Did you hear what happened when oxygen went on a date with potassium? It went OK.

What do you get if you divide 22 sheep between 7 shepherds? Shepherd’s pi.

Macbeth bought some logs for his fire from a company called Birnam Wood. He said he’d go and collect, but they said, “Don’t worry - we can come to you.”

Everyone loves a funny teacher. Take me, for example. Barely a lesson goes by without an outbreak of hilarity. As proof of my comedy skills, I can reveal that, while the first two jokes above were nicked from dubious sources, the Macbeth joke is all my own work. Side-splitting, isn’t it?

OK, I’m not really that funny. My collection of literary puns provokes the odd classroom chortle. But I’m not going to be the new Billy Connolly any time soon. Yet even if I had a rib-tickling line in gags, would it make me a more popular teacher?

Back in 2017, a Tes survey asked 3,000 primary and secondary school pupils to rank the most desirable qualities of the perfect teacher. For both primary and secondary students, “funny” won by a landslide.

Canadian researcher Jérôme St-Amand and colleagues point to similar trends internationally, noting that “students of all ages identify humour as one of the characteristics they value most in a teacher”.

Given that humour is mainly seen as a positive quality, it’s not surprising that students value it. But while funny teachers might be popular, does their ability to make classes laugh also make their teaching more effective?

According to research, teacher humour can help students to feel more settled in class. As a recent overview by researchers Weichen Zhou and Jun Choi Lee demonstrates, a “light-hearted” approach to teaching can “render educational encounters more engaging”.

Norwegian researcher Martin Stokke also highlights how humour can help to develop “an inclusive and comforting atmosphere” in which students perceive the teacher’s “composed and relaxed demeanour”.

Put simply, from the point of view of pupils, funny teachers often appear more confident and relaxed.

Humour also appears to act as a tension defuser, making students feel more relaxed when tackling tricky content. Research by John Banas and colleagues, for example, found that “the use of instructional humour to relieve tension may be especially useful for teaching topics that are generally perceived by students to be anxiety-provoking”.

A less anxious class is, naturally, a class better prepared to learn. But, as a newly published study by German researcher Sonja Bieg and colleagues reveals, not all humour is welcomed by students. What’s more, they argue, while some types of teacher humour can motivate students and improve learning outcomes, other attempts at humour can backfire.

How humour is used makes a huge difference to how students respond to it. So rather than asking, “Do kids like funny teachers?”, we need to recognise the nuanced nature of humour. A more helpful question is: “What kinds of teacher humour improve teacher quality and student learning?”

The four types of teacher humour

The research by Bieg and colleagues places teacher humour into four different categories:

1. Course-related humour

As the name suggests, course-related humour occurs when teachers intentionally use humour as a way of explaining ideas that are relevant to the content being studied in class. Consider a music lesson, for example, in which the teacher is reminding pupils of some Italian tempo terms. To add humour for emphasis, they might say “allegro” really quickly and then “adagio” in a comically slow voice.

2. Course-unrelated humour

By contrast, course-unrelated humour is when a teacher employs humorous digressions that lack any connection with the topic of the lesson. For example, during a maths lesson, a teacher might begin telling a funny personal story about a time they got lost in a Spanish city.

3. Self-disparaging teacher humour

A teacher jokingly drawing attention to their own flaws and errors is known as self-disparaging humour. This kind of self-deprecation is, of course, very British. An example scenario might involve a teacher drawing a misproportioned horse and then laughing about the fact that they failed their art GCSE.

4. Aggressive teacher humour

This type of humour involves a teacher adopting a belligerent tone to belittle students. A mocking response to an incorrect answer, suggesting that a student lacks intelligence, is a classic example of aggressive teacher humour.

But which of these types of humour are most effective in helping teachers to develop a positive classroom climate? And can any of these types of humour actually boost learning?

Unsurprisingly, the study by Bieg and colleagues indicates that aggressive teacher humour damages the classroom atmosphere and tends to have a destructive effect on teacher/student relationships. Jokes that embarrass students can “hinder information processing” and “the motivation to engage in classroom activities”, the researchers argue, leading to an emotional barrier between students and their teacher.

Sarcasm falls firmly into the aggressive category. Sarcastic jokes might be an understandable response to dealing with a challenging class, but they invariably backfire. Saying “I’m glad you’ve finally decided to grace us with your presence” to a habitual latecomer, for example, might release some of a teacher’s frustration, but the consequences of sarcasm are insidious. A classic study by Melissa Bekelja Wanzer and colleagues found that the vast majority of pupils dislike humour that targets individual students, regardless of whether it was intended to cause upset or not.

Perhaps surprisingly, course-unrelated humour also tends to be counterproductive and unpopular with students. We might assume that students would automatically enjoy the break from work that a few random jokes can offer. Yet, as Zhou and Lee note, “unrelated humour, which does not connect with the subject matter, can lead to a negative classroom atmosphere characterised by anxiety and boredom, as students often find this type of humour uninteresting and perceive it as a failed attempt by the teacher to establish rapport”.

‘Worse still, course-unrelated humour might be seen as a cringe-inducing attempt by a teacher to be “down with the kids”’

And here’s the rub. Some teachers might possess the comic skills to deploy hilarious anecdotes and crack one-liners that have students guffawing behind their desks. But many others will be telling stale old gags, referencing ancient TV shows that students have never watched, leaving their class feeling bored and resentful about the time wasted on these trite digressions. Worse still, this course-unrelated humour might be seen as a cringe-inducing attempt by a teacher to be “down with the kids”. As such, a 2025 paper by Hassan Banaruee found that course-unrelated humour was negatively associated with teacher-student relationships and student motivation in the classroom.

Self-disparaging teacher humour is something of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, by poking fun at their own self-image, teachers can nurture a sense of belonging by modelling humility and reducing the threat of failure for students. As Bieg and colleagues point out, when teachers highlight their own academic weaknesses, it can “encourage students to be less anxious when managing their mistakes and view their errors as part of a natural learning process”.

Conversely, Zhou and Lee warn that “overuse of self-deprecating humour may undermine the teacher’s credibility and authority in the eyes of students”. Put simply, humorously drawing attention to a few things you find tricky, and making fun of the odd error you make, can help students to feel more relaxed about their own areas for development. But ridicule yourself too frequently and your students will lose faith in your teaching ability.

By contrast, course-related humour is very popular with students and has been shown by St-Amand and colleagues to boost not just belonging but also engagement and students’ emotional wellbeing.

Indeed, their research indicates that an increase in course-related humour is associated with a decrease in student anxiety. Bieg and colleagues’ research goes further, establishing a causal effect between this brand of teacher humour and positive classroom relationships, as well as an “indirect positive effect on students’ intrinsic motivation and enjoyment”.

Crucially, unlike the other three types of teacher humour, course-related humour isn’t viewed by students as a waste of their precious learning time. Given that course-related humour is relevant to the topic being studied, it has been shown to aid the clarity of explanations, as well as reduce tension around studying challenging material.

So, with this research picture in mind, how should teachers adapt their use of humour?

Follow these four principles, and your efforts at comedy are more likely to be appreciated:

1. Keep it relevant to the course

The research I have encountered indicates that only course-related humour generates a positive reaction from students. As Bieg and colleagues conclude, “humour that is course-related can improve socio-emotional and motivational dimensions of teaching quality and enhance students’ intrinsic motivation”.

By contrast, teacher humour that is course-unrelated, self-deprecating or aggressive often leads to students experiencing boredom, embarrassment and disengagement.

2. Don’t overdo the jokes

A few pre-planned course-related jokes should be well-received by your students. But avoid falling into the trap of treating your lessons as a stand-up comedy set. Zhou and Lee’s research indicates that, to avoid confusion and distraction, humour should be used sparingly.

They advise using humour no more than three to four times per lesson, as “excessive humour can reduce its beneficial impact on teaching and learning”.

3. Avoid risky humour

Based on their research, Wanzer and colleagues recommend avoiding humour that focuses on a student’s “intelligence, personal life/interests, appearance, gender or religion”.

Obviously, crude sexual jokes are also not appropriate in a classroom.

Fans of sarcasm should avoid barbed comments when interacting with students. As a rule of thumb, if you think there’s a chance that a joke may be taken the wrong way, leave it unsaid.

4. Be yourself

Finally, if you’re not a natural joke-maker, don’t feel obliged to adopt a wisecracking persona.

Humour, while sometimes helpful, is not an essential component of effective teaching. As Banas and colleagues caution, “there are few things worse than an unfunny person trying to be humorous”.

But if you do enjoy making a few jokes about the topics you teach, go ahead - as long as you reflect carefully on how your students respond to your style of humour.

Mark Roberts is an English teacher and director of research at Carrickfergus Grammar School. His new book, out now, is Fail Better: how teachers can help students overcome failure, perfectionism, procrastination, impostor syndrome and test anxiety

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