…Faculty, Staff, and Students Smiling!

One of the most successful programs I have ever done was, um, accidental.

With the pressure at work in the school building, my aide read a joke she saw online. It was a corny, groan-worthy Dad-joke and it startled a laugh out of me. With Halloween coming in another 10 days, we decided to create a mini-display for Halloween. Maybe grab some “scary” books and have a bowl full of jokes people could grab and take.

I went looking for a clear jar to put the jokes in but I could only find a huge punch bowl. We decided to create a document and make the font really, really big so that only 2 or 3 jokes fit on a page. We printed on colored paper, cut them into large strips, and folded them once. I thought I would have to talk students and teachers into even taking one out of the bowl. And, I did ask some to try it out before we put it on the table. But in general, students were curious and picked one up to see what it was.

Talk about stress relief! The students and staff took jokes with them and the number in the bowl dropped, as we hoped. I took 15 min. away from my current tasks to look up some jokes and print them myself. It was fun! Did it matter if I had the same ones my aide found? Nope. People liked to mix up the bowl and choose one. Sometimes, they dropped it back in. Most of the time, they took it with them. I heard students telling other students the jokes. I had teachers come by to grab one and use it in their classes all day.

At the request of many, we are keeping it going for another week past Halloween. It’s okay, we’re updating the jokes to November. We still haven’t put any books on the table, but that too is in the works. Welcome to the School Library where we support every student, faculty, and staff in the building in expected and unexpected ways!