Category: Humor

Pi Day is an annual celebration commemorating the mathematical constant π (pi). Pi Day is observed on March 14 since 3, 1, and 4 are the three most significant digits of π in the decimal form. Daniel Tammet, a high-functioning autistic savant, holds the European record for reciting pi from memory to 22,514 digits in five hours and nine minutes.

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Life is hard, but help is all around us. The trick is to take your learning where you find it. In my case, as a technology teacher, it‘s from computers. A while ago I posted four lessons I learned from computers:

1. Know when your RAM is full
2. You Can‘t Go Faster Than Your Processor Speed
3. Take Shortcuts When You Can
4. Be Patient When You‘re Hourglassing

I got a flood of advice from readers about the geeky lessons they got from computers. See which you relate to:

#5: Go offline for a while

We are all getting used to–even addicted to–that online hive mind where other voices with thoughts and opinions are only a click away. Who among us hasn’t wasted hours on Facebook, Twitter, blogs–chatting with strangers or virtual friends ready to commiserate and offer advice. It’s like having a best friend who’s always available.

But while your back is turned, the real world is changing. Once in a while, disconnect from your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram–even your blogmates. Re-acquaint yourself with the joys of facial expressions, body language, and that tone of voice that makes  the comment, “Yes, I’d be happy to help” sincere or snarky. Engage your brain in a more intimate and viscerally satisfying world.

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Pi Day is an annual celebration commemorating the mathematical constant π (pi). Pi Day is observed on March 14 since 3, 1, and 4 are the three most significant digits of π in the decimal form. Daniel Tammet, a high-functioning autistic savant, holds the European record for reciting pi from memory to 22,514 digits in five hours and nine minutes.

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Life is hard, but help is all around us. The trick is to take your learning where you can find it. In my case, as a technology teacher, it‘s from computers. Here are four lessons I learned from my computer. I might not survive without them.

#1: Know when your RAM is full

RAM is Random Access Memory. In the computer world, it controls how much you can work on at any given moment. If you exceed your computer‘s RAM, it won’t be able to remember anything else (computer programs start stalling or stop working). Humans have a mental workspace–like a desktop–that controls how much we can keep in our thoughts before it is shuffled off to long- and short-term memory. For people with eidetic memories, it‘s very large. For most of us, size is controlled by:

• how complicated the subject is
• how many numbers there are
• how many specific facts there are

I know my limits and I don‘t feel bad about grabbing a pencil to take notes or asking someone to slow the heck down. You shouldn‘t either. Figure out the limits of your RAM and accept it. Don‘t be afraid to say, My RAM is full! That‘s what computers do.

#2: You Can‘t Go Faster Than Your Processor Speed

Everyone wants a computer with the fastest possible processor speed. That means it will perform tasks at lightening speed and we as the owner get more done in less time. The computer seems to understand what pace is best for its mother board and maintains that pace, no matter if we yell, scream, or kick its tires. Why? Because it can only work as fast as its parts allow it to.

This is also true of your personal processing speed. It is what it is. Your ability to think through problems and consider issues is determined by your mental and physical framework. No amount of lusting after those with a photographic memory will change your circumstances. Accept yourself for what you are. Revel in it. Own it. Enjoy your strong points and work around the weak ones.

Here‘s something you may not know. No one is perfect and everyone has weaknesses. Successful people re-form arguments and situations to accommodate their strengths and ignore their weaknesses. You can too. Who cares what your processing speed is if your hard drive is to die for?

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Every year, I struggle with a Halloween costume. The teams of grade-level teachers always have themed looks—the Three Bears or Eeenie Meenie Minie and Moe–but I don’t have a team. I also don’t have kids at home to inspire me into painting my hair pink or my nails black.

A few years ago, I found the solution, and now–no worries. Even if it slips by my consciousness until I arrive at school on our Halloween Parade Day to the sight of goblins, Dr Who’s and other fantasies, I’m ready. Here’s my costume:

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If you liked the last Humor that Inspires (Part 1, and Part 2 and Part 3 and Part 4), here are more to kick-start your day:

1. “The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a ‘C’, the idea must be feasible.”
   – A Yale University management professor in response to student Fred Smith’s paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)
2. “Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?”
   – H. M. Warner (1881-1958), founder of Warner Brothers, in 1927
3. “We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.”
   – Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962
4. “Everything that can be invented has been invented.”
   – Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899
5. “Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.”
   – Mark Twain (1835-1910)
6. “A pint of sweat, saves a gallon of blood.”
   – General George S. Patton (1885-1945)
7. “After I’m dead I’d rather have people ask why I have no monument than why I have one.”
   – Cato the Elder (234-149 BC, AKA Marcus Porcius Cato)
8. “He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know.”
   – Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
9. “Don’t let it end like this. Tell them I said something.”
   – last words of Pancho Villa (1877-1923)
10. “The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins.”
    – Oliver Wendell Holmes (1841-1935) (more…)

If you liked the last Humor that Inspires (Part 1, and Part 2 and Part 3), here are more to kick-start your day:

1. “It is time I stepped aside for a less experienced and less able man.”
   – Professor Scott Elledge on his retirement from Cornell
2. “Every day I get up and look through the Forbes list of the richest people in America. If I’m not there, I go to work.”
   – Robert Orben
3. “The cynics are right nine times out of ten.”
   – Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956)
4. “There are some experiences in life which should not be demanded twice from any man, and one of them is listening to the Brahms Requiem.”
   – George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
5. “Attention to health is life’s greatest hindrance.”
   – Plato (427-347 B.C.)
6. “Plato was a bore.”
   – Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)
7. “Nietzsche was stupid and abnormal.”
   – Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)
8. “I’m not going to get into the ring with Tolstoy.”
   – Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)
9. “Hemingway was a jerk.”
   – Harold Robbins
10. “Men are not disturbed by things, but the view they take of things.”
    – Epictetus (55-135 A.D.)
11. “What about things like bullets?”
    – Herb Kimmel, Behavioralist, Professor of Psychology, upon hearing the above quote (1981)
12. “How can I lose to such an idiot?”
    – A shout from chessmaster Aaron Nimzovich (1886-1935)
13. “Not only is there no God, but try finding a plumber on Sunday.”
    – Woody Allen (1935-) (more…)

This is inspired by Jennifer Cohen over at Forbes who wrote a wonderful article on “5 Things Super Successful People Do Before 8am” (few of which I do, though I can claim #5). She includes chores like exercise, eat a healthy breakfast, map out the day–all great ideas, but not pithy enough for the average teacher I know.

Here’s my list of what the average teacher accomplishes before her first class of children crosses the threshold of her domain. These are gathered from chatting with friends and efriends on how they start their days:

1. Research the answers to sixteen ‘why’ questions students asked during yesterday’s classes.
2. Figure out how to run that dang iPad app students want to use.
3. Wash Superman (or woman) cape.
4. Close eyes for three seconds to invoke the memory of Emma [replace ‘Emma’ with the name of the Poster Child for why you’re a teacher].
5. Accomplish the equivalent of stuffing twenty people in a phone booth–which means find son/daughter’s lost iPad which must be brought to school every day, get kids off to school with packed lunches and completed homework, arrange household repairs, sort dog and husband/wife, talk significant other down from an emotional cliff, and figure out how to make coffee by pouring hot water through yesterday’s grounds (oops–forgot to buy coffee).
6. Eat breakfast–real food, not leftovers or peanut butter from sandwiches.
7. Move what wasn’t accomplished yesterday to today’s To Do list, which is most everything.
8. Promise that today, unlike yesterday and the day before, and the day before that, you won’t say D*** five times before the first class arrives. Set a goal of only four times.
9. Do emergency morning yard duty instead of the project set up you’d planned to do this morning—and the reason you came in early.
10. While doing emergency morning yard duty, imitate someone being patient rather than someone chewing on their last nerve.
11. Keep an open mind to all nature of miracles, no matter the shape or size.
12. Answer parent email and voicemail from the prior day because you promised the Principal you would–again.
13. Paste on your Reasonable face when a parent drops in for an impromptu conference, shoehorned in after s/he dropped off her/his child and before the 8am start-of-day. Stow the one that says, ‘Leave me alone’.
14. Take a nap, especially if you’ve been up most of the night grading papers or preparing lesson plans.
15. Smile at the parent who always talks with that irritating tone reserved for women they consider delicate.
16. Solve the education problems of the world.
17. As Paul Harvey said in Broadcast, “In times like these, it is good to remember that there have always been times like these”.
18. Remember that–as Edwin Louis Cole once said, you don’t drown by falling in the water; you drown by staying there.

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I heard from several friends at a non-denominational school I’m close to that rules regarding prayer in the classroom have changed. Now, teachers may not have the morning prayer that has started their day for over twenty years. Times change and Admin decided that was no longer the direction the school was going. They continue to have organized fellowship–just not under the direction of an individual teacher, in his/her classroom.

Serendipity brought the following to my inbox. Thought I’d share:

After being interviewed by the school administration, the prospective teacher said:

‘Let me see if I’ve got this right.

‘You want me to go into that room with all those kids, correct their disruptive behavior, observe them for signs of abuse, monitor their dress habits, censor their T-shirt messages, and instill in them a love for learning.

‘You want me to check their backpacks for weapons, wage war on drugs and sexually transmitted diseases, and raise their sense of self esteem and personal pride.

‘You want me to teach them patriotism and good citizenship, sportsmanship and fair play, and how to register to vote, balance a checkbook, and apply for a job.

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If you liked the last Humor that Inspires (Part 1 and Part 2), here are more to kick-start your day:

1. “A man can’t be too careful in the choice of his enemies.”
   – Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
2. “Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.”
   – John F. Kennedy (1917-1963)
3. “Logic is in the eye of the logician.”
   – Gloria Steinem
4. “No one can earn a million dollars honestly.”
   – William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925)
5. “Everything has been figured out, except how to live.”
   – Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980)
6. “Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech.”
   – Martin Fraquhar Tupper
7. “Thank you for sending me a copy of your book – I’ll waste no time reading it.”
   – Moses Hadas (1900-1966)
8. “From the moment I picked your book up until I laid it down I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it.”
   – Groucho Marx (1895-1977)
9. (more…)