I teach in a prison.  Yesterday, a student came up to my desk and showed me the bar code on the back of his notebook.  “You know what this is?”

“Yeah,” I said.  “A UPC symbol.”

“It’s an Ethiopian family portrait.”

My student is a forty year old white guy.  I generally like him because he can’t remember $@# and he knows it; most of his jokes are about his own bad luck.   He considers himself born unlucky because he contracted hepatitis during his years of drug abuse.  When I heard his latest “joke,” however, I didn’t think it was funny.  I was a little stung, obviously, but mostly I had a selfish reaction: ”Who was discussing my business?  Where did this guy overhear something about me?  Why is he saying this to me?” (which is just  the effect of prison own soul–my own paranoia and institutionalization).  But then I decided there was no way he knew my wife and I are adopting from an orphanage in Addis Ababa. 

My next thought was, “You know, Mr. ____, there’s nothing funnier than a three hundred pound guy laughing about mass starvation.”

But I didn’t say anything.  I gave him a pained un-smile and nodded him back to his seat.  The world is full of stupid people and just because they’re stupid doesn’t mean they’re not trying to make you laugh and make the world a better place.  Maybe it was a “teaching moment” and I missed it, but, to be honest, with students like mine, there is a lot to teach and we have many moments.