Humor from the Classroom: And Other Places I’Ve Hung out over the Years

By Arlo T. Janssen

The book is not a joke book. It is, rather a compilation of humorous thoughts, episodes, and occurrences from the life of the author and his experiences with others. His long life as a teacher, pastor, and public speaker was always sprinkled with bits of humor in various ways.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jun 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9781512742138

Arlo T. Janssen

The author, Arlo Janssen, has been interested in humor virtually all his life. Born into a large rural pastor’s family, he started to make notes on what seemed humorous to him at home and in elementary school. That interest continued through prep school, college, seminary, and graduate study. Janssen’s interest in humor continued especially in his teaching years. He taught two years in a rural one-room school in Wisconsin and thirty three years at a community college in Arizona. Arlo Janssen was a serious student, teacher and college professor. However, in every aspect of life, he found also a ‘time to laugh.’ You, too, will find a ‘time to laugh’ in reading what he has written about his life.

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Copyright © 2016 Arlo T. Janssen.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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ISBN: 978-1-5127-4212-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-4213-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016907754

WestBow Press rev. date: 05/17/2016

Contents

What this Book is About

Chapter 1 Humor in the one-room school

Chapter 2 My community college experience

Chapter 3 The Janssen Family

Chapter 4 My Prep School Experience

Chapter 5 Cochise College Students

Chapter 6 Faculty at Cochise College

Chapter 7 Working in the State Prison

Chapter 8 Teaching Remedial English

Chapter 9 Dumb Things I Say

Chapter 10 My Seminary Years

Chapter 11 About Learning Spanish

Chapter 12 ESL Stories

Chapter 13 My bilingual experience, especially in the copper mine state of Arizona

Chapter 14 Tall Stories

Chapter 15 Relatively Speaking

Chapter 16 More About the Prison

Chapter 17 More re the one-room school

Chapter 18 More about the College

Chapter 19 More about C.C. Students

Chapter 20 A Boy Named Ted

Chapter 21 Justice, of a Poetic Kind

Chapter 22 Ministerial Humor

Chapter 23 Preacher Quips

Chapter 24 Some of Dad’s Humor

Chapter 25 Small Town Arizona

Chapter 26 Family/Manny & Danny

Chapter 27 Camping Fun

Chapter 28 More Remedial English

Chapter 29 More Ministerial Chuckles

Chapter 30 Comic Tragedy or Tragic Comedy?

Chapter 31 More About C.C

Chapter 32 U of A Graduate Study

Chapter 33 The End - last, but not least

Epilogue

DEDICATION:

To My Wife, OFELIA TREVINO JANSSEN,

The Joy of My Life

APPRECIATION:

to JERRY WHITE, my very special

Computer Mentor,

The Best in the West, and his

able assistants, Sandy White

and Karla Mullen Jacks

My appreciation also to skillful proofreader,

Corrine Valnes

What this Book is About

There is… a time to laugh. Ecc. 3:4

The Readers’ Digest has said for years, Laughter is the best medicine. If laughter is not the best, it is certainly very good medicine. Of course it’s most beneficial to laugh with others, not at them; and it is very beneficial to laugh at ourselves at times.

I heard an old ‘man of the soil’ in Arizona say that, being able to laugh is like having springs on a lumber wagon; it helps to absorb the bumps.

The English intellectual, C.S. Lewis, who went in his life from being an atheist (in his college years) to being a committed Christian and defender of the faith later, saw humor in many areas of life. He also shared his views with the world in his writings and speeches.

This book on humor is not a joke book; it is, rather, a collection of thoughts from my perennially humor-laden mind. Also included are occurrences from my life and from the lives of people I know and/or appreciate.

Not everything that I have written will cause you to slap your knee, but I do hope that much of what I have written will give you some enjoyment and bring about some laughter, or at least some smiles or chuckles.

Most people love to laugh. Observe folks, especially in a group, having a meal together in a restaurant, and you will see how they love to laugh. Also, in meetings, speakers often use humor to get and hold listeners’ attention.

One of my favorite examples of this is Dr. Paul Maier, a well known lecturer on Biblical archaeology. His lectures are of a very serious nature, yet Dr. Maier uses bits of humor in a masterful way, in my opinion. His hearers know that and appreciate it.

Today there are also clergymen who use humor in their preaching. I admit to being ‘guilty’ of that. From the response, I know that people in the pews have not been offended. In fact, I don’t think there are many people who still regard it a sin to laugh in the House of God.

My pastor-father had one rule, though, that I still think is good: Don’t joke about God’s Word, the Bible, or sacred hymns.

A lady in Pennsylvania, nearly ninety years old, commended me for occasionally making people laugh in the sanctity of the Christian ministry. One time she said to me at her home, "a good laugh, like a good bowel movement, just makes a person feel good." That’s an interesting analogy, especially from an elderly person – a very proper woman, no less.

In elementary school, I made notes on things that seemed humorous to me. My note-taking on humor continued through my growing-up years in a large family in a small-town Lutheran parsonage.

Also, I kept notes on humor in my years in high school, prep school, college and seminary, as well as in my years of university graduate study. It continued also through my nearly six decades of teaching and serving in several Christian parishes, in a state prison, and in my ministry on the campus of a state university.

In all phases of my over four-score and seven years of life I have come to understand well what President Lincoln meant when he said that, at times, if he had not been able to laugh, his heart would have broken.

I hope you will enjoy reading about humor in my life, and, as you read, I pray that you will be reminded of experiences also in your own life where there was and is ‘a time to laugh.’

Arlo T. Janssen [e-mail]

Chapter One

Humor in the one-room school

On my first day of teaching in a rural one-room school, one of the first grade boys pushed a little girl, as she was getting a drink of water.

Because it was quite obvious that he deliberately pushed her, I told him to go to the end of the line.

In a moment he came back, whimpering, There’s already somebody there. Mystified, I said, Where?’ At the end of the line," he responded, crying aloud.

I could have laughed aloud at what he said, but I held back the laugh, because he was so serious. Instead of laughing, I made a note soon afterward, to remind myself later of what he said.

Art Linkletter said years ago, that kids say the most interesting things. I know, from my experience in teaching children, that they also often do some interesting things. What adds to the humor is that the children usually do not realize that what they say and do is regarded by many adults as humorous. In fact, some of the things that are humorous to us adults, are done very seriously by children.

A part of the humor from the classroom in this book is from my experience as a teacher in a one-room, rural school in Wisconsin from 1948 to 1950. I was not quite twenty years old, when I began to teach, and I was not very well prepared to instruct children. Consequently, teaching was not easy, especially at first.

I made it, though, and I must say that I learned perhaps more than the children did in those two years.

Later in life, I heard this about teachers: Students don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.

I quoted the above saying at a dinner of a group of those that I taught in that one room school, in 2015, sixty five years after I taught them. Several of them said to me that day, that my caring about them was the strength of my teaching them when they were young children.

They said that it was obvious to them that I cared. It pleased me very much to hear them say that. After all, I was not that well prepared to be their teacher. If I cared, I’m sure that helped to make up for my not possessing excellent teaching skills.

Also, I know that having a sense of humor helped to lighten the load for me. Later in this first chapter, I will explain how I happened to be teaching when I was so young and so relatively unprepared.

When I was in elementary school myself, I made notes on occurrences that to me were humorous. Why I did that, I do not know, except, I suppose, that I wanted to be able to relate those humorous occurrences later to others.

My making notes on humorous occurrences, continued in every phase of my life. It became the most intense when I started to teach in 1948. Each day, in that school, I experienced and saw things that I wanted to remember, so I made notes.

Many of the happenings, when I was teaching, were regarded as humorous only by me. The children either were not aware of what was occurring, or did not see it as humorous.

* * * * * *

The one-room schoolhouse was typical of the little country schools, that ‘dotted the countryside’ until the end of the first half of the 20th century in the United States. In this one-room Christian Day School, I had nineteen children the first year, in six grades. The children ranged in age from six to twelve.

Speaking of the school building itself, reminds me of what a University of Minnesota professor mentioned, in an education class I took the previous year. He said that there was something called ‘cross lighting,’ that was supposed to be an improvement in school rooms (in 1948).

I wrote to that university instructor, after I began teaching in this one-room school, and told him that in my school I had the ‘perfect example’ of ‘cross lighting’ – windows on both sides of the school room. He wrote back and told me that he appreciated my humor enough to incorporate that part of my letter in one of his university lectures.

* * * * * * *

On the very first day in that little school, I started a notebook which I called CS, for ‘Classroom Smiles.’ Before Christmas, I had made so many notes that I had to start another notebook. I’ll share many of those smiles with you in this chapter, but I’m sure there will be more about those two years of my life, later in this book.

In this book, occurrences with the children will be recreated, from my notes, to the best of my ability; only the names will be changed, ‘to protect the innocent,’ as they often say on TV crime programs.

* * * * * *

One winter day, a first-grade boy tried hard to put his overshoes on by himself. When I saw that he had mixed up the two shoes, I said to him, You’re putting your overshoes on the wrong feet.

He looked up at me quizzically, whimpering a little, and said, But I don’t got no other feet. Again, the boy was serious; he was not trying to be funny.

* * * * * * *

One day a girl in the third grade misspelled two words in a spelling test. Eighteen of twenty was 90%, but to this ‘young perfectionist,’ getting two words wrong spelled failure.

I tried to console her, but it did little good. She wept so bitterly, with her head down on her folded arms, that soon ‘a puddle’ formed under her desk.

An older girl quickly took her out of the room to help her, and two older boys got a mop and a bucket and started to clean up. While mopping up ‘the puddle’, one of those boys mumbled to the other, "I wonder what Matti would do, if she’d get a score like I got last week in spelling."

Both of the boys squelched a chuckle about that one. Overhearing them, I held back a laugh, too as I made another note in my C.S. notebook.

* * * * * *

One day the older children had a lesson on ‘may’ and ‘can’ in their language arts class. I began by asking, Do you remember the difference between ‘may’ and ‘can’ in asking a question?

One of the boys said, I remember that the teacher last year tried to get a first-grade boy to ask, the right way, to go to the outhouse. She didn’t want to let him go till he asked with proper English. Then, he chuckled, as he added, By the time he got it right, it was too late for him to make it to the outhouse, if you know what I mean.

While the class was laughing about that, one of the girls said, But, Mr. Teacher, if there’s any place you shouldn’t have to learn English grammar on the way to, it’s the outhouse; ain’t so?

Then a boy added, I guess you know by now, Mr. Janssen, that in this here place in Wisconsin, English is not the best thing we are good at, or the fondest thing we are of.

Moments later, as we were going through the workbook exercises on ‘may’ and ‘can,’ a boy in the second grade, who was behind where I was standing, blurted out, "Can I go to the outhouse?"

Thinking that he had been listening to the older students discussing the use of ‘may’ and ‘can’ and was ‘putting me on,’ I asked the boy, "Did you say ‘can?’"

No, he said with a quizzical look, "I said ‘outhouse;’ honest, I did."

* * * * * *

In the late forties, in the part of Wisconsin where this school was located, there was an influence of the German language that seemed humorous to me. In many German communities in the United States, much of the use of the German language faded out during World War II. For some reason, however,that was not true in this part of Wisconsin.

All of the children in this one-room school were exposed daily to a Low-German dialect spoken by their parents. In fact, many of the children spoke it at home themselves. Consequently, much of the way all of them spoke English was influenced by that dialect of German. That was most noticeable in word order in sentences.

For example, a girl came to school one morning and said something like this: "School will have to wait for my brother this morning; he has to kill our mother some chickens so she can bake our Pa one of them for his out in the field lunch."

Another time a little girl said, to explain why her brother had a knob on his head, I threw my brother over the pump house a baseball, and right on the noggin he got conked, cuz the ball didn’t see him comin’.

One of the most common ‘translations,’ from the German, was ‘ain’t so,’ (‘nicht wahr’ in German, meaning not true?). It was used quite commonly by many people in that area, even by some folks who did not speak German.

One day when I talked about this with the children in the upper grades, one of the girls summed it up by saying, "Then, ‘nicht wahr’ is ‘ain’t so’ in English; ain’t so?" The other children did not ‘bat an eye’ at hearing her say it that way; it was ‘matter of fact’ to them.

Apparently, I was the only person who thought that the way she expressed herself was humorous. Of course, I didn’t say anything to the children about it. I just made another note in my notebook, when I had a chance.

* * * *

In this Christian Day School, one day two first-grade boys heard the third-grade girls work at memorizing the 23rd Psalm. "We wanna learn ‘He leadeth me’ and ‘He maketh me lie down,’ too," one of the little boys said.

I can help you with that, I answered him; do you want to learn that, too, Joey? I asked another little boy. Yeth I wanna learn leadeth and maketh, he answered, "But firtht I gotta go, real bad to the outhouth."

As you might know, the King James Version of the Bible, with its quaint 17th century English, was the only version of the Bible we used at that time.

* * * *

Those same first-grade boys were practicing writing their names one day. They at first traced, their names over and over, as I had printed them for them. Then I said to them, Now see if you can print your name without looking. I meant, of course, for them to print their names without looking at what I had written for them to trace.

While I was helping someone in another grade, however, I looked back and found that both of those boys were trying to write their names with their eyes closed. Well, that was ‘without looking.’

* * * * *

Since I had studied public speaking in college and was on the debate squad, I taught the older children how to use proper parliamentary procedure. We even had ‘mock meetings’ on a Friday afternoon each month. In these meetings, they elected ‘officers’ for school duties.

It was interesting how they had learned to ‘railroad’ someone into a duty he or she didn’t like, by following proper procedure. For example, one day, in a meeting, when nominations were opened for ‘outhouse duty,’ the conversation went something like this:

Nominations are open for outhouse sweeper for the next two weeks, the freckle-faced fifth-grade chairman began.

I nominate Elmer, one of the girls said, when she was recognized by the chairman.

I make a motion that nominations cease, said another.

I second the motion, injected yet another of the children.

All in favor say ‘aye,’ said the chairman.

The vote was unanimous, except that Elmer, who wasn’t paying attention, didn’t vote.

Elmer will be the outhouse sweeper for the next two weeks, announced the chairman.

When Elmer, a bit of a bully at times, realized what had happened, he blurted out, I won’t do it! I done it for a whole month! I ain’t gonna clean them stupid outhouses no more!

Point of order, Mr. chairman, said Elmer’s sister, Elsie.

And what is your point of order, Miss Schuelke? asked the chairman.

Elmer shoulda spoke up right away, when he got nominated, an’ he sure shouldn’ta blurted out like that; ain’t so? So, he was sure-‘nuff outta order.

Elmer stood up and shouted at his sister, I nominate you for gettin’ into trouble with me when we get home, Elsie!

Yer outta order again, Elmer, she said calmly to her brother, an’ you better watch it, or you know what you’ll get from Pa, if he hears ‘bout how you was outta big order here in the schoolhouse. I think you’d rather clean them ‘dumb outhouses’ again, than get put in order with Pa’s belt!

Although I rather enjoyed listening to this exchange, I finally had to restore order. As a result of things like this, the bylaws were amended so that no one could serve more than two terms in in a row in the same ‘office.’

The children were learning about parliamentary procedure, though. Unfortunately, however, it was at Elmer’s expense that day.

* * * * *

Another time that I held back a laugh was when the first-graders had an assignment on items in a house. In their workbook, they were asked to color household items found in a bedroom. One boy colored a kitchen kettle.

The boy complained, when I marked that wrong. I said to him, You wouldn’t find a kettle or a pot like this in a bedroom; would you?

When I said ‘pot’ I realized what he was thinking. Before I could say anything, however, he said, We have a pot like that under the bed all the time in the winter.

I wanted to laugh, but I just smiled and marked it right in his workbook.

Then the boy added, Pa calls them pots ‘thunder mugs;’ do you wanna know why? By this time, some of the older children were laughing aloud, and I almost couldn’t keep from laughing myself.

No; that’s okay, I said, I think we know.

There were many other humorous occurrences in those two years in the one-room school. More will appear in another chapter.

* * * * *

So, how did I get into teaching, while I was so young and not very well prepared? In the fall of 1947, my second year of college, a plea was made to members of my class at Concordia College in St. Paul, Minnesota to consider teaching for a year, after graduating in 1948. The intention was to help alleviate the shortage of teachers in the rural Lutheran Day Schools in some Midwestern states.

Special courses, taught by University of Minnesota professors, and a summer program were a part of the offer. Also, for those who were in the pre-ministerial program at Concordia, the year of teaching would count for the required year of vicarage (internship) at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, if that was where they would enroll later.

I volunteered, primarily because I thought I might want to be a teacher rather than a pastor. I was sure that teaching for a year,would help me decide. I’m glad that I did teach; it opened up some interesting things for me. Also, it taught me many things about teaching, about children, and about myself.

And, so it goes.

Chapter Two

My community college experience

Another source of classroom humor for this book is my experience at a community college in Arizona. I taught English and Speech courses at Cochise College from 1966 to 1999. For a number of years, I also coached the intercollegiate debate teams for the college,

Here, too, the teaching was not easy, especially at first. Finding things to smile about lightened the burden for me.

The most difficult, of the courses I taught, was Remedial English. It was