TERI EVANS-PALMER
BOOK
The Art of Teaching with Humor
Crafting Laughter
TERI EVANS-PALMER
“Why a book on humor for teachers?”
The pages of this book come from times with my students when something funny made learning happen. Many days I felt like running into the woods screaming, but my best days were filled with tinkling moments enrobed in laughter, days I would happily relive again. Humor has saved and served me as a teaching resource, a way to live connected to students, and a soft place to land when the burden of teaching knocks you over with the weight of it.
The Art of Teaching with Humor is for teachers everywhere who share the need to laugh in order to thrive and survive. It is filled with amusing scenarios and specific humor tools any teacher can use to boost student creativity, attention, engagement, and performance. It is also a guide for teacher educators, administrators, and professional development staff to consider, as it explains how synthesizing joyful humor with instructional content and delivery safeguards teachers’ emotional wellbeing and classroom performance.
After dodgy decades of teaching in high schools infamous for gang entanglements, students behaving badly and apathetic administrators, followed by time in a middle school art room dubbed the “snake pit,” I cheerfully accepted an adjunct position at a nearby university and enrolled in a doctoral program. Her heart goes out to teachers of all ages who sit in her humor sessions sharing stories that would make your heart pound. Inevitably, a teacher would ask, “Where can I get your book?”
-Dr. Teri Evans-Palmer
6 x 9 in., 176 pgs, incl. tables, illus.
“As I enter my seventh year as a public-school art teacher, I often reflect on the tenets of teaching with humor taught to me by Dr. Evans-Palmer during my time at Texas State University. I have had success using humor in the classroom to deflect misbehavior, increase engagement, foster positive social-emotional relationships, and to keep myself from losing my mind. The Art of Teaching with Humor will be an important reference for me as I continue my career in education.”
STEPHANIE CAMPBELL
Middle School Art Teacher
Texas State University Alumna