As a substitute teacher I told a joke so funny to a combined junior high class - 60 kids, two teachers and an aid to handle them - that it made continuation of the educational process impossible. Big pilot program and everyone was nervous about the experiment. But on a Friday in May the adults all go for professional development and only think to get one sub. I had to entertain them like the Colosseum entertained the mob of Rome for 6 hours. All the time they smelled my fear. I told them that if they worked hard on their big project diaramas they had - great activity to leave me to try to control them with -
them going from table to table to get supplies. - I would tell them the funniest joke in the world. Of course it I was bluffing because the joke I was going to tell these 14 year olds was not all that funny. But I wanted something to show from my day at the front line of teen eduction. It's every bit as horrific as you have heard. I felt safer teaching GED classes in a prison. But they did great work. I knew their teachers would be back on Monday and be impressed. So I got everything cleaned up and sat them in their seats and checked their planning manuals. Then with twenty minutes left in the day I took the stage and then I told my joke.
"Why did the monkey fall out of the tree?"
"Because he was dead."
I don't know if it was my delivery or the build up or the expectaion but the laughter that erupted was the kind where people have a hard time breathing. Then they would stop for a second and someone would say "because he was dead" and it would all start again. It was infectious and you could hear it down the hallway.
With ten mitues left in the day the teachers returned to this scene of polite kids all in their seats peeing themselves with laughter. They then collectively gave me a dirty look and 'excused me from their fiefdom. I left to applause.
Damn I miss the classroom sometimes.
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