A funny thing happened on the way to school
Class clowns poke fun at themselves as they take part in a crash course in standup comedy
Take my teacher — please!
Whoops; that kind of Borscht Belt put-down would have been gonged from a student comedy show Monday for being a wee bit mean.
In what’s believed to be Canada’s first grade-school standup-comic curriculum, the goal is to learn to poke fun at yourself, not others, to help cope with stress in your life.
It’s also a crash course in public speaking, creative writing and, as former principal and program leader Sue Stephenson likes to say, “turning problems into punch lines.”
Not that you can’t have a little fun while making a point.
“I’m Asian, right? So people ask me, ‘Where are you from?’ and I say ‘Canada’ and they say, ‘No, but where are you from from?’ and I say, ‘That’s like what kind of car car do you drive drive?’ ” said Grade 7 student Richard Thai, one of 16 junior jokesters at North Kipling Junior Middle School who have spent three months learning about humour and laughter as part of a stress-busting, anti-bullying program. The young crowd cheered. “They’ll say, ‘Are you Chinese?’ No,” he went on. “‘Korean?’ No. ‘Filipino?’ No. Guys, I’m Vietnamese! Small country, lots of people. If you tried to find my relatives, it would be like Where’s Waldo: Asian version.”
Performing with live microphones on the lunchroom stage before a friendly audience of cross-legged critics, each humorist did a threeminute bit he or she had crafted with the help of class “joke buddies” and two graduates of Humber College’s School of Comedy.
“We talk about making people feel good with laughter, and even though you can get a laugh by making someone feel bad, that’s not comedy,” said Humber comedy grad Kyle Woolven.
Fellow comedian Marc Hallworth said they persuaded students to write stories about their own lives, “because it’s specific to you. No one else will have those stories, and when you get up and tell them and people laugh, it makes you feel more confident.”
Humour also lets students tell personal stories, rather than always focusing on others, said teacher Douglas Cornell.
“So Kanye West and Kim Kardashian had another baby, and everyone’s talking about that, but this program helps kids to realize they can be stars themselves.”
Richard’s was one of the more poignant presentations, among jokes about annoying brothers and boring car trips, nagging mothers and a fear of flying, plus the requisite dog poo and diarrhea gags that are always crowd-pleasers.
“We’re connecting kids with happiness and laughter and humour as a way to promote mental health and well-being, positive psychology and literacy,” said Stephenson, who was the school’s principal in 2000 and now volunteers with its Happiness@School Project.
“We had the kids watch the Pixar movie Inside Out and then talk about emotions. We talk about the idea of laughing at yourself but not others,” Stephenson noted.
“A class clown disrupts the class by making fun of others. But these kids are learning they can channel their humour in a positive way.”
Richard got that message. “You get to express yourself in jokes, but if that person I’m talking to isn’t laughing, it’s not funny.”