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Practical and fun-to-read, this book includes 29 tips for tapping into the power of humor, as well as many examples of materials that encourage laughter and learning.
A tragicomic story of bad dates, bad news, bad performances, and one girl's determination to find the funny in high school from the author of Denton Little's Deathdate. Winnie Friedman has been waiting for the world to catch on to what she already knows: she's hilarious. It might be a long wait, though. After bombing a stand-up set at her own bat mitzvah, Winnie has kept her jokes to herself. Well, to herself and her dad, a former comedian and her inspiration. Then, on the second day of tenth grade, the funniest guy in school actually laughs at a comment she makes in the lunch line and asks her to join the improv troupe. Maybe he's even . . . flirting? Just when Winnie's ready to say yes to comedy again, her father reveals that he's been diagnosed with ALS. That is . . . not funny. Her dad's still making jokes, though, which feels like a good thing. And Winnie's prepared to be his straight man if that's what he wants. But is it what he needs? Caught up in a spiral of epically bad dates, bad news, and bad performances, Winnie's struggling to see the humor in it all. But finding a way to laugh is exactly what will see her through. **A Junior Library Guild Selection**
Educators need a balance between discipline theory and its practice in the classroom. This is especially important in today's educational climate, with its increased demands for teacher accountability. Tauber has designed this book for both those who are new to teaching and those who are already seasoned teachers but who have had little, if any, coursework in discipline. This book presents several sound frameworks that readers can use to evaluate six tried-and-true discipline models. Teachers need to select, learn, and implement a discipline model that best reflects how they feel students should be treated. Tauber explores a number of topics, some controversial, all quite relevant, concerning how teachers can prevent, as well as handle, problem behaviors. A chapter describing A through Z discipline suggestions can be immediately put into use.
An entertaining tour of the science of humor and laughter Humor, like pornography, is famously difficult to define. We know it when we see it, but is there a way to figure out what we really find funny -- and why? In this fascinating investigation into the science of humor and laughter, cognitive neuroscientist Scott Weems uncovers what's happening in our heads when we giggle, guffaw, or double over with laughter. While we typically think of humor in terms of jokes or comic timing, in Ha! Weems proposes a provocative new model. Humor arises from inner conflict in the brain, he argues, and is part of a larger desire to comprehend a complex world. Showing that the delight that comes with "getting" a punchline is closely related to the joy that accompanies the insight to solve a difficult problem, Weems explores why surprise is such an important element in humor, why computers are terrible at recognizing what's funny, and why it takes so long for a tragedy to become acceptable comedic fodder. From the role of insult jokes to the benefit of laughing for our immune system, Ha! reveals why humor is so idiosyncratic, and why how-to books alone will never help us become funnier people. Packed with the latest research, illuminating anecdotes, and even a few jokes, Ha! lifts the curtain on this most human of qualities. From the origins of humor in our brains to its life on the standup comedy circuit, this book offers a delightful tour of why humor is so important to our daily lives.
Some things are funny -- jokes, puns, sitcoms, Charlie Chaplin, The Far Side, Malvolio with his yellow garters crossed -- but why? Why does humor exist in the first place? Why do we spend so much of our time passing on amusing anecdotes, making wisecracks, watching The Simpsons? In Inside Jokes, Matthew Hurley, Daniel Dennett, and Reginald Adams offer an evolutionary and cognitive perspective. Humor, they propose, evolved out of a computational problem that arose when our long-ago ancestors were furnished with open-ended thinking. Mother Nature -- aka natural selection -- cannot just order the brain to find and fix all our time-pressured misleaps and near-misses. She has to bribe the brain with pleasure. So we find them funny. This wired-in source of pleasure has been tickled relentlessly by humorists over the centuries, and we have become addicted to the endogenous mind candy that is humor.
Acting Lessons for Teachers presents a solid theoretical foundation for the pedagogical benefits of enthusiastic teaching. Simply put, students are more engaged, misbehave less, and learn better from teachers who teach enthusiastically. A teacher's enthusiasm for his or her subject matter can be contagious. Since the dynamic of the classroom is similar to that of the stage in terms of speaker-listener relationships, the acting craft offers teachers a model for the skills and strategies that could be incorporated in their work to convey more enthusiasm for the material and for the students. This book presents concrete descriptions of the specific acting strategies that would benefit the teacher: physical and vocal animation, teacher role-playing, strategic entrances and exits, humor, props, suspense and surprise, and creative use of space. Special attention is given to the potential advantage of instructional technology as a modern-day prop. Strategies are explained in terms of their importance and ease of incorporation into the classroom. Each is proposed as a skill that can be learned by any teachers who have the desire to enliven their teaching. Student descriptions of their own experience with teachers' use of acting strategies add real examples for each lesson. Finally, testimony of award-winning classroom teachers from a variety of disciplines and age levels provides evidence of the wide and easy applicability of these strategies.
"In this timely update of the seminal classic, author and activist Jodee Blanco reveals how she simply set out to share her story-and ended up igniting a grassroots movement in the nation's schools. The first survivor of school bullying to look back on those experiences as an adult, Jodee brings you up to speed on her life and work since the book's initial release with a new chapter, all-new Letter to My Readers, and Reader's Guide. She also offers the latest information on digital and cyberbullying, the Adult Survivor of Peer Abuse, her in-school antibullying program, INJJA (It's NOT Just Joking Around!), and provides discussion questions for schools. While other children were daydreaming about dances, first kisses, and college, Jodee Blanco was trying to figure out how to go from homeroom to study hall without being taunted or spit upon as she walked through the halls. This powerful, unforgettable memoir chronicles how one child was shunned-and even physically abused-by her classmates from elementary school through high school. It is an unflinching look at what it means to be the outcast, how even the most loving parents can get it all wrong, why schools are often unable to prevent disaster, and how bullying has been misunderstood and mishandled by the mental health community"--
Strong Spirits, Kind Hearts is the first practical teacher resource to provide comprehensive coverage of all aspects of developing strong spirits and caring young people. It is focused on middle years’ students but most lessons can be adapted for older and younger students as well. This resource describes ways to incorporate emotional and spiritual supports into daily routines and interactions with students and provides ready-to-use activities, lessons and units that can be integrated into subject area teaching. This book helps teachers to: understand the importance of strengthening students’ spirits and how this support improves students’ learning and classroom morale build resilience and hope through their interactions with students distinguish between the development of strong spirits and religious education use approaches that are respectful of religious and spiritual diversity as well as more secular views implement a wealth of strategies, lessons, and units that develop students’ compassion and sense of connection to others and the natural world integrate a focus on meaning and purpose within subject area lessons.
Ahh youth, what a great time in your life. Oh how we change as we grow older. Our hopes, dreams, fears and self-confidence begin to form in our minds as we grow older. Things change. And as they do we learn, we grow and we change. But when you begin to mature and your self-confidence forms in your mind. You learn that it is not necessary to always be in such a hurry. When we are young we think there is just no time to stop and smell the roses. Being older now, I do take the time to stop, and the roses smell so sweet. Now I understand the meaning. Bad things will pass with time. It is up to us to take care of our mind. Marriage is a big change in our life. Now you have to give up some of your privacy, give more than you take, and have a lot more patience. Oh what we learn as we grow. There are so many things going on in our mind. The television used to be entertaining but now it puts all kinds of strange thoughts in your head. Be a careful viewer. It is up to us to keep our mind in order. Our body might shrink as we grow older but our brain continues to grow. Feed it with healthy things.
A 2021 Edgar Award Nominee for Best Critical/Biographical “Jacqueline Winspear has created a memoir of her English childhood that is every bit as engaging as her Maisie Dobbs novels, just as rich in character and detail, history and humanity. Her writing is lovely, elegant and welcoming.”—Anne Lamott The New York Times bestselling author of the Maisie Dobbs series offers a deeply personal memoir of her family’s resilience in the face of war and privation. After sixteen novels, Jacqueline Winspear has taken the bold step of turning to memoir, revealing the hardships and joys of her family history. Both shockingly frank and deftly restrained, her story tackles the difficult, poignant, and fascinating family accounts of her paternal grandfather’s shellshock; her mother’s evacuation from London during the Blitz; her soft-spoken animal-loving father’s torturous assignment to an explosives team during WWII; her parents’ years living with Romany Gypsies; and Winspear’s own childhood picking hops and fruit on farms in rural Kent, capturing her ties to the land and her dream of being a writer at its very inception. An eye-opening and heartfelt portrayal of a post-War England we rarely see, This Time Next Year We’ll Be Laughing chronicles a childhood in the English countryside, of working class indomitability and family secrets, of artistic inspiration and the price of memory.
