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Barbara Stikker's avatar

I love JoJofromJerz! She has a persuasive view of events!

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KATHERINE H. TERHUNE's avatar

JoJo from Jerz is phenomenal with her turn of every phrase… How she comes up with it all boggles my mind.

I think of creative writing grades 2 and 3 - my context with frequency - and figure if she showed that spunk as a kid, she might’ve had some quiet consultations with her teachers about her creative writing pieces.

I remember a kid, name and all, but to protect his privacy I won’t say… In 2nd grade, he wrote an essay about a James Bond movie, and his teacher was very, very very upset, told his dad he was being exposed to things he should not see. I had his brother in my 3rd grade class and the 2nd grade brother came to me the next year for 3rd. Brilliant kids.

The parents had divorced dramatically. I was friends with each, but always very separately. The mom referred to the divorce as a re-enactment of the movie “War of the Roses,” an outrageous and bitter divorce battle, to quote Wikipedia.

Even yesterday at the surgicenter, I found myself pondering the various people around me as 3rd graders… Every person is so individual! I love it!

And age 8 is fairly pivotal… generally speaking, the brain makes a shift, a leap of development in many forms.

I always love referring to Bloom’s Taxonomy because the stages of development are so reliably accurate so much of the time. Everything from exposure to an idea to then rote repetition with then gradual understanding, etc. There’s a threshold midway, like an equator, when understanding goes into territory of analysis, synthesis, and more… Critical thinking tops the list, but humor is even beyond that. Linguistically… If you understand humor in another language, you’ve reached the peak.

In class, I had a small wooden step ladder labeled with sharpies step-by-step so even the kids were exposed to considering this hierarchy.

Case in point:

Plain as day, our grandkids understood jokes with hilarity when in grade 3, while a year earlier they did not yet get the humor.

A stark example was a talent show held in class one day. I sat, back to the windows along the street and, a rarity for me, the 2nd and 3rd graders were segregated to the left and right. (Generally, I did not segregate them.) So one tall girl, again whose name I remember, but decline to say…was telling jokes. The 3rd graders would laugh while the 2nds looked blank. Put the show on pause : 3rds graders explain the joke to the 2nds; then the performer on stage tells the joke again and we all laugh together!

It could not have been more stark! She was a Jehovah’s Witness and I remember my surprise when she ventured into several jokes that were off color and I had to quietly redirect her. I think she got it, but was just giving it a try. Funny moment.

I’m so glad I did not pursue a career as accountant or secretary because I’m sure I had a whole lot more fun as an educator!

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