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- Humor for Educators -
Copyright 2001 by John P. Wood for Learning Laffs. No Reproduction without permission.

ALICE

I was teaching one day,
In the most regular way,
When Tommy decided
He had something to say.

He stopped my lesson.
He raised his right hand.
"Why must we learn
All of this stuff you have planned?"

"And it is just stuff.
A trivial quest.
Just stuff to remember
'Til we take the test."

"When is the fun part,
When learning is play?
Learning can be fun.
Can we have some today?"

"Look Tommy," I said,
"This will help you some day.
So learn it you should
In the regular way."

But Tommy resisted.
He thought, but did not say,
That learning's important
But he'd much rather play.

And play, I decided, is just
What we'd do.
We'd play with our learning,
And I'd have fun too.

We played games with the people,
The dates, and the stories.
We studied our past
In all of its glories.

We had fun and we laughed.
We had a good time.
But Alice, a student,
Thought we'd committed a crime.

"This is not right,"
And she said it with malice.
"I do not like fun,"
Said our little Alice.

"We should read and write.
And do charting and graphing.
This is no place
For loud fun and laughing."

"My mother will not like this.
She's on the school board.
My mother, to be honest,
Will be shocked - she'll be floored."

"I'll call them, the board,
And the whole district mob.
I'll call them and tell them,
And you'll lose your job."

"But, Alice," I said,
"You must learn how to laugh.
And we'll be your helpers -
Your laugh-learning staff."

So we taught her some games
And some jokes and some riddles.
We all laughed so hard,
We had aches in our middles.

And Alice, she laughed.
And she laughed and she giggled.
She fell out of her seat,
On the floor, and she wiggled.

Our serious Alice,
Who never laughed before,
She couldn't stop laughing.
She was dragged out the door.

We took her to the office
We begged and we pleaded,
"Please help us with Alice.
We've over-succeeded."

But Alice could never
Stop laughing at all.
She laughed all of winter,
Spring, summer and fall.

She got in such trouble,
They gave her detention.
She couldn't stop laughing.
They threatened retention.

Then Alice's mother
Took her out of the schools.
To keep her away
From such fun-silly fools.

Now, some kids miss school
From strep and from staph.
But Alice, she stays home
Because of her laugh.

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