Classroom Management: Humor in the Classroom

The magic of humor in the classroom is that it bridges surprise with safety. You see, classrooms--with their norms, rules and schedules--bring predictability. However, attending the same class at the same time on the same day gets dull. A teacher who interrupts this routine with a quirky idea--a silly solution, and dares to see--in the words of Mark Twain-- “the good-natured side of truth”-- is a teacher who can “break the monotony of scripted activities”(Pomerantz & Bell, 2011, p. 158). Study after study says the same thing: humor breaks routine.(Friedman & Kuipers, 2013; Garner, 2006) Humor also builds trust by “creating group cohesion and leveraging power distances.” (Tarvin, David-- If you have difficulty managing a classroom, get a sense of humor. In teacher evaluations by undergraduate students, it is the teachers who inject humor into their teaching that get the highest evaluations. Nothing has changed my teaching and ability to bond with students more than developing a steady and deliberate sense of humor. The secret to humor in the high school classroom, however, is not the teacher’s ability to be funny (though helpful), but the teacher learning to see the funny in her students. Classrooms are “rife with potentially face threatening situations,” (Petraki, Nguyen, 2016) or--full of embarrassing situations that could disturb a teen’s most cherished asset--her social standing with peers. Humor--on the other hand-- has all the “characteristics of a safe-house because it allows students to create and negotiate diverse identities” (Bell and Pomerantz, 2011)--or in normal talk--it allows students to be themselves. When you, the teacher, see the funny side of your students--and point it out to them--you are recognizing individual traits they possess, thus confirming their uniqueness. What I learned is you can take the things that bother you--the random noises students make, the annoyances they purposely do--and flip the situation into something funny. I had a student who--several times a class--would interrupt me by saying the word “bet.” Initially I would stop the class, stare at the student, and move on. His interruptions continued for weeks. Finally, after explaining instructions one day I loudly said--before he could--”bet.” The class erupted. The student laughed. Ok, Mr--he said--I see you. I turned his misbehavior into a joke and it brought levity to the class. I asked the class how to teach me how to use “bet” like they do. The amazing thing about being a teacher and over 30, is the fact that once you start saying a word--by default of being old--you make the term uncool. Now I am the only one who uses the word “bet” in the classroom. , S., & Kuipers, G. (2013). The divisive power of humor: Comedy, taste and symbolic boundaries. Cultural Sociology, 7(2), 179e195. Garner, R. L. (2006). Humor in pedagogy: How ha-ha can lead to aha! College Teaching, 54, 177e180. Pomerantz, A., & Bell, N. D. (2011). Humor as safe house in the foreign language classroom. The Modern Language Journal, 95, 148e161. 1111/. 👉Blog and Website: 👉Tolentino Teaching Merch: 🔔 SUBSCRIBE for more for online teaching resources: 🎥 WANT TO CREATE VIDEOS LIKE THESE? This is the software I use: 👨‍💻 LET’S CONNECT Instagram: Twitter: Facebook ELA Group: 👉My FAVORITE books on writing: The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century by Steven Pinker: How to Argue with a Cat by Jay Hendrichs: The Elements of Style Fourth Edition: On Writing Well by William Zinsser: **Disclaimer: Tolentino Teaching is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program and AWIN, affiliate advertising programs designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to and