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Showing posts from May 28, 2017

Serious vs. Silly

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This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously - no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.”   C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory I had a one of the students in my class, after the school year had ended on Friday afternoon and she was outside of the school front entrance on a bench with another student who had also been in my class, ask me if I had been the class clown when I was in high school. In my class I had tried to have a sense of humor with the kids. Forty-five days for 90 minutes daily is a looooong time to teach Study Skills to rammy and restless 9th graders. She thought I was funny.   I did have them period 1/2 and most of them were still sleepy...that was a plus. Easier to dial up than dial down.     Humor was both tactical and strategic, to keep the kids guessing to what I might s