School Follies

While these stories have been floating around the web, we believe them to be in the public domain. If you know any school-related jokes please be sure to send them. Be sure to let me know if it's a joke or if it really happened so I can place it in the proper place. An e-mail link is at the bottom of the page.

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You Might Be a Schoolteacher if...

you have no time for a life from August to June.
you want to slap the next person who says, "Must be nice to work from 8 to 3 and have your summers free!"
when out in public you feel the urge to talk to strange children and correct their behavior.
you refer to adults as "boys and girls."
you encourage your spouse by telling him/her he/she is a "good helper."
you've ever had your profession slammed by someone who would never dream of doing your job.
meeting a child's parents instantly answers the question, "Why is this kid like this?"
you believe "extremely annoying" should have its own box on the report card.
you know a hundred good reasons for being late.
you don't want children of your own because there isn't a name you can hear that wouldn't elevate your blood pressure.

Questions you Hope your Pupils won't Ask you

Why doesn't glue stick to the inside of its bottle?
Why are there flotation devices under plane seats instead of parachutes?
Why are cigarettes sold in gas stations when smoking is prohibited there?
Why do you need a driver's license to buy liquor when you can't drink and drive?
Why is lemon juice mostly artificial ingredients but dishwashing liquid contains real lemons?
If 7-11 is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, why are there locks on the doors?
If a cow laughed, would milk come out her nose?
If nothing ever sticks to TEFLON, how do they make TEFLON stick to the pan?
If you tied buttered toast to the back of a cat and dropped it from a height, what would happen?
If you're in a vehicle going the speed of light, what happens when you turn on the headlights?
If it's zero degrees outside today and it's supposed to be twice as cold tomorrow, how cold is it going to be?
Have you ever imagined a world with no hypothetical situations?
How does the guy who drives the snowplow get to work in the mornings?
You know how most packages say "Open here"? What is the protocol if the package says, "Open somewhere else"?
You know that little indestructible black box that is used on planes? Why can't they make the whole plane out of the same substance?
What do you plant to grow a seedless watermelon?
When sign makers go on strike, is anything written on their signs?

When you walk into the classroom and say good morning... If they say good morning back, it's Freshmen. If they put their newspapers down and open their books, it's Sophomores. If they look up so they can see the instructor over the tops of the newspapers, it's juniors. If they put their feet up on the desks and keep reading, it's seniors. If they write it down, it's graduate students.

The ways to grade the final exams

Dept of Statistics:
All grades are plotted along the normal bell curve.
Dept of Psychology:
Students are asked to blot ink in their exam books, close them and turn them in. The professor opens the books and assigns the first grade that comes to mind.
Dept of History:
All students get the same grade they got last year.
Dept of Religion:
Grade is determined by God.
Dept of Philosophy:
What is a grade?
Law School:
Students are asked to defend their position of why they should receive an A.
Dept of Logic:
If and only if the student is present for the final and the student has accumulated a passing grade then the student will receive an A else the student will not receive an A.
Dept of Computer Science:
Random number generator determines grade.
Music Department:
Each student must figure out his grade by listening to the instructor play the corresponding note (+ and - would be sharp and flat respectively).
Dept of Physical Education:
Everybody gets an A.

The Evolution of a Math Problem

1950:
A lumberjack sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of this price. What is his profit?

1960 (traditional math):
A lumberjack sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of this price, or in other words $80. What is his profit?

1970 (new math):
A lumberjack exchanges a set L of lumber for a set M of money. The cardinality of set M is 100, and each element is worth $1. Make 100 dots representing the elements of set M. The set C is a subset of set M, of cardinality 80. What is the cardinality of the set P of profits, if P is the difference set M\C?

1980 (equal opportunity math):
A lumberjack sells a truckload of wood for $100. His or her cost of production is $80, and his or her profit is $20. Your assignment: Underline the number 20.

1990 (outcome based education):
By cutting down beautiful forest trees, a lumberperson makes $20. What do you think of his way of making a living? In your group, discuss how the forest birds and squirrels feel, and write an essay about it.

1995 (entrepreneurial math):
By laying off 402 of its lumberjacks, a company improves its stock price from $80 to $100. How much capital gain per share does the CEO make by exercising his stock options at $80? Assume capital gains are no longer taxed, because this encourages investment.

1998 (motivational math):
A logging company exports its wood-finishing jobs to its Indonesian subsidiary and lays off the corresponding half of its US workers (the higher-paid half). It clear-cuts 95% of the forest, leaving the rest for the spotted owl, and lays off all its remaining workers. It tells the workers that the spotted owl is responsible for the absence of fellable trees and lobbies Congress for exemption from the Endangered Species Act. Congress instead exempts the company from all federal regulation. What is the return on investment of the lobbying?

Q. What do you get when you add 2 apples to 3 apples?
A. A senior high school math problem.

"I've just had the most awful time," said a boy to his friends. "First I got angina pectoris, then arteriosclerosis. Just as I was recovering, I got psoriasis. They gave me hypodermics, and to top it all, tonsillitis was followed by appendectomy."

"Wow! How did you pull through?" sympathized his friends.

"I don't know," the boy replied. "Toughest spelling test I ever had."

Teacher: Why are you late, Joseph?
Joseph: Because of a sign down the road.
Teacher: What does a sign have to do with your being late?
Joseph: The sign said, "School Ahead, Go Slow!"

"Haven't I seen your face before?" a judge demanded, looking down at the defendant.

"You have, Your Honor," the man answered hopefully. "I gave your son violin lessons last winter."

"Ah, yes," recalled the judge. "Twenty years!"

Teacher: If I had seven oranges in one hand and eight oranges in the other, what would I have?
Class Clown: Big hands!

Teacher: How can you prevent diseases caused by biting insects?
Boy: Don't bite any.

While taking a routine vandalism report at an elementary school, a police officer was interrupted by a little girl about six years old. Looking up and down at his uniform, she asked, "Are you a cop?"

"Yes," he answered and continued writing the report.

"My mother said if I ever needed help I should ask the police. Is that right?"

"Yes, that's right," he told her.

"Well, then," she said as she extended her foot toward him, "would you please tie my shoe?"

A little girl had just finished her first week of school. "I'm just wasting my time," she said to her mother. "I can't read, I can't write - and they won't let me talk!"

It was the first day of basketball practice and the high school coach handed a ball to each player. "Fellas," he said, "I want you to practice shooting from the spots you might expect to be in during the game."

The No. 12 sub immediately sat down on the bench and began arcing the ball toward the basket.

A little boy got lost at the YWCA and found himself in the women's locker room. When he was spotted, the room burst into shrieks, with ladies grabbing towels and running for cover.

The little boy watched in amazement and then asked, "What's the matter -- haven't you ever seen a little boy before?"

Little Johnny was reading from a Hans Christian Anderson book.

"Miss Howell?" Little Johnny asked his first grade teacher, "Does m-i-r-a-g-e spell marriage?"

"No Johnny," sighed the teacher. "But it should."

A first-grade teacher was helping her students as they experimented with their desk computers. One boy sat staring at the screen, unsure how to get the computer going.

The teacher walked over and read what was on his screen. Then, in her most reassuring voice, she said, "The computer wants to know what your name is." Then she walked over to the next child.

The boy leaned toward the screen and whispered, "My name is David."

The professor, admonishing his class for generally low test results, said, "A fool can ask more questions than a wise man can answer." A student countered, "No wonder so many of us flunked!"

The rules at a particular university were such that if the professor was not present in the classroom by 15 minutes past the hour, the class was considered a "walk" and the students were free to leave -- with no penalties for missing a class.

The rooms were equipped with the type of wall clocks which "jumped" ahead each minute, in a very noticeable fashion. As it were, these clocks were not of the most sophisticated construction. Some enterprising student discovered that if one were to hit the clock with chalkboard erasers, it would cause the clock to "jump" ahead 1 minute.

So, it became almost daily practice for these students to take target practice at the clock (this particular professor was not the most punctual, and the students considered him severely "absent-minded"). A few well-aimed erasers, and lo, 15 minutes were passed, and class dismissed itself.

When the day for the next exam rolled around, the professor strolled into the room, passed out the exams, and told the class, "You have one hour to complete the examination".

The professor then proceeded to collect the erasers from around the room, and took aim at the clock. When he had successfully "jumped" the clock forward one hour, he closed the class and collected the exam papers.

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