No, you don’t have to be riotously funny. You don’t have to prepare daily jokes and stories. You don’t even have to try to make your students laugh.
But you do need to prioritize humor in your classroom.
Have a spirit of laughter, a mere openness and nothing more, and the rest will take care of itself. You see, students are primed to laugh. They’re the most receptive and forgiving audience in the world.
It doesn’t take much and they’re so appreciative of the effort.
I’ve long talked about the advantage humor has given me throughout my career. It’s my secret weapon, my superpower, my kitchen counter alchemy that cures all. In my first book, Dream Class, I listed some of the many things I’ve done over the years to delight my class.
I’ve used celebrity voices, dressed and pretended I was someone else, tripped over chairs, answered phone calls with my shoe, sang opera while giving directions, danced ballet passing out assignments, had the principal pretend that we switched jobs, given every student a goofy nickname, and told a million crazy but not-so-true stories.
Not only do I love doing it, but it makes classroom management a lot easier. It’s like sliding a fulcrum point further away from you, allowing more leverage with less effort.
It’s important to mention that you don’t have to use humor to be successful with SCM.
You do, however, need SCM to take advantage of using humor. Otherwise, in the absence of effective behavior management, you risk losing control of your class. It’s also important to note that you have to pick your spots. It can’t be silliness all day long.
But small doses here and there can help mold your class into the most well-behaved and motivated class you’ve ever taught. What follows are the three biggest benefits you’ll experience by merely being open to more humor.
1. Your classroom management plan will have greater meaning.
The more your students enjoy being in your class, the less they want to be separated from it. Every student loves humor, even and especially your most challenging students.
Humor helps widen the gap between the experience of being part of the class in good standing and sitting in time-out and not being allowed to take part. In other words, with a bit of extra humor your rules and consequences matter more to students.
2. Rapport is easier.
When you tap into your own unique sense of humor, you become more approachable. Your likability soars and your students want to be around you and to get to know you better.
Your relationships then become more organic and less forced and awkward. There is greater comfort in your presence and in discussions with you. Fear and shyness are eliminated, trust comes more readily, and on-topic participation improves.
3. Influence is greater.
With likability comes influence. In this day and age especially, students won’t listen to your advice if they don’t like you. In fact, there must be admiration in order for them to take your advice, exhortations, and encouragement to heart.
Humor is the cheat code to greater influence. It also frees you to raise the bar of excellence higher and higher and ask more of your students—and get it—because they know you enjoy being with them and have their best interest in mind.
It’s An Experience
I can’t imagine teaching as long as I have without using humor. When I think back over the years, the memories of laughter with students come at me in a rush and are most prominent.
I can see their faces, students from decades ago, smiling wide and happy.
Your classroom is an experience. It’s a moment in time that will stay with them for a lifetime. They’re only with you once, one year of their life, and then it’s over. It’s never coming back again. So, for them and for you, make it memorable.
Teach the lessons of responsibility and hard work and intrinsic motivation through the SCM approach. Continue to be consistently kind. Raise the bar on academics and politeness higher than anyone would dare. And if you’re so inspired, if you’re fearless and willing to let your self-consciousness fall away . . .
Then allow yourself to have fun every day. You’ll find a joy in teaching you never knew existed and your students will love you for it.
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“Humor is the cheat code to greater influence.” What a great idea! I love telling jokes in the class. My favourite thing to do is when I have the worksheet on the board that the children are about to do, and I fill it in for them, telling them I’m going to tell them the answers, and get it all wrong. It’s fun and funny, and the kids love it – and it’s a great way of modelling the way in which the answers should be filled in.
Haha! What a great idea!! I love this. Will be using this next week. 😄
I teach kindergarten and dress up in different wigs a lot when I teach and act out different characters and voices. (Thank goodness we have to keep our doors closed!) My students love it. We laugh a lot in my room. They never want to be out sick. The parents tell me their kids love coming to school. We have a happy classroom and using humor definitely helps a lot.
Love this, Michael. I was telling my students about my training for a half-marathon, and then I said, “Well, enough about me. What do YOU think about me?” And they burst out laughing! I was thrilled, and I thanked them for laughing at my joke! 🙂
I love this! Just yesterday, instead of using my name popsicle sticks, or the spinning wheel to call on students, I twirled around and around with my eyes closed. I pretended to become dizzy, and stumbled around while pointing at a random student. The class laughed; they enjoyed the silly part of me. After that, the student I called on wanted to be the one who chose the next student to work out a problem on the smartboard and so on throughout the lesson. One of them also began to walk in a silly manner.
Agree 1000%. I use humor as much as possible and also agree you have to pick your spots. It cannot be silliness all day long otherwise you’ll lose control.
Thank you.
I sub grades 1 through 8.
At least a couple of times a day, when two students urgently want to answer the same question, I’ll point at both of them and say, “One round of rock-paper-scissors!”* [The winner gets to answer the question,]
It goes quickly**, the kids love it, and it creates of moment of lightheartedness.
* At older ages, they’ll sometimes plead, “Can we do 2-out-of-3?” My answer is almost always, “No.”
** It usually goes quickly, but yesterday a contest took seven throws.
I teach high school and when students walk in the room I have a slide up on the board with our agenda for the period. I always include a meme related to the content we’re covering that day. The kids roll their eyes a lot but I know they love it! Whenever I intentionally leave one off they all ask about it. I’ve also given a bonus point for students who make me new memes.