The authors, former middle and high school English teachers, review the rationale for using humor and fun in the classroom and provide detailed descriptions for teaching practices and activities that confer enjoyment and learning for language arts students. Although fun activities, these methods foster vocabulary development, grammar instruction,…

Of the more than 5000 books reviewed in "School Library Journal's" ("SLJ's") pages in 2008, the 67 books listed in this article stood out as having distinctive voices, singular vision, and/or innovative approaches. They include books for toddlers and preschoolers, terrific picture books and easy readers, and some highly original novels. Fantasy,…

This study replicated and extended a preliminary typology of appropriate and inappropriate teacher humor and advanced three explanations for differences in interpretations of teacher humor. Students were more likely to view teacher humor as inappropriate when it was perceived as offensive and when it demeaned students as a group or individually.…

Using William Glasser's five basic needs as a foundation, "The Classroom Manager" provides a theoretical base to guide readers in the understanding and development of an effective classroom management program. The topics of survival, belonging and love, power, fun, and freedom are explored through definitions, practical recommendations and case…

The assumptions about children's development are challenged by recent research findings that show learning begins at an earlier age and proceeds at a different pace than expected. Sometimes researchers find that they have misunderstood children's cognitive, social, and physical development due to errors in measurement (faulty tests or tools),…

This article describes a study that explores efforts to promote democratic practice in a diverse school context. More specifically, it documents administrative endeavors to include members of the school community--teachers, parents and students--in the various school processes by encouraging inclusive communicative practices. The findings of the…

Humor has been promoted as a teaching tool that enhances student engagement and learning. The present report traces the pathway from research to practice by reflecting upon various ways to incorporate humor into the face-to-face teaching of statistics. The use of humor in an introductory university statistics course was evaluated via interviews…

The author poses a set of imaginative, sportive strategies designed to make the big error look small. (MB)

A teacher of teachers who is alos the mother of teen-agers publicly renounces all theories of adolescent psychology learned from the literature and offers empirically based principles of her own. (Author)

The first of two articles discusses the human predilection for classification, using several eccentric taxonomies as examples. (MES)

A humorous proposal for establishing a professional fee system for teachers. (MD)

In this humorous essay, the author responds to a critique of one of his articles found on a web site that sells term papers. He points out the irony of finding an analysis of an article covering college honor systems on a site that helps students plagiarize, and offers his own critique of the paper.

The literature on humor generally focuses on the nature of incongruities as the root of humor. In this article, the author takes the examination of humor one step further by meditating on the mental frame involved with humor. He is interested in what cultural experiences would predispose the individuals within a given culture to have a sense of…

Elementary school science is an often-neglected subject in the current literacy-focused political atmosphere. However, reading informational trade books about science in literacy class can help children increase their science knowledge. Incorporating humor through content-related cartoons is an effective way to engage students in deeper…

The promotion of language and social skill development for young children occurs in multiple contexts with a range of empirically validated methods. One specific intervention strategy used to promote language and communication would be to arrange the environment so that it is structured to elicit a range of communicative functions, such as…