Sandra McKenzie

as usual. It's time (and past time) to wrap up what has been, for me, a thought-provoking discussion about humour in the classroom (virtual or actual).

So, what have we learned? That humour is both a tool and a weapon; that the element of surprise is essential; that there are formulae that can be applied (though I suspect there is more alchemy than mathematics to humour. The best jokes defy analysis, and no formula, however precise, can save a lame joke); that emoticons can mitigate the potential sting of a joke; and that humour, can enliven the learning process, and open the mind to new possibilities. Teaching online (via webcasting) is a lot like stand-up comedy, it appears. Passion, preparedness, and the imagination to see beyond the obvious are the critical elements both of successful comedy and effective pedagogy.

Special thanks to Corrie for reminding me to beware the easy target - that one person's joke is another person's assault and that satire always has a bite. And thanks to Les, for sharing his student's research in finding the (truly inspirational!) end of the story of the marijuana smuggler. Kudos to his students for taking the appropriate lesson from this example.

Finally, if there is one lesson to take away from all this discussion, it must be that humour is risky business.

Thanks to all who have participated. ^-)

I just got the attached clipping in an email today, and while it's definitely off-topic, it seems curiously relevant to this discussion.

So far nobody has talked about the element of surprise -- startling students into seeing a subject, or an issue, in a different, yet completely valid, light. Here, someone has taken what is usually seen as a major liability -- his drug conviction -- and turned it into the lynchpin of a darned-near irresistible resume! I think I'd hire the guy on the basis of his honesty alone!

While it takes real talent to pull off this kind of skewed view effectively, there are examples out there just waiting to be used. For instance, lots of us have been mildly (or wildly) amused by the campaign to have the creationist myth of the Flying Spaghetti Monster introduced into Kansas schools, as a legitimate philosophic alternative to Intelligent Design. Silly, yes, but used creatively, it also opens a door to a rational discussion of the issues surrounding this debate.

Possibly there are limited opportunities for this technique, and probably few of us have the confidence or the courage (much less the administrative support!) to introduce anything similar to an online course, but it might be fun to let our imaginations play with the idea.

(Oh, and for anyone not familiar with Pastafarians and the Flying Spaghetti Monster, here's a link that explains it all: http://www.venganza.org/
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and orders the biggest, most expensive lunch on the menu. When his meal arrives, he wolves it down, pulls out a pistol and plugs the waiter, then nonchalantly heads for the door without paying the bill. The bartender shouts out, ?hey, you can?t just eat our food, kill our waiter, and then leave as though nothing happened!? Panda turns to him and says, ?Sure I can. Look it up!?

Anyone who has grazed a best-seller list in the past couple of years knows what comes next: According to the bartender?s dictionary, the panda, a marsupial, ?eats shoots, and leaves?. Author and grammatical curmudgeon Lynn Truss has parlayed that punchline from a lame old joke into a lucrative publishing industry, thanks to an eager and growing market for books that take a light touch to illuminating grammatical issues.


Ah humour! Where would we be without it? Everybody loves a slapstick pratfall, a clever joke, an apt pun, or a witty rejoinder. We all remember the teacher who finally got through to us by making us laugh. Humour is a global trait of human beings.

Alas, while humour is international, jokes are culture-specific, and they don?t often translate well. Here?s an example: Three guys go deer hunting with bows and arrows. They spot a big buck and take aim. One shoots and his arrow flies off three meters to the right. The second shoots and his arrow flies off three meters to the left. The third, a statistician, jumps up and down yelling, "We got him! We got him!" If you?re a statistician, you might be rolling on the floor over this one. Personally, I don?t think this one is a real knee-slapper!


If you?ve ever tried to explain a joke to someone who just doesn?t get it, or had to apologize because your attempt at humour offended somebody, you know that nothing, but nothing, is as unfunny as a joke that has fizzled. Maybe somebody misread the body language that should have cued the laughter. Or mistook a pun as a literal representation of your meaning. Or there?s a cultural sensitivity that you were unaware of before unleashing a witticism that, in retrospect, was wildly inappropriate.

The easy solution is to just avoid any hint of levity. Let the facts speak for themselves, however dryly. Yet without humour, we?d all fade to grey. And some of us ? the lucky ones, I?d say ? are natural comedians who can no more resist being funny than they can resist breathing.


As a lover of bad jokes and an unrepentant maker of worse puns, I?m always up for a good laugh. But as an editor of online courses, I advise course developers to be very careful about using humour in the virtual classroom. Not infrequently, and always reluctantly, I find myself editing out material that is intended to raise a chuckle, a giggle, or a guffaw. (To avoid embarrassing anyone who might be following this seminar, I?ll refrain from giving specific examples from my current workplace).
The problem is, when you?re writing for a distributed audience, you can?t rely on the cues that would normally tell your audience that you?re being facetious. There is no body language to observe. No nuance of voice or gesture that would take the sting out of a pointed remark. And you have no way of knowing if your readers have a grasp of language sophisticated enough to discern the wordplay that lies behind a joke. The problem can be particularly acute if your audience includes ESL students.


So how do you do it? How do you incorporate humour in your presentations, whether online or face-to-face, in view of the many constraints of culture, language, and political sensibilities that we all must deal with?

For the purposes of this discussion, I?d also like to make a distinction between humour and wit, while dealing with both. I?d define humour as a more or less gentle recognition of life?s idiocies, inconsistencies, and idiosyncrasies , while wit, it seems to me, is something much more pointed and specific. But if my definitions are too restrictive, feel free to ignore them. In any case, I?d love to hear what anyone has to say on the subject!