by John McCall


 


Ben Franklin,
Gimme a Break

Puzzles based on Ben and Verse

For Teachers

Please consider using these educational puzzles, which teachers have helped mold.

In order to fit in with growing demands of formal schedules, I suggest a sparing use of the puzzles, perhaps following classroom breaks – hence the title.

The puzzles and their website have several aims, in a limited, lighthearted way:

1) To introduce Franklin’s witty wisdom, the website’s central purpose for a dozen years.

2) To discover talent in an informal context among the shy, the discouraged, and the educationally disadvantaged -- with puzzles designed to measure understanding and downplay previous academic success.

3) To promote creativity, perhaps especially, if students (time permitting) are invited to offer their own sayings, a suggestion made by the website Read-Write-Think.

4) To encourage thinking by analogy -- which may possibly, if modestly, enhance the general acuity of a classroom, as it might with a geometry class, which links with the website. All schools and classrooms are invited to do the same.

Educational or not, Ben’s wit should often make puzzles fun.
In addition to puzzles, please consider other teaching aids described under Overview.

Caution: The relationship between the website and Michael Hart's Gutenberg Project is more complex than some statements on the internet indicate. more



Some Rights Reserved

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.
(In other words, please feel free to quote any part of this website at any length,
attributing the quote to John D. McCall, preferably with a reference to the website)
Rev 2010-1.