And laughter without philosophy woven into it is but a sneeze at humor. Genuine humor is replete with wisdom, and if a piece of humor is to last, it must do two things. It must teach and it must preach – not professedly. If it does those two things professedly, all is lost. But if it does them effectively, that piece of humor will last forever – which is 30 years.
– Mark Twain
The term is not loaded with connotations of wisdom and wit, but “adolescent humor” is inescapable in the middle school. The question is, “What to do about it?”
With the recent furor over Mark Twain’s autobiography, which was embargoed for 100 years, I’m taking my cues from him (see above), especially since I like this philosophical approach to life in general.
I suspect it has much to do with the development of abstract thinking. During adolescence we develop a much greater ability to see and to create subtexts. With humor, the philosophy is behind the scenes, which makes it deep and resonant, but harder to see.
Background context is also important with humor, especially parody and satire: however, just because students can’t reference Plato or Socrates (the philosopher not the footballer), does not mean they don’t have their own cultural markers they can critique. Getting past “adolescent humor” means adding layers.
I am, of course, no expert on humor. This cycle I’m working with the mentor author group and my project is focusing on humorous dialogue. I have no high hopes, but I’m giving it the old college try.
None of this made it any easier last week, when I had to explain editorial cartoons. Our class is trying something new for a newsletter, a newspaper style. I vetoed Garfield-like strips as too simple, and insisted that their cartoons had to make a statement first and aim for humor second. The first student who volunteered for the job gave up after a couple hours of pulling his hair out. I think I’ll try showing them some editorial cartoons if I can find a good website. We’ll see how it goes.