The Misconception
As the movie Matilda spelled it out, it's easy for conscientious educators to think that learning and fun are mutually exclusive.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

With all the efforts to prepare students to score well on standardized tests - and the ensuing pressure to teach to the test - it would seem almost irresponsible to spend any time having fun. No time for a smile, let alone a giggle... Even the term schoolwork implies that the goal is to make education as laborious as possible.

Too Much Work Makes You Stupid
The irony of it all is that when the brain is too busy trying harder, it shuts down the pathways to the neocortex (where higher order thinking takes place). As colleague Lou Fournier and I wrote in our book Enlighten Up: An Educator's Guide to Stress-Free Living (ASCD 2003), all that stress quite literally makes you stupid.

Make Time for "Play"
What is a good teacher to do? We suggest that you start every day by taking the most tedious thing you have to convey or accomplish that day and find a digital-visual way to make it engaging and fun. For example, some years back, I had sent my brother (then a fourth-grade teacher) an LCD projector with an overlay writing device (think John Madden annotating the football replays, or the weather person directing your attention to where the next storm is going to hit). As per my suggestion, the next morning he had the whole class focus on the big screen where the latest draft of their monthly newsletter was projected. Wielding the electronic pen (mightier than any sword or other disciplinary device), "Mr. B." facilitated corrections to grammar and spelling, helped with syntax, vocabulary and even layout. After 90 minutes of intense editing, it was time for recess. As the students were filing out, my brother overheard one boy saying to a classmate: "We lucked out this morning. We didn't have to do any work!"

90 minutes. Not one child squirming or off-task. Not one child left behind as the whole class worked to achieve a common goal: make their newsletter better.

The Joke
To be honest, for a free-flowing, non-linear person like myself, grammar and syntax fall into the mind-numbingly-boring category. So how would I teach paragraph construction and topic sentences? Remember, this lesson has to bring tears (of laughter) to the eyes of the students. It also has to keep me awake. (I actually did fall asleep once teaching a French grammar lesson. Fortunately, the blackboard broke my fall, so no one was hurt.)

I would start the class by saying: "I just heard this great new joke. Want to hear it?" Then I would proceed to tell the joke with great enthusiasm, but with the lines all mixed up. The punch line would be somewhere in the middle and the last line wouldn't be funny at all. At that point, I would break out laughing (good for my immune system) and look totally puzzled that they didn't get it. I'd repeat the last line (not funny) and laugh some more. When I had a good enough chortle, I would flick on the LCD projector, with the mixed up joke typed on the screen.

I'd wait a few seconds to see if some bright student would realize that rearranging the sentences could vastly improve the joke. If they were too busy worrying about my apparent loss of sanity, I'd go ahead and move the first block and ask if maybe that helped. Students could volunteer to move the remaining sentences.

Then I'd divide the class into groups of 3 to 5 students and have each group write and scramble a joke. Their team joke would be graded on the following criteria:

• Correct punctuation, grammar, spelling, and syntax; expressive and proper use of language (0-10 points)
• Positive humor (no off-color jokes, racial or ethnic slurs, or putting people down) (0-10 points)
• Legible, attractive presentation and enthusiastic delivery (0-10 points)

The team grade would be calculated by multiplying the three scores above. Any bad words (inappropriate language) or negative humor would result in zero points for that category and hence zero points for the total grade.

Besides this activity adding to my growing joke collection, students would have a good time and prove experientially the upgraded adage: "If you're having fun, you're probably learning."