Writing :: Humor/Entertainment

Introduction

In teaching mathematical subjects, finding humor would seem at first glance to be challenging. A lame example occurs to me from my college days: the professor remarked that an ellipse is a circle that’s made a false landing. We weren’t exactly rolling on the floor for that one.

During my career, luckily, I was able to use humor in a different way in the classroom – without focusing explicitly or solely on content. An article in the list of publications explains "process humor," a way of capitalizing on the relationships between instructor and students; this worked for me many times when I started to notice eyes glazing over from too many equations.

For another example of humor/entertainment, I have included an unpublished transcript of the highlights of several visits I made to radio station WRKO in Boston in the early to mid 80s, playing a character called Dr. Jeffrey Gladstone, a native of the Ukraine and a general all-around seer. Finally, there is a link to a children’s CD, Swedith in Tina, which I wrote, and is performed by the creator of this Web site, Marcia Hutchinson. These stories were originally released by Riverboat Records in 1970.