Use of Comedy Version 2.0 - Mastering Teacher Comedy

Using comedy as a teacher is less difficult than harnessing student comedy. Accepting and allowing student comedy to flourish requires more control of a classroom, and also more control of your own ego, which will often start screaming like a Geiger Counter in Chernobyl as soon as the attention is focused off of you, and onto someone else. It’s a little scary to let someone else, especially a student, be in control of the content of your classroom. 
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When utilizing teacher comedy, there is a simple code by which I live: Keep it simple, emphasize education, spread the love. Ironically, “love” in this case really demonstrates itself as hate, though I make a point to remain emotionally distant from my students to provide a higher quality of education that can be precisely consistent without the drudgery of feelings. Speaking of precision, I guess it makes sense to start at the beginning.
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A simple sign. A hilarious way to remind Toni, and everyone else in the room, that you remember what she did yesterday. All without a single screaming match or bruised ego. [The smiley face is necessary. It's the teacher version of 'lol'].

Keep it simple
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When using comedy, keep it simple. One year, a student started a blood feud with me because once, I tried to sit sideways in a desk and didn’t fit. She’s called me fat ever since. It’s funny because I don’t have any more of a weight problem than the average American and because it doesn’t affect the quality of her classwork, which has always been below average regardless of the relationship we’ve developed by building rapport through fat jokes. 

The only reason that rapport has been built is because early into our blood feud, we talked, and established a few simple rules: One joke every two days was allowable. No jokes could detract from other students’ education. We could not compare ourselves to any students who have legitimate problems with body weight, and all numbers we use to describe each others’ weight must be so high that no students’ weight was within a hundred pounds.  Because we both kept each other accountable to these rules, our blood feud provided comedy for 19 students in fourth period for an entire school year. It's a bit like team building, except the exercises weren't trust falls, they were "Mr. Karpie, Octavia ate an entire cup full of ranch dressing at lunch! You should roast her."

Perhaps an example will help to clarify how this blood feud has developed. One of my favorite strategies for harnessing students’ social energy is using structured weekend story time to develop storytelling skills and learn about my students.. 
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My weekend story began as follows:

“Last weekend, my wife, my father-in-law, and his friends went to a ropes course! It was awesome, but don’t get too excited Octavia, there’s a strict 350lb weight limit on all the challenges…” 

This story was the correct use of teacher humor for a few reasons. It was delivered on a Monday, and therefore, was by necessity two days from the previous jab (showing that I am as devoted to following classroom rules as I expect students to be) and also, it was quick and harmless. The heaviest student in the grade right now weighs in at a hair over 200 lbs. Choosing a weight limit almost 200% greater than the heaviest students’ weight allows everyone to have a good laugh, because no one is threatened by such a limit - even though the real weight limit was 250 lbs. And Octavia weighs in at about 74 lbs soaking wet. Hyperbole is your friend when using classroom humor. Actually, don’t just hyperbolize, hyperbolize2  just in case. If someone might be offended by the choice of “bloated fish corpse purple” as an ugly color for lipstick on a first date, go with “bloated fish corpse blurplebutt” as a color just to make sure there’s no chance your humor will offend the girl who happened to wear purple lipstick to the Friday Middle School Movie Night. 
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It's always hard to evaluate student work. You need to be clear without being offensive. Tell a student their work is Sh$#, and that they're an idiot, and humor dies in your classroom. I have found a gentle, happy medium in the land of "Bunz." Poop emoji are also a godsend to teachers.

Also, weekend story time is decidedly NOT academic. It didn’t ruin class for anyone to fit a quick jab in to keep the feud alive. I’d never work an insult or comedy into something important like directions or feedback. Comedy is a tool of classroom management, but I’ve found it’s best to leave it out of the proper, educational part of lessons. By doing so, it’s easy to channel student comedy into “that’s really funny, but now it’s time to learn” channels that can be revisited on that awkward Tuesday when the internet crashes and it’s the one day you planned to stream an interview through TED.com. 

​In terms of simplicity, I tend to follow a one-sentence rule. Jokes need to last one sentence or under. Any longer than one sentence and there’s the risk of actual embarrassment. When using simple teacher humor, get in and out and continue class before anyone knows what’s happening. Another favorite “keep it simple” trick of mine is to insert sentences when reading aloud. People have a chance to smile, but the activity is so structured that virtually no real academic time is lost. “...and Atticus, who always upheld the letter and the spirit of the law, unlike Anthony who is texting under his desk, proceeded to question…” Eight words. Comedy achieved. That’s impressive.
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One of my top students, thrilled at a poop emoji post-it note reading "Your reading level is >11th grade. You're smarter than the software can measure." We sent this image to her mom.

I also love post-it notes for simple comedy. They allow you to be funny without disturbing work time. After a particularly terrible student wrote a particularly beautiful essay on the state test, I wrote her a post-it note that read “what kind of stupid, girly coffee drink do you always show up with in the morning?” We had a long-standing joke because I drink my coffee cheap and black (like my soul) and she liked her coffee-flavored beverages to be very sugary and carmel-y. The note was funny to her, distracted no one else, and showed her that I noticed something that she obviously considers important. (Yes, researchers, teens sometimes consider their beverages to be a major part of their identity.) (No, researchers, or lawmakers, they don’t always have a secret desire to be composers waiting to be unlocked like MTV and Hallmark movies would have you believe.)
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The simplicity of classroom comedy is only limited by your imagination. It should always show that you listen to your students, and it needs to come from a desire to connect with your students, or if you’re like me and you avoid feelings about your subordinates, and superiors, and peers, it at least needs to come from a desire to allow your students to bond with your teaching persona. Noticing, and offering a favorite cup of coffee in a funny way builds a bond through comedy. Making fun of a student who genuinely can’t sit still, or comparing a student harshly to their obviously superior older sister, destroys bonds through comedy. 

Simple humor is the best. It’s quick; students understand it. Using complex, sophisticated humor, even with advanced-level, 17 year old seniors, will not work as well as a nice, well-timed use of a student’s “secret” nickname from last weekend’s pool party. Complex humor says to students “let me prove to you how smart I am, hahaha, you don’t get it, let me explain the joke…” They’ll disengage from the humor, and your  classroom. Effectively employing humor at their level, that shows you understand and respect them as human people, will allow students to engage with you, but more importantly, with the content of your class. It took me seven months to effectively use the phrase “high-key extra” in a comically-correct context, but it was worth it. I learned so much about my students through the journey.
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