St. Mary's faculty sees double.

The Throckmorton twins. Albert's older, by five minutes.

Did you ever wonder what teachers do during Inservice days, those lovely long weekend Fridays when students are out of school? It's pretty much what you might think: They have department meetings, plan projects together, catch up on the latest on everything from Google calendars to online testing, and wear jeans.

The faculty and staff had a treat, though, during Friday's kids-day-off. Creativity expert Robert Throckmorton (that's Robert, on the left ... or is it the right?) led two seminars about thinking creatively, or how to free yourself to take risks, think big, try a different point of view, have a dumb idea or just plain fail, all skills we know our girls will need to be successful in the 21st century. (Really ... for more on this kind of thinking, have a look at Carol Dweck's book "Mindset," which the faculty read together several years ago.) Robert works at Prophet, and does this kind of consulting with clients that include Cisco, Dell and American Airlines. Talk about non-traditional: Robert's title on his business card is Flying Buttress, which he explained to me was integral to holding a cathedral up, but also to opening up space to let light come through the stained glass windows. Clearly this wasn't going to be your everyday Inservice presentation.

We did a series of exercises, all designed to expand our thinking, show us a different point of view, and, well, be FUN. Learn to come up with all kinds of ideas, even risking the dopey ones, Robert said; behind Robert and Albert in the photo are lists we made with the clock running of all the ways airlines could improve service. My favorite was an exercise in perception, where we were shown a large black magic-markered circle on a piece of paper. "What is that?" Robert asked, without elaboration. The answers ranged from the obvious to the amazing -- "a window to a dark sky with stars" was the gist of one of them.

The fact from the day that has stuck with me over the weekend, though, was the one Robert quoted about a study that showed little kids laugh 113 times a day. Adults? Only 11. Thanks to Robert for making our quota of laughs on Friday a whole lot higher.