Nuns and Squirrels

“My way of joking is to tell the truth.  It’s the funniest joke in the world.”

George Bernard Shaw

I was teaching the parts of speech to a class of third grade students once and I asked the question, “Who knows what a noun is?”

Trevor put up his hand and said, “Aren’t they the people who work in churches?”

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When I taught First Grade, I used to conduct a ‘feelings circle’ every morning.  The students would sit on the floor in a circle and they’d each have a turn rating their feelings from one to ten; ten being fantastic and one being pretty low.  It was a great way to gain insight about the kids’ emotional status, and it gave children who were bursting with news an opportunity to share.

I’ll never forget the day little Simone said through tears, “I feel like a ‘one’ this morning because, on the drive to school, we saw a dead squirrel by the side of the road.”  She was overcome with emotion and cried through the second half of her statement.  It was hard for some kids to hear what she had said, so several of them whispered, “What did she say?”

Young Peter, who was sitting right next to Simone and had heard every word, announced matter-of-factly to his classmates, “ROADKILL.”