Ronald A. Berk's book, subtitled "How to Write and Deliver Humor in the Classroom and in Professional Presentations," responds to a genuine need. As Berk reminds his readers, "in a [1997] national survey of more than 250,000 freshmen at nearly 500 universities . . . a 30-year record high 35.6% of the students said that they were frequently bored in class." Moreover, "the 'deadly' monotone speaker we've all heard too many times probably represents the worst form of delivery . . ." And, sadly, "We have all encountered super-serious, cadaver-like colleagues with the emotional range of formica." No one reading this review falls into this category, it goes without saying; but some of our colleagues are boring, lack enthusiasm, need to enliven their classes, and so on.

Thinking about presentations we have enjoyed will reassure us that humor is a powerful aid; the too-common academic fear that saying something funny is either "pandering" or "becoming an entertainer rather than a teacher" or forfeiting one's scholarly standing, since all scholars are grave, is based on a priggish view of teaching and learning.

So many of us could use a good book on how to use humor to make our messages more memorable, our students more attentive. I'm just not sure this is it.

There is no question that Ronald Berk, who teaches biostatistics in the school of nursing at Johns Hopkins University, has given this much thought. He has files of jokes, funny stories, "Top Ten" lists, and so on; he has given some thought to what makes a joke funny (though like most theories, his is too simple, relying on the old incongruity + release of tension explanation). He practices his comic effects, even rehearsing remarks that he will use as ad libs in response to student comments. He prepares quite complicated skits for use in class.

And he has some very good advice on such matters as involving your audience, moving around, using gestures, modulating your voice, speaking clearly, and using audiovisual aids (none of which is limited to putting across humor, of course).

The problem is not in his suggestions that humor helps teachers, or that "Humor involves active learning." The problem is in his sense of humor. He is a Dave Barry fan, and his tone is of a sub-Dave Barry facetiousness. This is a typical yuk: "If our raison d'être (a French expression meaning, 'cinnamon-raisin bagel with cream cheese') is to be effective teachers . . . " I enjoyed some of the comic "warning" tags he puts on his syllabi, like "Dolphin Safe," "Baked With Pride," and "A Third Less Content, Same Great Taste." But this "humorous biosketch" which he apparently provides at academic conferences set my teeth on edge:

Ronald A. Berk is Professor of . . . and Jester-in-Residence at the ___________ University. In addition to his Ph.D., he has a license to practice jocularity from the Chuckle Institute for the Humor Impaired. [etc., etc.]

I am convinced that the secret to being funny in class, or anywhere else, is to be funny without announcing it. Berk seems to spend as much time advertising his hilarity as actually practicing it. To claim that you are funny without then making people laugh is disastrous. Many of the jokes he quotes do not rise to jocularity.

I have another modest objection to Berk's examples, which is that self-deprecating humor, or humor which deprecates the academic project it supposedly supports, is counter-productive. He uses questionnaires in which, for comic effect, he has included such items as "How many of you don't want me to ask any more questions?" and "How many of you want to go to dinner?" On the last page of a test he likes to put "NOTE: This was only a TEST. If this had been an actual emergency, you wouldn't be sitting here suffering through this stuff."

To me, THIS is pandering. I see nothing wrong with being funny, making students laugh. But I draw the line at making students laugh at my class and the activities which I must think are worth doing, or in all conscience I should, rather than joining in student laughter at their pointlessness, simply abort. Irony is one of the most subtle and thus most easily-overlooked forms of humor. I'd rather not count on students to detect that I am being ironic when I pretend to confess to them that I am wasting their time.

Merritt Moseley
UNC Asheville