Make ’em laugh: keep humour in the classroom

I recently wrote an article about the importance of music in learning. As an easily distracted child I spent far too many hours of the day observing Mrs Tomkinson’s mannerisms before going home and pretending to be her for a class of teddy bears. I just struggled to keep listening to her voice in the hot stuffy hut that was our classroom.

We moved from table to rug, from rug to table and that little walk was a refreshing break from writing or listening. Sometimes a classmate would wet themselves and the pitter patter on the floor in an otherwise silent classroom was a welcome change. I strongly believe music would have helped, music to set the mood, music to tie in with our learning, songs to sum up the facts we had covered. Music, music, music. It would have worked for me and I can’t be the only one.

Scared, disgusted, shocked and… made to laugh

Anyway, that is another article which I will post here at a later date. Now I am concerned with humour. We had a very enlightening time recently. We run LUCKY BUCKET PRODUCTIONS and provide musicals to schools and youth groups to perform. The latest addition to our catalogue is a little Ancient Greek number based around the Olympics.

The feedback has been great. ‘Just what I have been looking for’ and ‘It’s going down a storm’. However, one teacher expressed concern about the opening scene.

Let me tell you how it starts…..Two commentators sit behind a table and provide the commentary for the short sprint in Ancient Greece. It becomes apparent that the competitors are running naked, this is not SEEN, it is NARRATED by the commentators. Just for the record we would not write a script that would require nudity. Surely that goes without saying. What concerns me is that the naked running thing is history, it is fact, to not mention it would be to leave out a significant bit of information about the Ancient Greek Olympics.

We did not create it to be cutting edge, it happened and we acknowledged it. However, in my experience kids love that sort of thing. You only have to look at the success of Roald Dahl (ahhh Roald Dahl) to know that children love to be scared, disgusted, shocked and most importantly….made to laugh! Humour is at the root of all of his wonderful books. So in addition to music, we need humour in our classroom.

Connect with your inner child

I was talking to a teacher friend of mine, the kind of teacher that everybody would want, the teacher I desperately want for my own children. He is firm but fair, he respects his pupils, he knows his onions and he has a brilliant sense of humour. It is essential.

It goes without saying that if you are going to be shut in a room with 30 children five days a week then you need a sense of humour. He had just attended a training day and heard a motivational speaker who had really inspired him. The speaker was explaining how lessons need to be informative but also naughty and they must make children giggle. I could not agree more. We don’t need straight laced, humourless lecturers. Children need teachers who understand how they learn, who connect with what they enjoy and who make their days fun.

Children need teachers who are still in touch with their inner child. So, yes on first glance a ‘nudity’ reference in a school play might be enough to make some teachers fall over backwards but kids will get it, they will take nothing more from it than the facts, they see nothing wrong in it and there is nothing wrong in it. It is just a giggle worthy nugget of historical information. We can learn a great deal from children and we need to look through their eyes. For the sake of the children and for the sanity of teachers across the country we MUST keep humour in the classroom.

Bogies!
As I write this my daughter is watching Dick and Dom playing ‘bogies’. Two young men go to a very quiet place and take it in turns to shout ‘bogies’to see who can be loudest, they startle and offend members of the public and the whole thing is pretty cringeworthy. Disgusting, Outrageous. Totally hilarious.

Of course they are teaching my daughter some very naughty behaviour, how can I allow this? Well, she is chuckling, really enjoying the humour, she knows it is cheeky and she loves it. It is like a little private joke between Dick and Dom and her. Something to wind me up. It is great. She knows right from wrong and I have no doubt she will grow up to be a lovely adult but it is so important that she has a good laugh along the way.

Angela & Andrew have worked in the field of youth theatre for many years.  Angela ran her own theatre school and now works as a freelance tutor, director and choreographer.  Andrew has a background in rock music but was invited to play the role of the man eating plant in Little Shop of Horrors and has had an interest in musical theatre ever since. Together they run Lucky Bucket Productions providing schools and theatre groups across the country with original shows for performance.