"Fournier has firmly placed one foot in the pragmatic world of today, while the other points toward a future view of education where teachers and students are treated with respect, and all learners achieve to the best of their abilities. He does this through the medium of humor, and you are in for a genuine treat." —From the Foreword by David D. Thornburg, Director Thornburg Center Playful (and very funny) satire offers fresh insights on education! For everyone who has ever thought that the truth about education is stranger—and funnier—than fiction, here is the book that proves you right! Never has there been a greater need for comic relief for educators, as teachers, administrators, students, and parents alike become increasingly frustrated with the shortcomings and dizzying fluctuations in the educational system. Using satire and affectionate humor, author Lou Fournier delivers both stark and subtle epiphanies alongside enduring truths, offering a deeper social commentary on the present conditions and future directions of American education. The author shares wildly humorous observations and editorials that both individually and collectively provide thought-provoking kernels of wisdom. With an engagingly satiric approach, the author spares no topic in casting a wide net over education, covering music and the arts, school culture, leadership, assessment, staff development, history, technology, higher education, and so many more.

From Shakespeare to The Simpsons, comedy has long provided both entertainment and social commentary. It may critique cultural values, undermine authority, satirize sacred beliefs, and make room for the marginalized to approach the center. Comedy can be challenging to teach, but in the classroom it can help students connect with one another, develop critical thinking skills, and engage with important issues. The essays in this volume address a rich variety of texts spanning film, television, stand-up, cartoons, and memes as well as conventional literary works from different places and times. Contributors offer theoretical foundations and practical methods for a broad range of courses, including guidance on contextualizing the humor of historical works and on navigating the ways that comedy can both subvert and reinforce stereotypes. Finally, the volume argues for the value of comedy in difficult times, as a way to create community and meaning. This volume contains discussion of fiction, poetry, plays, and essays by Maya Angelou, Jane Austen, Aphra Behn, Hugh Henry Brackenridge, Frances Burney, Charles W. Chesnutt, Roddy Doyle, Maria Edgeworth, Ben Jonson, Anita Loos, Emtithal Mahmoud, Thomas Middleton, Okot p'Bitek, William Shakespeare, Laurence Sterne, Jonathan Swift, Alma Villanueva, Paula Vogel, Oscar Wilde, John Wilmot, and William Wycherley; TV shows and films including Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, The Gold Rush, Life Is Beautiful, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, The Office, Office Space, Rick and Morty, and South Park; works and stand-up performances by Aziz Ansari, Samantha Bee, Dave Chappelle, Louis C.K., Tina Fey, Moms Mabley, Hasan Minhaj, Eddie Murphy, Trevor Noah, Richard Pryor, Issa Rae, and Wanda Sykes; and visual works and other media including Aaron McGruder's The Boondocks, Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes, Nick Sousanis's Unflattening, Marvel's Hawkeye, The Onion, YouTube videos, advertisements, and memes.

Do you ever feel as if your passion for pop culture and faith might be at odds? Do you ever wonder how your desire to be a part of present-day culture and your longing to grow spiritually can be reconciled? Thirty-something Jake Martin, a professional comedian who also just happens to be a Jesuit, believes that contemporary culture and spirituality do go hand in hand and that our faith can grow through the medium of humor and laughter. What’s So Funny about Faith? is Martin’s wry, heartfelt memoir detailing his attempts to successfully navigate a world steeped in irony while staying true to his calling to love and serve God. Martin explores the oftentimes complicated relationship between faith and humor as he examines the contemporary landscape of humor in film, television, and the Internet while communicating timeless truths about the redemptive value of humor. Martin’s humorous anecdotes span his relatively young life—from growing up on the South Side of Chicago to becoming a stand-up comedian to joining the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits). Whether he’s reminiscing about his female-dominated, Irish-Catholic family (he affectionately recalls the howls of laughter when more than one woman would convene) or recollecting his movie-inspired greeting to the Jesuits (“You know how the priests in The Exorcist were Jesuits?”), Martin continually validates not only the role humor played in developing his spiritual life, but the role it can play in developing ours as well.

Critical studies attempting to define and dissect American humor have been published steadily for nearly one hundred years. However, until now, key documents from that history have never been brought together in a single volume for students and scholars. What's So Funny? Humor in American Culture, a collection of 15 essays, examines the meaning of humor and attempts to pinpoint its impact on American culture and society, while providing a historical overview of its progres-sion. Essays from Nancy Walker and Zita Dresner, Joseph Boskin and Joseph Dorinson, William Keough, Roy Blount, Jr., and others trace the development of American humor from the colonial period to the present, focusing on its relationship with ethnicity, gender, violence, and geography. An excellent reader for courses in American studies and American social and cultural history, What's So Funny? explores the traits of the American experience that have given rise to its humor.

The author's goal is to help you learn to think funny every day.

This volume describes and analyses exceptional educational events – periods of particularly effective teaching representing ultimates in teacher and pupil educational experience. The events themselves are reconstructed in the book through teacher and pupil voices and through documentation. A model of ‘critical event’ is derived from the study, which might serve as a possible framework for understanding other such occurrences in schools.

A young teacher buys a one-way ticket to Shishmaref, Alaska. Within minutes of landing, she finds herself dealing with unexpected, rustic accommodations, and the culture shock of living in a remote Iñuit community. She relies on her courage, resilience, and wit while enduring freezing temperatures, power outages, loneliness, and first-year teacher anxieties and missteps, but eventually realizes that those challenges pale in comparison to the life lessons she learns about the heart of teaching—lessons from her students, their culture, and their community, on the vast, windy landscape at the edge of the Chukchi Sea.

Essays For Middle Class

This book focuses on the theory and practices of a highly successful mathematics teacher of African American children in a high-poverty school. The discussions in the book center on the ideals of culturally responsive teaching (CRT), and seek to build understanding of this concept in the context of mathematics.