counter asks him if he is Polish. “I resent that…”. The Polish man says. “If I asked for chorizo, would you assume I was Mexican? If I asked for Bratwurst, would you assume I was German?” The guy behind the counter says “Nope, I’d still think you were Polish… This is a hardware store!!”

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A new father and a nurse were filling out the paperwork for the birth of his new daughter.  “What’s the baby’s name?” she asked.
He replied, “Kelsey Noelle.”
Confused, the nurse asks, “How do you spell Kelsey, with no L??”

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When I was young, I was poor.  Now, after long years of hard, honest work…. I am no longer young.

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As I looked at my naked body in the mirror, I thought to myself, “I’m going to get tossed out of IKEA any minute now.