Fifth column: Laughter unites us; jokes divide us, E T Ranger

Laughter unites us; jokes divide us

E T Ranger says a smile can go a long way

Humour is like poetry; it depends on sharing meanings. It is not a statement, it is something that you have to ‘get’ – which some people don’t, so it is essentially excluding. Half the enjoyment which we feel comes from the recognition of commonality: you and I understand one another! So how do jokes play in international schools?

Poetry is just a pattern of words to some people but has deeper resonance for others, and a joke works at the same nuanced level. Jokes aren’t intrinsically beautiful; in fact they are often private precisely because they are publicly unacceptable, but by being secretly shared they bond us through showing that we share a common understanding of what is unspoken. It may be embarrassing in broad daylight to admit knowledge of those jokes that are made at the expense of neighbours or minorities. Think of those strings of one-liners or cartoons that a group of friends circulate by email. What bonds do they cement? You fell about laughing when you read them privately but you might not share them with your mother. There is room here for a wealth of research to map virtual communities and what links or divides them. One thing that all humour does is to welcome into the group those who get the joke. The population is divided into ‘them’ and ‘us’. ‘Them’ may not be explicit, but ‘us’ is plain. Even the word itself – ‘humour’ – separates communities, by its very spelling!

So how is it that so often one hears humour claimed or recommended as a classroom tool? What a successful joke does is to move the relationship into a more intimate mode. Suddenly the teacher is ‘one of us’, we suppose, and students

In the end it isn’t possible for teachers to engage equally with all their students, but every student needs to know a teacher who is on his or her side.

pay closer attention to their new friend. On the other hand, an unsuccessful teacher joke may scar the relationship for the rest of the year. Applied to our own schools we can see that if the joke depends upon social mores or conventions, as so many do, it will bond the dominant community and marginalise the outsiders, unless they have become expert in noting, practising and internalising local manners. How disheartening! This may be a structural difference between international schools and overseas national schools. Their names give a clue. Each title implies a target for the school, to prepare children for the wide world or to prepare them for one nation’s way of life. In the national context a cultural shibboleth can be a teaching tool; it sets a challenge: if you want to join us you must share our understandings, so get to work!

There are other ways of uniting communities which don’t demand uniformity. Sport, music, handicrafts, and outdoor activities are all arenas in which new students may bring undiscovered skills, or there are fields which are new to everyone, where newcomers have no deficit. These activities certainly cut across the usual academic pecking order, but there is a risk that they may add to the strangeness felt by many newcomers. In the end we are surrounded by so much diversity that each teacher-student relationship is individual. Rather than emphasise competitive success, is there any way we can offer targets that don’t lead to a single ranking of success or failure?

A well-known politician has recently been reeling off comparisons: ‘the worst trade deal in history’; ‘the worst cover-up in history’; ‘the greatest force for good in the history of the world’. These claims of global superlatives can only be made if, first, we have universal knowledge and, second, if we measure by universal scales. Neither of these is the case. International schools, and overseas national schools, only exist because different communities have different aspirations. That noisy child believes it is good to be heard, this silent one believes it is good to be discreet. Can’t we credit them both for their good behaviour?

So, is there a place for laughter? Well, laughter happens whenever we find ourselves pleased. Pleased to find a friend, pleased to be praised by someone who matters, pleased to have succeeded at a task we take seriously, pleased to find ourselves respected, pleased to belong. So if we are not aiming to induct all our students into the same clan, let’s see how many ways there are of giving credit for their personal triumphs. In the end it isn’t possible for teachers to engage equally with all their students, but every student needs to know a teacher who is on his or her side. The achievement that we celebrate may not be the biggest event in the history of the world, but it’s something to raise a proud smile.