Don't Forget to Smile!

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As an academic-driven organization, we can at times get caught up in the more technical side of language. But it's important to remember that for a lot of the people we serve—namely, children—language, books, and story are all about fun, play, and curiosity. And that's not something that has to go away when we get older!

Who can forget the immortal words of that otherwise-stodgy chap Lewis Carroll, who wrote,

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

 

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

 The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

 The frumious Bandersnatch!” 

And so on!

Carroll understood that there was no logical disjunction between his rigorous academic work (he was a cutting-edge mathematician and a reportedly often boring orator and lecturer) and a spirit of light-hearted play.

So perhaps it was in the spirit of Carroll that back on our first project in Uganda when we were first using Bloom, we did something a little silly with the student book templates. When our Executive Director Paul Frank had occasion to open the HTML files using a text editor, he discovered that somewhere along the line someone had placed dummy text for the second language--a fun variation on the usual lorem ipsum garbled Latin that you’ll often see as placeholder text. About half of it was simulated pirate talk:

  • The skiff marks with halitosis, love the cook islands until it dies.

  • Aye, heavy-hearted lagoon. you won't desire the bikini atoll.   

pirate.jpg

The other half was food oriented:

  • Varnish the melon with bloody curry, jasmine, basil, and baking powder making sure to cover all of it.

  • Turkey can be garnished with fresh mackerel.   

There was quite a lot of this nonsense in there!

And even though it wasn’t ever visible to the Ugandan students—who therefore never had occasion to try heating pie enameled with triple sec, varnished with butter­—it was a fun little discovery for Paul.

Covid has tended to make education a Very Serious Proposition, or at least to face educators the world over with some very serious concerns. But while those concerns are real, it’s important to remember that a lot of what we love about education is that it’s fun! We’ll get through this, and once again children will be free to gather to play and enjoy learning, without encumbrances. Children are resilient, and we’re confident that silliness and fun will once again resound in classrooms around the world.

For now, though, we hope this anecdotal evidence of our own silliness will put a smile on your face, and remind you that growing up doesn’t have to mean you can’t have fun!