Comments on: How To Be Funny

By: EducatedBastard

EducatedBastard — Wed, 28 May 2008 02:25:40 +0000

Students are peons and should be treated as such.

Who cares if they laugh? Just do the work I assign you and get the hell on.

By: ken

ken — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 14:59:23 +0000

Comedy is all about timing, not all the time.

Someone said that once.

Oh, and Mr. 2718…I know that guy. He found a tunnel, escaped to the Uncharted Forest, met a girl named Liberty, and they both lived happily ever after.

If you believe Rand scripts such works.

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 14:12:10 +0000

Vlorbik nailed the Carson piece, which is huge. Remember “Lame-o!”?

(My version, to find the one kid giggling at a complete dud, put on my most serious face and my sternest voice and say “Jason, if you keep laughing I’m going to more” at which point the room shushes him and everyone starts laughing…)

The really good throwaway lines, I just keep teaching. Let them keep up. Let them want to pay closer attention.

Then there’s humor to defuse tense situations. And humor to keep everyone off balance.

Some kids like to be poked fun at (just a little bit) and it would be a shame not to comply. When a class won’t quiet down, I often raise my voice at the silent kid (get giggles, and apologize, quietly, after)

Physical humor. Straight lecture has to happen from time to time. Nothing interactive, just me talking. If I “lose” something and am searching the classroom as I talk, Mr Magoo teaches math, the ensuing silent confusion is something akin to humor.

And finally, those lame puns? Kids expect them from teachers. They have a right to hear them. An obligation to groan. “Mr. 2718, why do you tell such bad jokes?” “It’s in our contract. I had to take a special course…”

By: dan

dan — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 05:31:47 +0000

I reckon there’s a positive correlation between happy kids and light class management. Nothing to prove there.

By: Joel

Joel — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 05:26:38 +0000

No kidding. Some of the boringest people I know are teachers. It’s sad. I find that the best learning happens when the kids are having a good time.

I’ve taught high school band sectionals where the students ask me how we ever get work done in my class because they were laughing the entire time.

But the funny thing is that what I do works, is enjoyable, and produces tremendous results. One of these days, I will put recordings on my site to prove that it really works. :)

By: dan

dan — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 05:02:14 +0000

Lessee … too young for Carson, just old enough for MST3K. The latter, that band of robots and exiles, always seemed to be having a great time together. They laughed but didn’t care if you did. Hard not to join up with that kind of no-strings-attached fun.

By: Scottyb

Scottyb — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 02:20:25 +0000

MST3K also said something that I agree with in regards to humor that I use in the classroom. “Its not that few people will get the joke, its that the right person gets the joke.”

By: Nancy

Nancy — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 01:20:54 +0000

Speaking of funny–the other day my co-teacher and I started laughing about Mystery Science Theater 2000 (and 3000). You might be too young to remember that show–human and a couple of robots “critque” movies. Anyway, decided to see if the old episodes were online–Google video had a bunch of them. Our 6th graders stood around a laptop howling—didn’t dare put it up on the big screen in case someone walked in.

By: Scott Walker

Scott Walker — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 21:36:19 +0000

Kids are like most everyone in that it doesn’t matter how someone tells a joke,but it REALLY matters who tells it. Nobody is going to laugh at something when they think it will put them in the position of looking like a dork. People will only laugh when it makes them seem associated with a person that they consider to be highly admired by others around them… it makes them look like they are in on something that no one else is. In other words, if you read this blog post hoping to learn how to be funny, then you probably shouldn’t try it. Just stick to teaching :)

By: Morty McNutt

Morty McNutt — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 19:40:26 +0000

Re: Movies that cut to people laughing…

About 15 years ago, I was watching Siskel & Ebert (yes, I meant the late Gene Siskel, not that new Roeper dude for you generation Y’ers) and they were talking about the movie (don’t ask how I remember this) called For Love or Money. It starred Michael J. Fox. I never saw it, but apparently it was REALLY, REALLY BAD! Anyway, apparently when they showed it to a test audience, nobody laughed. Even the scences that they were certain would make the movie memorably funny, nobody even cracked a smile. What did the movie people do? They re-shot some of the scences to show people laughing. I did not know this at the time but Gene and Roger talked about how the movie (and TV , I suppose) industry does this. They show folks laughing as to say, “OK, people. This is the scene where you laugh”. Sad, indeed.