When The Entire Classroom Is Laughing At You

just a brief teacher story that is timely, I think, in these dregs of February

Standing at the front of a very tired classroom with an already-cold cup of coffee in hand, I watched as the last class period of what had already been a very long first week of a new semester took down their opening notes.

I took a quick, quiet pause.

You can do this, I told myself, feigning a smile, just one more period.

Teaching is hard even when it is going well, and the symbolism of having to slurp down a cold mug of coffee to get through the final eighty minutes of the week? Well, as an English teacher, I’ll just allow you to infer what needs to be inferred as far as how the week had gone up to that point…

Anyhow, I began to introduce our lesson on the opening scene of King Lear with a comment about how the substitute who had covered for me in their previous class period had left rather-extensive notes via Google Doc, and that he—

“That sounds like what you would do, Mr. Luther, if you were a sub.”

I stopped in my tracks.

It was just a mumble, likely only meant to be shared amongst their group members, and it was from one of my quietest, most-positive students. Not the type to call me out in front of the whole class.

So I took a risk:

“What did you just say, ______?”

Surely they wouldn’t repeat it.

Bad call, Mr. Luther.

“What I said”—they squared their shoulders, sat up in their seat, and looked at me directly—“was that taking a ridiculous amount of notes on a Google Doc sounds exactly like what you would do, Mr. Luther.”

Ugh oh.

The entire classroom erupted in laughter, well aware of my very-real tendency to go over-the-top with Google Docs (and hyperlinks within those Google Docs) and very much emboldened by the fact that one of their quietest peers had the audacity to openly mock this tendency.

I went to say something and reclaim control, and then paused—and found myself laughing, too.

So I went to take a drink of my coffee, instead, but I forgot that it had gone cold and nearly spit it out across the room before catching myself mid-laugh, until I felt that stream of no-longer-warm, dark-roast-blend nearly pouring out of my nostrils.

This was how the last class period of my very long week began…

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And I loved it.

Yes, it took several instances of me trying to speak, the entire class watching me fail to overcome their laughter, and then turning away to try and recover some semblance of dignity—only to repeat the cycle over and over.

Keep in mind the lesson at-hand, too: a review of Act 1, Scene 1 of King Lear, in which King Lear—expecting praise from his youngest daughter Cordelia is instead greeted by her rejection, as she calls him out in front of the entire court while he staggers, blown away by her…audacity.

Anthony Hopkins aghast in King Lear after his daughter has spurned him publicly

The irony, indeed.

We did finally manage to learn some stuff, I think—including quite the connection when students beheld the already-written essential question of whether honesty is courageous or foolish in life!—but in reflecting back on that moment (which, as I noted, was probably more aptly described as several long, concurrent moments) I realize now how much it mattered.

For me and for our entire classroom.

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Which is my point (I think)

The online discourse around education right now is quite serious and quite, well, bleak.

There are reasons for that, of course, but spend a day scrolling through #teachertwitter and you’ll note how debates over cellphone policy and direct instruction pedagogy dominate—and even if all these are deserved and well-intended, take a step back and you’ll also perhaps notice a through-line across all of this:

A failure to center the joy and potential of our students in our classrooms.

This is why after a very long, challenging week in which I’ll admit to allowing my own thoughts to swirl around that bleak discourse, I am right now incredibly grateful for that student who let slip and then confidently repeated their mockery of Mr. Luther—and even more grateful of the laughter that filled the room for those several moments after.

There is supposed to be joy in what we do, and so often we as teachers are the very thing that are standing in the way of it.

In the race to bell-to-bell instruction and in the dreaded name of urgency, laughter gets pushed out and joy takes a back seat to the Sisyphean climb towards a predetermined-yet-inscrutable standardized test score that will somehow make everything good one day.

Balderdash. (Or foppery, in the words of Shakespeare.)

The good is already in our classroom and that good very much involves not taking ourselves too seriously and making room for laughter—and joining in whenever we can to center joy whenever possible.

I was reminded of that this week, and I felt like sharing that reminder mattered more than anything else I could use this space for.

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One more request, too:

Of course, Jim and I typically use The Broken Copier for those broader, sometimes-bleaker discussions of educational pedagogy along with sharing strategies and resources—and I assure you, we’ll get back to it quite soon!

However, if you’re reading this and have your own story of laughter and/or joy in the classroom, feel free to share it in the comments! We very much hope that this Substack community eventually evolves beyond just one-way communication, ultimately, especially as it continues to grow and bring in so many different perspectives and experiences. (And from several continents already, too!)

So if you’re willing—feel free to share your own story of laughter as an educator in the comments below, as well as anywhere else you’re willing!

There are difficult things we need to tackle in education, yes, but none of those difficult things matter much if we aren’t in this together, and in this together with a collective purpose that bends towards joy.

With that, I’ll wish you all a great week ahead filled with laughter in your classrooms and beyond them. (And hopefully warmer coffee than I had to endure via nostril, too.)

—Marcus