Naghma Shaikh, part-time teacher and Master Trainer, Cambridge International English Language and Literature, JBCN International, Borivali, Mumbai, explains how, by blending learning with fun, classrooms can inspire curiosity, creativity, and a lasting love for learning.
Success comes to those who are lifelong learners—learning never stops. And I think lifelong learners make the best teachers. That’s just how I see it; that’s my belief. I’m sure you’ve all heard this very famous quote by Reba McEntire. She says, “To succeed in life, you need three things: a wishbone, a backbone, and a funny bone.” I actually quite like that quote and agree with it.
As a teacher for so many years, I’ve understood that sometimes, when you’re teaching, things can get a bit too much for us. A little humour at that time can help with all the stress and distress you might be facing. And that’s why I love talking about humour in the classroom.
Where learning finds laughter
Humour doesn’t have to be built into teaching naturally. You might ask me: ‘How do you think we can include humour in our teaching if it’s not built into our lesson plans?’ Well, this short session will help you do just that.
Obviously, humour helps in so many ways, like reducing stress. You might also be surprised to know that it helps you remember things better and understand what’s taught in class. Anything to do with humour makes us feel good, and we all appreciate it. Plus, I think it builds a much better connection between students and teachers.
Did you know that when we laugh, fifteen facial muscles contract and our breathing pattern changes? Try it if you can, even during the session, and you’ll feel the difference. Your breathing changes, and it’s all for the better.
So, what is humour? Something funny makes people smile. It teases people. But how does humour come about? Well, it can come through words or through actions. Banter can also be humour, like when we casually chat with each other.
Humour can also make you cry, which is both interesting and surprising. There is also a style known as dry humour. Through our words, experiences, and actions — as well as images, ideas, movies, and songs — we can learn to see the world in a funny way. And humour, of course, very often relies on clever wordplay.
Humour is very effective for getting students involved, and teachers can use it as a tool to improve classroom interaction.
When laughter opens minds
There are so many benefits of humour. If you’ve used humour in your classroom, I’m sure you’ll recognise some of them and might even have more to add to this list.
Humour can be built into our lesson plans. You can prepare yourself to create a sense of humour, but humour can also be accidental—something just happens, a funny thing is said, and suddenly everyone is laughing.
Humour actually makes teaching more enjoyable. And obviously, it helps students enjoy learning too. You just have to be careful and mindful. There’s a fine line between mindful and unmindful humour.
When humour is used thoughtfully and mindfully, it can create a sense of pleasure and happiness for everyone—teachers and students included. But if it’s careless, it can create awkward situations and make both teachers and students feel uncomfortable.
If the humour is relevant to the topic you’re teaching, has a positive emotional impact, helps students remember, and makes them laugh, it reinforces what you’re teaching—that’s mindful humour.
On the contrary, unmindful humour occurs when people bring words or actions into the class that have nothing to do with the lesson. When they begin targeting the teacher and students, it ceases to be humour at all.
Sometimes teaching can be tough and even painful, both for teachers and students. And sometimes teachers can be funny—like really funny—and that’s just them being natural and humorous. But if you only focus on humour, then you might miss out on other important parts of teaching.
So, it’s always best to remember that yes, humour is a big part of teaching and learning, but you need to know when to use it, how to use it, and why to use it. That’s what makes it an effective tool.
Laughing without crossing lines
Mindful humour is more about relevant humour, where we are respectful of differences. Sometimes things that seem funny to one person might be really hurtful to another. As I said before, there’s a thin line, and you have to be careful.
So, I just want to give you an example of careless humor. It happened in a night class. A student fell asleep. They had probably been working all day and had other commitments.
The instructor in the class told everyone, “Let’s count from one to three, and then everyone scream.” You can imagine the person who was peacefully sleeping—maybe they were just exhausted—suddenly waking up when they heard the collective scream. They started freaking out.
It affected the student both physically and mentally. Being jolted awake by the scream caused sudden stress, leaving them temporarily unable to see properly. Meanwhile, whereas the instructor and the other students were in a good mood, the sleeping student was having a hard time.
I didn’t find it funny. Obviously, it was something really distressing and uncomfortable for the student, and that student left the class. So yeah, there needs to be an understanding both from the teacher’s side and the student’s side about what actually counts as humour and what doesn’t.
Where laughter builds belonging
Laughter plays a big part in creating a strong sense of community among the learners. If we’re mindful and not making fun of someone else, not laughing at someone else’s expense, and not making someone else uncomfortable, then everyone can be open to humour. It can become an inside joke between teachers and students in the classroom.
There is always the question: how do we include humour in our lesson plans?
You’ve got the funny bone, and you’re naturally humorous, spontaneous, and witty, and you’re able to create that in class. You might have one or two students, or even a group of students, who bring so much laughter into the classroom that’s just natural.
But what if you yourself, or many people, say, “I don’t have a sense of humour,” or “My students don’t have a sense of humour”? Well, I do agree that when we talk about the nature versus nurture debate, there could be some hesitation from some people about bringing humour in or being humorous.
That’s totally understandable, so as a teacher, don’t feel limited—don’t think you can’t be funny or bring humour into the classroom. There are plenty of ways to plan a little humour or a funny section in your class so your students can enjoy it along with you.
We can make use of a pun. There are so many other ways you can include humour in your classroom.
When the moment feels right
Let me give a word of caution to teachers: just because I’m saying, “Oh, let’s be humorous,” doesn’t mean you go searching for something and forcefully try to create humour. Sorry, that won’t work because I’m sure you’re all aware there’s something in comedy called timing.
If your timing is right, if at the right moment you say or do something, it will create humour; otherwise, it won’t. You’ll lose that moment. This needs to be handled skillfully so your students enjoy listening and interacting when that humour happens.
For example, I love telling anecdotes. In fact, I love starting my classes with them, so I’d like to share one with you about Mulla Nasruddin. I don’t know how many of you know Mulla Nasruddin. If you do, you know very well that he stands in line with Birbal and Tenali Raman, and they were all basically clever folk who were quick-witted.
One day, Mulla Nasruddin finally agreed to speak to a gathering of villagers. The village headman and councillors escorted him to the open ground where everyone was waiting for him. But he was feeling very lazy to speak.
He looked out at the eager crowd, and asked, “Do you know what I’m going to talk about today?” The confused villagers shouted, “No!” Mulla Nasruddin shook his head and said, “Well, if you’re that ignorant, there’s no point wasting my breath.” And he walked out.
Embarrassed, the villagers requested their headman and other councillors to beg him to return. This time, they planned their response. When Mulla Nasruddin stood up and asked the exact same question, the crowd confidently yelled, “Yes!” He smiled and said, “Excellent. Since you already know, I don’t need to repeat myself,” and walked out again.
So, they pleaded with their headman and councillors to call him back again. This time they planned a better strategy. When Mulla asked the question for the third time, half the crowd shouted “Yes!” and the other half shouted “No!”
Nasruddin said, “Okay. Now all those who know, tell all those who don’t know.” And with that, he stepped down and strolled away, leaving the crowd utterly shocked..
Things that spark laughter
Anecdotes are a great way to start. Let’s move on to other ways you can bring humour into the classroom. You can share memes, and you can even have your students create memes. During the pandemic, we basically became experts at this stuff.
There are so many tools available. They can help you create memes. So, you can take ready-made images from the internet and add a funny line over them to make everyone laugh. Or there are certain tools where you can actually create an image and then edit it.
You can even ask students to make memes about themselves. Cartoons are another awesome way to make people laugh.
What about puns? I love puns. Puns are a play on words. And if teachers think that puns are only for language teachers, let me tell you, you’ve got to get rid of that idea.
Puns can be used by teachers in almost every subject. You can find tons of puns online for all kinds of subjects. You can grab them from the internet, put them up on the board, say them out loud, or even get students to gather them and make posters.
For history: You know why it was called the Dark Ages? Because there were so many knights! It’s a play on the words “night” and “knight.” At night there’s darkness. So something like this can make your history class way more fun.
When we talk about geography—like when one tectonic plate bumps into another and says, ‘Sorry, my fault’—you’re discussing fault lines. So throwing in humour like that when you’re teaching is really going to help students remember a bunch of stuff.
Knowing when humour lands
We all learn so much from our mistakes and failures. I think once I misread the room. There’s this Shakespeare joke I like telling, and it always kills—people usually laugh a bit. But I was talking to some folks who weren’t interested in Shakespeare at all, not into drama or language either.
So I thought, “Alright, let me try this joke with them.” And believe me, they did listen, but no one laughed. Of course, that was a huge fail, but it was a learning experience for me.
If you have something planned for the classroom, like making humour a part of our teaching or lesson plan, you need to think before you just do or say anything. There’s a good chance humour might not land the way you want it to.
Every age has its laughter
You have to read the room. You have to understand the person first before you start cracking a joke or saying something. You’ve got to feel the vibe, the energy of the people you’re with. When you talk to them, you learn what could be okay.
There obviously has to be age-specific humour. You can’t tell little kids a joke with big words—they won’t understand it at all. Some people might just laugh at slapstick—you do an action, and everyone starts laughing.
When it comes to babies, a lot of humour comes from actions, and how we smile and laugh, plus more dancing, really gets kids excited. But if you’re talking to people who are more intellectual or tuned in, then they might prefer humour that’s based more on the words being used.
Sometimes humour helps you establish and maintain your authority. Other times, it can create a situation where that authority is weakened—but that is the whole point of it. If humour undermines authority, then it is not truly humour. True humour creates a sense of well-being, defining and ultimately granting authority.
Contact details
Naghma Shaikh
Part-time teacher and Master Trainer, Cambridge International English Language and Literature, JBCN International, Borivali, Mumbai
M: 9833299153
E: naghmas70@gmail.com