Humor me, please! (no pun intended). If my daughters come home from school with a story about something their teachers said or did jokingly, or that was hilarious, it makes their day! My girls' demeanor is entirely different when that happens. They giggle and want to tell me every single detail, explaining how funny the teacher was. It absolutely amazes me how little it takes to make kids laugh.
Sense of humor or not. No matter what grade a child is in, it doesn't take much to crack a joke every once in a while. Spice up the day, do something different. Kids have an enormous amount of pressure on them. Curriculums and standards have risen and become more academically rigorous. So when a teacher possesses a good sense of humor, it really can make all the difference to a child. What about the child who doesn't smile often, or has a difficult time in school, academically or socially? A teacher with a good sense of humor can make a difference in that child's life as well.
Despite any character traits, humor included, I also think this is why I question how it is that some teachers are even allowed to teach? Having a credential doesn't make any educator a good one. In fact, I've had and known some pretty sucky ones over the course of my life and my daughters as well. Forget laughing, some teachers made me cry when I was a young girl. It impacted me so much, that I took a disliking towards the subject of math. As a young girl, I truly believed that my second grade math teacher was an ogre in disguise. She obviously hated her job, so being miserable to everyone was her way of commanding a classroom of kids. Either that, or it was just her miserable personality. Simple question...why go into the field of education if you don't like working with children?
I applaud those teachers who've made an impact on my life, and my daughters lives as well. There are a handful that we still talk about to this day. And, it wasn't just because they had a sense of humor. It was their way of teaching, that certain, special gift they had - the gift that can actually change lives. Being an educator is not a one size fits all job. We all know it's one of the most underpaid, underrecognized professions in the world. So, for the ones who do have a sense of humor, thank you for making those students smile or even laugh until their stomach hurts, and for the children who may suffer from anxiety, depression, or any other illness. Thank you for lifting their spirits, if even for that one moment in your classroom. And for the teachers who don't use any special magic tricks or recipe for educating others, but are simply beyond any student's expectations, thank you for making an impact on their lives.
Here's an article I loved that inspired me to write this post...
The Saturn question is my favorite!
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