Pattullo Lecture 97

ARTICLES

Humor as an Instructional Defibrillator

Ronald A. Berk, PhD

In roduc ion
Sharon Buchbinder: Ron Berk retired last summer as professor emeritus
of biostatistics and measurement at The Johns Hopkins University after 30
years of teaching and research. He has won several teaching awards and
has served as assistant dean for teaching for five years.
Ron found that retired sports great Michael Jordan was right about re-
tirement. Ron says he has been able to spend a lot more time with Michael
Jordan’s family. (Laughter)
Ron’s publications and presentations now total over 365. According
to his bio, he says that all of this work reflects his lifelong commitment to
mediocrity, and his professional model is: “Go for the bronze!” (Laughter)
He has also published nine books, two of which are on humor: Professors are
from Mars; Students are from Snickers, and Humor as an Instructional Defibrillator.
In the last two years the Defib book has already sold more than 17 copies,
(Laughter) 10 of which were purchased by his mother who has cataracts.
Ron will be available at the AUPHA booth outside for a book signing
immediately after this keynote. His presentation in based on material from
both books. I’m not sure where Ron is right now, but I think he wants me
to show you this video.
[Video—EXTREME PROFESSOR MAKEOVER]

Please address correspondence to Ronald A. Berk, PhD, Professor, Biostatistics & Measurement,
Johns Hopkins University, The Johns Hopkins University, 10971 Swansfield Road, Columbia
MD 21044-2726, Phone: 410-730-9339, Email: [email protected].
98 The Journal of Health Administration Education Spring 2007

Ron Berk: I want to begin by thanking Sharon Buchbinder for inviting me

to do this address and giving me the opportunity to do what I love to do
in a classroom. Also, you might be thinking, as this progresses, or even as
we started, that the word “lecture” doesn’t exactly capture the essence of
what we’re going to experience here today. So, despite the fact that it’s such
an honor to do the Pattullo Lecture, this is not going to be a traditional lec-
ture. Its form is probably the furthest from a lecture format that you could
imagine. in order to cover new and innovative ways of teaching this ‘Net
Generation of students. Hopefully, you will enjoy it.
I also want to thank Danny Linden. All of the communications, logistics,
and these arrangements represent a team effort. It has been a joy to work
with him. I have driven him crazy with all of the details. In fact, we have
been here since 7:00 AM rehearsing. I also want to thank Chris, who’s in
charge of lighting and sound. We have a big production here, and I want
to let you know that a lot of people are involved other than moi.

Passion for Teaching

I have a passion for teaching. I love being in the classroom with my students.
There’s no other activity I would rather do at Johns Hopkins than teach my
students. Unfortunately, my students don’t share that same passion for what
I teach, and I thought you might be interested in what happens on the first
day of class when I tell my students, “For the next 15 weeks we’re going to
study biostatistics.” The image that pops into their minds is something like
this. [Music—“Shower” from PSYCHO followed by blood-curdling screams]
They’re thinking, “Why not just kill me now?” For those of us who
teach statistics, we know we wouldn’t have jobs if these courses weren’t
required. Let’s be realistic.

Humor and Media Quo ien (HMQ)

What I’d like you to do first is to take an inventory on the last page of your
handout. We’re going to do several interactive exercises here today. On
the last page, answer the 10 questions on the extent to which you are cur-
rently using humor and various types of media in your teaching, much of
which you will see demonstrated here today. So take a moment to do that.
Answer the questions and total your score at the bottom for your HMQ.
[Music—Theme from Seinfeld, Jonathan Wolff]
Okay, let’s take a look at your totals at the bottom and the category into
which you fall. How many of you are in the high HMQ category? Look
around. How many are in the moderate range? Whoa. How many are in
the low category? You’re all laughing. (Laughter) Hopefully by the time we
 Pattullo Lecture 99

are done today, those of you in the low group and moderate group will have
some ideas that will raise you at least one category. You will not be on this
journey alone. I will be with you. For the next hour and a half I have four
words for you. [Music—“We Can Do It,” Nathan Lane, from The Producers]
This is a definition that was offered for what I do: “A statistician is
someone who doesn’t have the personality to be an accountant.” (Laughter)
I heard that accountants use it in exactly the reverse.

Definition of Teaching
Let’s talk about teaching. Basically it consists of two components. The
first is the content: what we teach. You are the experts in your respective
disciplines. That’s a given. That’s what we’re trained to know. The second
is the pedagogy: how we teach. The two biggest trends in the last decade
have been learner-centered teaching, on which more than a 1000 articles
and 119 studies were recently reviewed, and the use of technology, which
is increasing at an exponential rate.
We’re going to focus on the how. You know the what, so all we’re go-
ing to talk about today are hopefully some new ideas that you could take
back to your classroom.

Characteristics of the Net Generation

First of all, what are our students’ characteristics? Let’s take a look. Accord-
ing to Howard Gardner’s research at Harvard, we know that every one of
our students, as well as everyone sitting here, has a unique profile of eight
and a half intelligences, not just the two that we’re led to believe you need
for success in school— verbal and quantitative. According to the SAT, GRE,
GMAT, MCAT, and most other academic or professional school tests, only
those two major areas of ability are measured.
Yet, in order to function effectively as a clinician in health, or as a
professor or administrator, we generally need to draw on from four to six
intelligences. As an example, let’s think for a moment about why students
hate statistics? The best way I can illustrate this is with the theory of multiple
intelligences. When we teach and draw on only one intelligence, in statistics
that means teaching it as a mathematics or quantitative course. That’s the
traditional way statistics is taught. When that’s the only way it’s taught, only
those students with strengths in quantitative ability are going to do well.
Everyone else is going to struggle, and that’s what happens.
If we teach a subject in its natural form, whether verbal or quantitative,
and tap into only one intelligence, all of the other students will scramble to
keep up because you are drawing on their weaknesses, not their strengths.
100 The Journal of Health Administration Education Spring 2007

So the trick is this: while teaching statistics, I tried to figure out how many
ways I could present material other than in quantitative form to keep ev-
erybody on the same page. It was possible to draw on verbal plus visual/
spatial, bodily/kinesthetic, interpersonal or intrapersonal, which are your
emotional intelligences, and musical/rhythmic. The more intelligences
involved in learning, the greater the chances that everyone can succeed in
the classroom. That’s the concept, and that’s what I tried to do.
So what we’re going to do here is illustrate a lot of different forms of
humor with music and videos, as well as demonstrate how to create vi-
sual/spatial representations or demonstrations of statistics? If I can do it
with statistics content, there’s hope for all of you. That’s the challenge, and
we need to do that.
Now, that links directly with the students’ learning styles. They have
from three to seven different learning styles, which matches the strengths in
their intelligences. So if they are a kinesthetic, hands on, experiential-type
learner, that’s the type of learning style they have—they want to participate.
They don’t want to be spectators.
Here are other characteristics: technology savvy, and intuitive visual
communicators. They do not want textbook-based courses; they don’t want to
read. They are image-oriented. They crave interaction. They prefer to work
in teams using cooperative learning and collaborative learning techniques.
They learn through discovery, again, hands on, experiential learning. They
respond quickly and expect you to do the same. They can multi-task and
shift attention rapidly. And finally, they have the attention span of goat
cheese, which means that we cannot assume at any point that they’re paying
attention. They have so many other things going on in their lives.
But we missed something really important. Can anyone tell me the
meaning and significance of this number—525,600? What does this num-
ber mean?
Audience member: Number of minutes in a year.
Ron Berk: Number of minutes in a year, okay. Let’s take a look.
[Video with “Seasons of Love,” entire cast, from Rent]
Rent has been playing for more than a decade on Broadway. When the
movie version came out in 2005 in our area, the lines were very long, but,
interestingly, the people standing in those lines were high schoolers and
college students, not people who looked like us. That is the rock musical
of this generation of students.
My younger daughter told me that I need to see it so I will understand
her better, but she said: “Don’t let mommy see it.” This generation of stu-
dents thinks this is something new. We had Hair, which broke everything
 Pattullo Lecture 101

wide open for many of us years ago. My wife and I went to Rent, and we
loved it. It was terrific.
But the notion of whether it’s Rent or something else, we need to get
into our students’ world. That is really important. If we don’t tap into their
world, we’re going to miss the connection, because this group is very dif-
ferent from previous generations.
Now let’s examine the ingredients in our students’ world. This is the Net
Generation. They’re called “digital natives,” according to Prensky, because
they grew up with the Internet. We are referred to as “digital immigrants,”
because we learned it on the fly. Take a look at these ingredients. [Music—“A
Whole New World,” Peabo Bryson, from Aladdin]
Starting with Sesame Street, MTV, and every form of technology they
are using, you can easily go on a campus and you can tell the students from
everyone else. They’re the ones with wires coming out of their bodies all
over the place, (Laughter) MP3 players, iPods, smart phones, and iPhones.
They’re listening to music and who knows what else. That’s what they
love to do.
This should make you, and it makes me, very nervous. This is what is at
the end of those wires: [Music—“What a Feeling,” Irene Cara, from Flashdance]
music, movies, music videos, PC and video games, and TV programs. All
of this produces “media over-stimulation.” How much? The 2006 estimates
are from 6.5 to 11 hours per day of multitasking with all of those forms of
media. How many hours are there in a day and how many hours are they
in class? That’s their world. We need to find a way to tap into it.
So, basically, if we think in these terms, my concept of effective teach-
ing is this: It’s all about the students. It’s about their characteristics, their
world, and their intelligences. It’s not about us. Most of the mistakes I have
made in teaching have occurred when I thought like a professor and not
like my students. If we haven’t already changed our perspective to think
like our students, we need to start changing. [Music—“I Am Changing,”
Jennifer Hudson, from Dreamgirls]
We need to view things through our students’ eye sockets, focusing on
their intelligences and their learning styles, and leveraging what’s in their
world so they will learn what’s in ours. That’s one way in which we can
bridge that difference.

“Fair Use” Pro ision of Co yright Law

We have a wonderful advantage in the teaching profession compared to
other professions because we can use every form of media—print and
nonprint. That is permitted under the “fair use” provision in Title 17 of
102 The Journal of Health Administration Education Spring 2007

the copyright law. You can use the music and the videos that I’ve been
using for teaching. I talked with Universal and Paramount Studios a year
ago about issues of copyright, and the rumor was there were restrictions
on the length of videos and music that we could use. First of all, we need
to acknowledge the sources we use, as you’ve seen with the first video
and every video I play as well as the music credits at the end. There are no
time restrictions, such as 30 seconds for music and 3 minutes for videos.
Instructors who teach courses on film, criticism, music appreciation, and
the like can’t have limits. So they said there’s no time restriction. We can
use all of the above.

Why Use Humor in Teaching?

What are the purposes of this presentation? I’m going to try to demonstrate
at least five strategies for incorporating humor, music, videos and games
into your teaching. We’re talking about systematic teaching strategies and
tools, not stand-up comedy here, folks. And finally, I will provide a wide
array of techniques that you can adapt to your own classroom, personality,
and students.
Why should we use humor in the classroom? There are two classroom
applications. First, it can improve your connection with your students. The
moment you walk to the front of the room there is a disconnection because
of your age, your title, your educational level, and your cholesterol level.
Second, humor can bring dead, boring content to life.
There are also two teaching applications of humor: to enable you to
cope with the stressors associated with teaching, and to help you survive
all of the demands of your institution.
What about the research on humor and laughter? There are close to 70
studies conducted over the last 45 years. Here’s the basic structure. Humor
is the stimulus; it produces one response, which is emotional, called mirth.
This topic has yielded a stream of research on the psychological effects. The
second response is physical, which is laughter on which research has been
conducted on the physiological effects.
You have in your possession a summary of the benefits based on all the
research as well as the myths or warnings. That summary is in the form of
a prescription, which I thought would be appropriate for all of you. It is
called Mirthium (available from www.ronberk.com). It even has a generic.
(Laughter)
So you have the list. Everything else there is for your entertainment.
We’re not going to spend a lot of time because you can read these at your
leisure. There are several humor effects in terms of benefits based on the
research up to this point. Most of the psychological research has been con-
 Pattullo Lecture 103

ducted on stress, anxiety, and tension. The concept here is that when you
encounter a negative situation or aversive stimuli, if you’re able to joke,
you can detach yourself from that situation.
The best example that I can think of is in the classic TV series M*A*S*H.
How many of you remember the character of Hawkeye Pierce, played by
Alan Alda? That character joked constantly in the mess tent, the OR, ev-
erywhere, so he could separate himself from all that he hated around him
in the Korean War. The joking served as a coping mechanism to distance
Hawkeye from the negative situations.
Humor provides a way of coping. In several studies in the Emergency
Room, physicians and nurses use it to cope with all that they see. Clearly,
humor is one of the most effective coping strategies.. Furthermore, there’s
mounting evidence that humor decreases whining, howling, and body
piercing. So you might want to try it.
Okay, that’s based on what we know in terms of the studies. Here are
the warnings or myths. There are claims being made in all of these areas,
and the reason is because there’s research on every one of these topics.
The problem is that either there are conflicting results from the research,
or there are flaws in the experimental designs of the studies, such as small
n’s of five or eight graduate students, no control group, and violations of
protocol in gathering the saliva or blood assays to measure the physiological
effects. There have been a lot of problems, especially with the physiologi-
cal studies.
The mass media has blown this research way out of proportion. These
are claims that you will see all of the time. But, as researchers, you need to
know that we don’t have enough evidence to make those claims. There is a
lot more detail on the list of killer cell studies in your handout on Mirthium.
Again, there is mounting evidence here that laughter cures halitosis, gin-
givitis, and gangrene. Not true.

Offensi e Humor
The first issue we have to tackle if we’re going to do this in the classroom,
is what forms of humor can be offensive to our students. Consider for a
moment how you feel or react when you are offended. Try to remember the
last time you were offended by a friend or something you saw on television
or in a movie. What did you do?
Audience member: Withdraw.
Ron Berk: You withdraw. What else?
You can turn off the TV or walk out of a movie. Other feelings when you’re
offended?
104 The Journal of Health Administration Education Spring 2007

Audience member: Anger.

Ron Berk: Students can’t turn us off. If they’re offended by something that
we say or do, they come back the next class and they may be muttering
under their breath: “He or she’s a moron.” And it just continues. You prob-
ably have lost those students for the entire semester. “Offensiveness” is not
determined by a democratic vote, such as, “How many of you think that joke
was offensive?” It’s a very personal feeling based on your own values.
And right now what you see on television and the movies is out of
control. It’s one-upmanship in every way, shape, and form in order to at-
tract all potential audiences, because that’s what they want. People love
put-down humor particularly. The culture demands that type of challenge:
Who can we offend next?
What I want you to do is take a few minutes and, with the person on
your right or left, talk about what types of humor or targets you would
consider to be inappropriate in your classroom?
Audience member: Any type of racial, ethnic jokes.
Audience member: Weight.
Audience member: Weight. Jokes about weight.
Audience member: Sex, sexual innuendo.
Audience member: Politics.
Audience member: Gender.
Audience member: Religion.
Audience member: Disabilities.
Audience member: Age.
Audience member: Health status—health status like cancer, depression.
Ron Berk: Right. Okay, what else?
Audience member: Intelligence.
Ron Berk: Intelligence. Geographical. Think about all of these categories.
Whether you agree with my list doesn’t matter. The issue is this: You have
to decide where you’re going to draw the line, and then communicate it to
your students. I do it on the first class so they know the rules of the game.
You want to create a safe environment, not a threatening one. Here is my
list:
1. Put-downs of anyone. Sitcoms are based on put-downs. I would
especially avoid put-downs of political figures and celebrities.
Please stay away from Michael Jackson. He’s had a rough time.
(Laughter) Leave those people to Leno and Letterman.

2. Sarcasm. There was a dissertation conducted on sarcasm in higher

education. It was found that over 90% of its uses is negative; it’s
 Pattullo Lecture 105

nothing more than a put-down. It is more frequently used by male

than by female professors in all major disciplines.

3. Ridicule.

4. Profanity.

5. Vulgarity.

6. Sexual content and innuendo. And finally,

7. Sensitive personal issues that deal with personal tragedies. There

are no restrictions on what you will see in the movies or on TV now,
so we have to make our position clear on inappropriate humor to
our students on the first class. They hold me accountable, and I’m
able to hold them accountable for the whole semester.

So, the question is: “What else is there?” (Laughter) I thought this was
going to be fun. There’s nothing left.
First, there is positive humor. Use humor to build people up, not tear
them down. Next is what I call the big butt theory. The “butt” of the joke
should be so big that it focuses on those things that are bigger than life, such
as your institution and the policies and practices in your department. There
is material there, folks. Think about the things that we are asked to do and
those things that occur in your school, which students and you experience
together, such as standing in lines for coffee or food or the availability of
parking spots. These are all fair game. And they’re safe, because we all
experience those situations.
Finally, the most limitless source is self-downs, which is self-effacing
or self-deprecating humor. It is, without a doubt, the most effective way to
break down barriers in your classroom, and you’ve got tons of material.
How many of you use self-effacing humor?

Incongruity Formula
Definition of humor: “The ability to see three sides of one coin” (Ned
Roram). It’s one of my favorite definitions. Those of us who have a natu-
rally twisted mind see things normal people don’t see. What we’re going
to talk about for the remainder of this session is the incongruity formula.
That is the foundation of most all types of jokes. It is the juxtaposition of
the“ expected” with the “unexpected.” Since we expect everything to be
106 The Journal of Health Administration Education Spring 2007

serious, the unexpected twist or punch at the end is easy to do. Students
are trained seriously and so are we.
Let’s examine the format of humor that’s delivered orally. There are
three elements. First, the expected “serious set-up.” Second, the expected
“build-up of tension” as you are executing the material, and, finally, the
unexpected twist or the “punch.” I call this structure the humor trifecta. If
any of those elements don’t work, such as you don’t understand the premise,
then the punch is going to be meaningless. Here are some examples.

Verbal Humor Delivered Orally

First, how many of you are parents? Okay. I dedicate this to all of you. How
many of you had parents? (Laughter) I just want to play with your minds.
Here we go. According to child-rearing expert T. Berry Brazelton, a serious
authority, never raise your hand to your children; it leaves your midsection
unprotected. (Laughter)
You have the unexpected and then that punch at the end. This is the most
dangerous form. I do not recommend telling one-liners in your classroom.
Very few people have a gift for doing that.
Doing what I do for a profession, I thought you could increase the
probability of success, thereby minimizing the chances of an embarrass-
ing situation. Instead of one punch line, how about using three or four in
a multiple-choice format? So you have, in this case, the stem, which is a
serious premise: What is the most efficient and cost-effective method to
learn how to use new software on your PC at home?
Then you have multiple choices. Thanks to Regis, everyone knows
the multiple-choice format, and we can play off of that by having differ-
ent punches. A. Open the online instruction manual and actually read it;
B. Disregard the instructions, insert the disk, and click every option until
something neat happens (I don't know about you, but that’s how I learned
Word® and PowerPoint®.); (Laughter) C. Hand the software to one of your
children, age five to ten, and say, “Please show me how to use this. Please.
I’ll be your best friend!”, or D. If you don’t have or work with any children,
call the toll-free, Technical Support Hotline who will explain step by step
how to adopt a child, age five to ten. (Laughter)
As you use this multiple-choice format in your different classes, iden-
tify which choices work best. Where do you want to place those choices in
the list? Place them at the end. In this item you have a logical sequence in
the choices, but, in other cases, there may be just four or five options with
no order.
 Pattullo Lecture 107

The last resort format is a shotgun approach: the top 10 list, popular-
ized by Letterman. We’re going to try one here.
In the exhibits, there are a variety of materials and books available.
What many of you may not know is that are several books that didn’t make
the cut. So I thought you might be interested in hearing the rejected titles.
Here are the top 10 teaching methods books rejected by the AUPHA Board
of Directors; the ones that didn’t make it to the exhibit tables:
10. Deeper Learning through Shallow Teaching.

9. The Pop-Up Book of Meta-Cognitive Teaching Strategies.

8. Traveling the Road of Distance Education without Asking Directions

(special discount for male professors). (Laughter) Sorry guys.

7. The Virtual Classroom: Think, Pair, Share When Nobody’s There.

6. “Survivor” Teaching: Innovative Ways to Vote Students out of Your

Class.

5. Using Cooperative Learning to Punish Self-Centered Students.

4. “American Idol” Teaching: Simon Says You’re Bad; That’s Good.

3. Fostering Active Learning with a Cattle Prod.

2. Assisted Learning Communities for Senior Faculty. (We are all go-
ing to end up there, sooner or later.)

And, finally, the number one book rejected by the Board of Directors:

1. Crouching Professor, Hidden Peer Evaluator. (Laughter)

Video Humor
Okay, we’re going to shift gears. All of the previous examples were verbal.
Now we’re going to examine the humor and the formula for videos. What’s
the difference? When we see a movie, typically, the humor consists of only
two elements, not three. You have a serious element, and then you have the
punch. But those elements may be in a variety of formats: verbal, visual, or
audio. I am going to play a video clip for you, and I want you to identify
108 The Journal of Health Administration Education Spring 2007

the two elements first. What’s the set-up, what’s the punch, and then, what’s
the form of each?
This clip is from Meet the Parents. The character played by Ben Stiller
is trying to get a flight out late at night. He is at the gate about 11:30 p.m.,
and this is what happens. [Video—Meet the Parents] (Laughter)
Okay. (Laughter) Now, I’m going to play it again because you’re all busy
laughing, enjoying it. I’m going to play it again, this time to the end. But I
want you to think about the set-up, what form it is, and then the punch and
its form. Here it is again. [Video—repeat Meet the Parents] (Laughter)
In your packet, there is a slide titled “incongruity formula exercise one.”
Circle your answer to both of those parts right now.
For the serious element, what was the set-up?
Audience member: Verbal.
Ron Berk: Verbal. It was the interchange between Ben Stiller and the airline
agent. What was the punch?
Audience member: Visual.
Ron Berk: Visual. And my favorite was the add-on visual and sound of the
vacuum cleaner. I lost it when I first saw that scene.
Now we’re going to do another one. This time the clip’s from Runaway
Bride. In this segment, Julia Roberts is walking down the aisle to marry
Richard Gere. Take a look at what happens. Again, look for the two elements.
[Video—Runaway Bride] (Laughter)
I love that. May I ask you a question? When would you ever see a FedEx
truck outside of a church during a wedding? It was all for the joke. Now,
circle your answers for exercise two. What are the set-up and the punch?
Audience member: Visual.
Ron Berk: Visual. And if I were to replay this you would see the side of the
FedEx truck four different times. The director wanted to make sure that
you saw FedEx over and over again to set-up the punch. And, of course,
what was the punch?
Audience member: Verbal.
Ron Berk: Verbal. Hector Elizondo’s wonderful line, “She’ll be there by
10:30 tomorrow.” Okay.

Cognitive Processing of Humor and Problem Based

Learning
For those of you who do PBL, problem-based learning, you should know
that the cognitive neurological process for getting the punch using the
incongruity formula is absolutely identical to the process involved in
problem solving. If you want a way of preparing your students mentally
 Pattullo Lecture 109

for a problem exercise, have them do some kind of a joke first. It engages
the right hemisphere and makes the problem more fun.

“Low Risk” Humor Strategies

Now we’re going to move into specific methods in our limited time. You
have an article that outlines 10 different methods there. You have more
detail than what I’ll be able to go into here. I’m just going to describe and
demonstrate about a half a dozen. My Mars & Snickers book goes into all
10 in detail for anyone who’s interested.
First, let’s take a look at “low risk” strategies. [Music—Theme from Boston
Legal, Billy Valentine] We’re going to talk about humorous material on tests.
We’re basically inserting humor into print material. You’re not standing up
and telling any jokes.
There are two types of strategies. One is content-irrelevant, and the
other is content-relevant. The first and safest one to use on a test is adding
an extra choice. This is a content-irrelevant strategy. If it’s a four-choice
multiple-choice format test, add a choice E. You need to tell the students
up front in the directions that choice E is for their entertainment only and
not to be selected as the correct answer. In fact, you should have an answer
sheet that has only four choices on it to make sure it’s impossible to pick
E. Otherwise; with a five-choice answer sheet someone will find a way to
pick the joke as the correct answer. A content-irrelevant choice has nothing
to do with the content of the item.
Here’s an example. Which country in Eastern Europe has a chronic
shortage of vowels? A. Namibia; B. South Dakota; C. Saskatchewan; D.
Trskmykczstkygistan; and E. Who cares? So you’re trying to think: “If I’m
answering this item, what can I use for E that the students would be thinking,
but would not expect to see?" Think about this for a minute. That’s the kind
of answer that really works. By the way, I hope you got the item right.
The second type of strategy is content-relevant humor, which means
that the humor is embedded in the item itself; it’s part of the content. There
are several different methods. There are eight different strategies and a
variety of formats, but I chose multiple-choice here because it’s one of the
most frequently used formats.
If your urologist says, “You have a kidney stone the size of the Epcot
golf ball,” that is an example of A. analogy; B. hyperbole; C. metaphor; D.
simile; and I had to add an E. rather disturbing thought. Here the humor
is part of a legitimate question. You’re just making it a little bit more fun
than a normal question about hyperbole. [Music—Theme from Law & Order,
Mike Post]
110 The Journal of Health Administration Education Spring 2007

“High Risk” Humor Strategies

It’s time for “high risk.” When we open our class, there are a variety of
types of material we can use. There are lots of examples, some of which
are in your handout and others in the books. I believe that everyone has
the capability to be funny, even the most serious person. The issue is your
willingness to take a risk to discover what form of humor is your gift. Until
you try telling stories or anecdotes or presenting a multiple-choice joke or
attempting any of the other formats, you will not know your humor gift
and which format is natural for you.
That’s my challenge to you. Professors are usually hesitant to test the
humor waters because of feelings, such as: “I’m going to fail” or “I’ll get
embarrassed.” Students are rooting for you. They want you to succeed
and will feel badly if you don’t do well. You’re in good company, but that
still isn’t a consolation when you bomb. Nonetheless, that’s something to
think about.
Let’s move on to class demonstrations. One of the most powerful ways
to tap multiple intelligences is with skits or demonstrations. Having your
students participate in a demonstration to introduce a topic is one strat-
egy for getting the whole class involved. We’re now going to look at how
to execute demonstrations. We’ll begin with two people. I’ll be back in a
few seconds. Don’t go anywhere. [Music—Theme from The Odd Couple, Neil
He i] (Laughter) [Ron Berk and Steve Mick of VCU walk down the aisle to
the front of the room.]
This is our version of The Odd Couple. Let me introduce my good friend
Felix, and of course, I am Oscar. Today we’re going to talk about relation-
ships, the relationship between two things: in this case, the two of us.
What I would normally do is have everyone write down on a sheet of
paper two characteristics that we have in common and two characteristics
that are different about us, and then they would share them with their
neighbor. That’s an active learning exercise. Then I bring everybody together
and make two lists, differences and similarities, on a transparency.
When we get to the similarities list, it gets difficult, such as: “You’re
both professors. You’re both human.” The students are usually scraping the
bottom of the barrel. That’s what you want. You need that contrast.
Who you pick for Felix or Oscar makes a difference. Either can be a
woman professor or student. I use a woman very often whom I call Felice.
You could also have an Oscarette. I’m not suggesting cross-dressing here,
though. Not a good idea, unless you have tenure. Kidding. Try to pick
professors who your students know to represent the extremes of the per-
sonality continuum, those whom they would never expect even to talk to
 Pattullo Lecture 111

one another, much less be seen together. When I walk to the front of the
class with Felice, the students start laughing, just as you did as Felix and I
walked to the front, because they don’t expect it.
This demonstration works much better with two professors than with
a professor and a student. Sometimes, when my Felice forgets to show up,
I have to go grab a student and scramble to do the skit. It just doesn’t work
as well. You could try that and see what happens.
Back to our demonstration. Oscar and Felix provide a visual metaphor
for relationships. I use it to introduce correlation instead of starting with
the big, ugly Pearson formula, which scares students out of their boots
when they see it. No, no, no, no. These are relationships, and they get the
whole concept.
I say: “Well, suppose we compute a correlation of, let’s just pick a number
like, .50. Maybe that would explain some of these characteristics, such as
what’s in common. If I were to just square the correlation of .50 and make
it a percentage by multiplying by 100, it would be 25% in common. What’s
leftover that’s unique to both Oscar and Felix is unexplained, which is 75%.
So we just talked about a correlation and explained and unexplained vari-
ance. The students don’t even know what hit them. Then we go into the
actual material step by step, but the demonstration really softens the blow
a lot. Felix, Steve, thank you, sir. (Laughter)

Music as Humor with Demonstrations

Let’s extend the demonstration to groups of students. Suppose I want two
groups, one representing each gender. How would I introduce them? All
right, I have a group of six women students. Come on down. (Music—“I’m
Every Woman,” Whitney Houston) (Laughter and Applause) [Six female
AUPHA members dance down the aisle.]
Suppose I wanted to change that and say, “Today I just need one woman
student for a demonstration.” What would be the difference? Carla, would
you go back please. Okay. Come on down. [Music—“All By Myself,” Celine
Dion] Here’s your Oscar. (Laughter and Applause) You did a lot more act-
ing than was called for in your contract.
And this is what makes it so much fun. In my 30th year of teaching,
I couldn’t wait to get to class. It was better than my first year at Hopkins.
That was because whenever you prepare any of these demonstrations, and
it’s all in the preparation, you can’t wait to see what the students are going
to do. And it’s different every time. It’s a live performance.
You all were laughing in both intros so far. I want you to think for a
moment: Why did you laugh? There was no joke being told. I want you
112 The Journal of Health Administration Education Spring 2007

to think about the incongruity. As you’re doing that, I have to introduce

our guys.
Gentlemen, would you please line up? Then we’ll talk about why we
have some type of laughter here and how the incongruity formula is ap-
plied in this context. Dean, do you have them all together? Okay, bring
them down. [Music—“Bad Boys,” Inner Circle, theme from Cops] (Laughter
and Applause) [Six male AUPHA members dance down the aisle.]
Guys, take off your shirts. Kidding. No one actually watches Cops be-
cause we know the plot. It’s always some guy without a shirt in his backyard
in the dark being wrestled to the ground. That’s it.
So now, why did you laugh? What was the set-up? What’s the first ele-
ment of incongruity here?
Audience member: Music.
Ron Berk: Not exactly. First, there’s going to be a demonstration. We’re
going to have a demonstration, and students do not know who’s involved.
That’s the serious set-up. Then students pop up at different points in the
room and line up in the back. The class doesn’t have a clue what’s going on,
what music is going to be played, or what’s going to happen next. What’s
the punch?
Ron Berk: Why did you laugh in each case? What was the punch line?
Audience member: Unexpected.
Ron Berk: What did you expect in this situation? I could have had the
groups just walk down by themselves without any music. You probably
wouldn’t have laughed. What was it that made you laugh?
Audience member: The music.
Ron Berk: The music was the punch line. So far we’ve used verbal, video,
and now music. Music is the punch line, and all you have to do is press
a button on a CD player or recorder. That’s it. There’s no joke. It’s picking
the right music. Music does not belong in your classroom. It’s unexpected.
That’s the incongruity.
And if you can match the music to the visual image of whatever you’re
doing—the incongruity with what the women were doing and what the
guys were doing—and the actual lyrics, you’ll have a winner. And make
sure to use songs with which your students are familiar. I kept using the
theme from Friends after it was canceled. The students still watched it
in syndication. You can’t kill Friends. The students sing the song as their
buddies are walking to the front of the classroom. Another popular theme
is the one from CSI. You can use pop songs and other themes from the top
10 rated Nielsen TV programs.
 Pattullo Lecture 113

So now I have a dozen students up here for a demonstration. I have

to do something with them. This is how I begin sampling designs. I just
selected two samples. I want to know what kind of a design it is. They see
nonequivalence before their eyes. It’s not just a term in Campbell and Stan-
ley. I want them to see why the samples are nonequivalent. What are the
independent and dependent variables? What kind of t-test can I use? Can
I use a covariate? Can I use analysis of covariance to adjust the differences
between the two genders? What an exercise in critical thinking.
The students see the whole design right before their eyes. They’re
thinking through the statistics and the variables. Next, I bring both groups
together, and then I randomly divide them. We now have created a random-
ized design, which is the foundation and gold standard for all research. Is
that an important topic to draw on visual/spatial, verbal concepts, bodily/
kinesthetic, musical/rhythmic, and interpersonal? We have at least four
or five intelligences being tapped, but nothing quantitative yet. That’s the
point of the demonstration.
The challenge is to find a way to make the words, formulas, or graphs
on that textbook page jump off and come to life with your students. The
best part is that those students in the audience have their roommates on
stage, their buddies. They’re on the edges of their seats. That’s how I would
begin the different types of experimental designs.
So it’s thinking about concepts and processes that are really important
to render them worthy of the time to do a demonstration. The explanation
takes a little time, but you would be doing that anyway. The grand entrances
by the students are typically about 30 seconds each, so you have spent a
minute with the music to create an atmosphere where they’re saying: “Oh
my gosh, what is he going to do next?” That’s how long it takes. The rest
is up to you to deliver.
I have students act out equations in front of the room. For multiple
regression and logistic regression, I have a dozen students as the predictors
along with a criterion student set off from the group. It could be continuous
or dichotomous criterion, and the students are asked to pick out the order of
the predictors based on visual characteristics. I want them to understand the
relationships between the characteristics of the predictors and the criterion
and among each other to know which variables are going to enter, and in
which order. So I use gender, height, hair color, hair length, eyesight (glasses
or no glasses), slacks or dress, and so on to look for visual similarities and
differences. You must avoid any potentially offensive characteristics, such
as weight or the popular BMI. You can do this.
114 The Journal of Health Administration Education Spring 2007

There are about a half a dozen safe characteristics. The task for the
students is to visually trace through the mathematical process of one of
the forms of regression against the criterion and then say, “Well, we picked
that variable. The next one I select should not have a lot in common with
the variable I already selected, but it has to explain some percentage of the
variance of the criterion.” That’s the whole idea. It changes the image of
regression analysis and any other equation-based topic.
Because they’re scared spit-less with these statistics, especially logistic
regression, the demonstration can turn them on to topics like odds and
ratios. So try to create visual images for your content topics. It really helps
get the concepts across.
Ladies and gentlemen, you may take your seats. Give these demonstra-
tors a hand. Thank you.

Humor in Games
Okay. We’re winding down here. Let’s try a Jeopardy!-type review and see
whether we’ve learned anything here. I know some of you are thinking:
[Music—“I Can Do That,” Wayne Cilento, from A Chorus Line]. I hope so.
The idea here is to first pick a category, which is “characteristics of
humor.” I will read the answer to which you will respond in perfect unison
with the question. Here we go.
Ron Berk: 1. This is the number of elements in most forms of humor deliv-
ered orally and also the number of bears who mauled Goldilocks.
Audience member: Three. What is three?
Ron Berk: 2. This type of humor is totally inappropriate in a teaching/learn-
ing context; also which you become when you don’t use deodorant.
Audience member: What is offensive?
Ron Berk: 3. This theory of humor focuses on bigger than life targets, such
as the institution, practices, and policies; also what can result from eating
too many Twinkies®.
Audience member: What is “big butt”?
Ron Berk: This is how I review statistics material to prepare my students for
all of the exams. You can get a lot of content covered very quickly, plus you
can add the humor to that punch at the end. Of course, the students want
to know whether you are going to do that on the test. I don't think so. But
it does help motivate them and provide clues to remember the content.
Final Jeopardy! The category is: “targets of humor.” You’ll have 30
seconds to think of your question to the following answer. When you’re
in doubt about any joke being offensive to your students, focus the joke on
this to be safe. Good luck. [Music—Theme from Jeopardy!, Merv Griffin]
 Pattullo Lecture 115

How many of you need more time? Always be ready with more music
if they need more time. [Music—repeat theme from Jeopardy!] I usually pick a
problem for Final Jeopardy with which I know they have difficulty, often a
problem from previous tests. That’s the one with which you want to spend
a little bit more time.
Okay, on a count of three, shout out your question: one, two, three.
Whole Audience: What is yourself?
Ron Berk: Excellent!

Coup de Grâce
We’re coming down to the wire. I’m going to give you one more technique.
This one can only be used once. If you have an acronym, a term that’s four
or five letters, or four syllables that you don’t want your students to forget,
this technique will do it. Once you do this with your students, that term or
acronym will be embedded in their brains forever.
There is only one obvious choice: A U P HA. I combined H and A at the
end. The first thing you’re going to do is say the letters with me. Ready?
And A-U-P-HA. Okay, I think we’re ready.
[Music—“YMCA,” Villag People] Get ready. A-U-P-HA! A-U-P-HA!
(Laughter) You now know what’s coming. This is the aerobic portion of the
program and probably the conference. Everybody up.
Remember the letters.A-U-P-HA! Do not poke out the eyeballs of the
person next to you. All right, let’s try it one more time. Ready? A-U-P-HA.
Now with the music. [Music—“YMCA” continued] Ready, and A-U-P-HA!
A-U-P-HA! Give yourselves a hand.
Please be seated. We have a couple of things to do to bring this to a
close. [Music—“One,” John Williams, from A Chorus Line]

Metaphor for Teaching

I tried to think of a metaphor for teaching. For those of you who have a
passion for teaching the way I do, I hope you can relate to this. I think
teaching is more of calling than just a job we experience. I remembered
a Broadway show that opened about 32 years ago, and then was revived
in October 2006. It was all about putting it on the line. Let’s take a look.
[Video—A Chorus Line]
To be serious for a few moments, our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan,
police officers, and fire fighters put their lives on the line every day. You
could probably relate this metaphor to most any profession, but there’s
something different about teaching that all of us have experienced: Those
of us who put our mind, our body, and our soul before our students as I
116 The Journal of Health Administration Education Spring 2007

have done here this morning. Teaching is so much more than just standing
up and talking if we want to have a true connection with our students.
It involves the commitment we have made to be the best teachers that we
can be, the sacrifices that we have made to get to this point in our career, the
preparation that we have gone through, including attending conferences like
this one to get the latest ideas in terms of teaching techniques and research
evidence that you can take back to your classrooms for your students, and
the live performance that happens in that classroom. You don’t want your
students walking out of your class saying, “Just get the notes.” You have
the handout content from this morning’s presentation. If you were to hand
that to someone who wasn’t here this morning, I would hope that you would
tell them what happened in this room is not in the handout.
You want to use your class time to do those things that cannot be rep-
licated in any other venue, such as small-group exercises, whether they’re
cooperative learning or active learning techniques, dramatizations, impro-
visation activities, and the like. When my students leave class and tell a
student who missed class: “You’re not going to believe what we did today,
and there’s no way he can repeat that logistic regression demonstration;
you’re going to have to learn it on your own,” that changes everything.
Once the word is out, the students don’t know when the next demonstra-
tion is coming. The element of surprise is crucial. Intermittent reinforcement
really helps. But use your time wisely, because these students will find other
ways to get the material. They don’t need us anymore for a lot of this.
Finally, the satisfaction that you have done your absolute best. Here’s an
example of putting it on the line both literally and figuratively. [Video—“One”
finale from A Chorus Line]
What’s the point of the last hour and a half? This is the point: [Mu-
sic—“Looks Like We Made It,” Barry Manilow] Leverage the multimedia
elements in your students’ world: music, movies, TV programs, games,
with a variety of humor techniques in your teaching to tap their multiple
intelligences and learning styles so every student can succeed in your class
and can have fun learning in the process.
Thank you all for your responsiveness and your attention. I wish I could
take you back to Baltimore with me. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.