From the Archives as we enter a new academic year...
I wrote this Op-Ed in 2009 for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Education section (subscription required), which was reprinted in The Huffington Post. (2010) It is told in story form in Innovative College Teaching. (2024)
The Case for Humor in the College Classroom
c 2009-2024 Perry Binder
As college
professors nationwide prepare for a new academic year, my message for
them is simple: Lighten up! Your students just might engage and learn.
I never
dreamed of being a college professor. Does anybody? When my third grade
teacher asked us about our dream job, Molly said an astronaut; Evan, an
actor. Perry: Obtain a terminal degree and lecture on legal morasses.
Whether the
subject is law or nuclear physics, every student wants a good laugh. As
teacher accountability objectives collide with shorter attention spans,
laughter is the secret ingredient to keep everyone on task. Humor can
even be found in the most stressful situations. For example, I tell
students that I can't offer legal advice. But that didn't stop "Steve"
from calling me after class in a panic: The judge gave me ten days for speeding; they're taking me away! So
that night, I drove to the county jail, where the innkeeper ushered me
into a tiny drab room facing glass. Steve appeared on the other side,
looking weary and wearing an ugly orange jumpsuit. I never practiced
criminal law, so I just put my hand up to the glass and spread my
fingers apart because I saw that done on TV. Steve finally smiled and
put his hand up to mine. He told me what happened, but all I could do
was stare at our mitts and think: Hey, this TV hand thing really works!
While
Steve's dilemma was no laughing matter, I use that story on the first
day of class to set the tone for the semester: Understanding the law is
serious business and applied unequally to funny, young college students
without counsel. But we will laugh and learn a lot together.
To me, humor
in the classroom mixes audience participation with storytelling about
the quirky world around us. The professor and students form an improv
troupe, working on the day's subject. Here are my rules of classroom
engagement:
Exaggerate to Illustrate.
Paint an implausible mental picture to reinforce a topic. When we study
"self defense," a limping crazy man wields a lumberman's axe and
approaches a student track star limbering up for a run. If the wild man
is 200 feet away, does the student have a duty to retreat or can she
pick up and use a submachine gun conveniently left on a park bench?
Expect the Unexpected.
When a cell phone rings, the classroom rule is that I get to answer it.
And when MY phone rang once, the students got to answer it. Another
time, students were nervous for an exam, so I asked a student to stand
up as I gave her my whiteboard marker. I then ran to the front of the
classroom, back to the students, and instructed her to wing the marker
at my head (missed me, wide right). One time I wore a pair of Sketchers
to class but was skeptical on how they looked. I asked for student
opinions by jumping on the computer console table and placing a sole on
the document camera, which projected an Imax theater-size image. The
original 360° Tour.
Now you
might be thinking that your college won't let profs be jailhouse
lawyers, encourage students to fling objects, or stand on expensive
technology. That's not the point. The most important rule is to always
be yourself in the classroom. You don't need to have a funny bone; the
world around us is a gold mine of material. Consider this recent
headline, Man pleads guilty to DUI in Motorized Recliner. If the law is funny, so is any subject and thus, an opportunity to humor up classrooms.
Postscript.
I referred Steve to a criminal defense lawyer but my student still
spent three days in jail for speeding. It would've been zero if he had
an attorney at the outset, which shows that maybe nothing is funny about
the law after all.
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