T
he opener introduced
himself
at
our
University of Michigan
stand-up club, Amateur Hour,
and told his first joke. The
audience was rowdy. The venue
didn’t have enough seats for
everyone. People were standing,
drinking from pitchers and
talking among themselves. I
ran through my set in my head,
nervous but prepared. I stepped
up to the microphone when my
time came and started with
crowd work.
I hoped for a few answers
from the front row. The entire
room erupted — and didn’t
stop. It was related to my
questions at first, but quickly
devolved into random chitchat.
I tried to regain control of the
situation, but the microphone
and speakers were too quiet.
So I waited, stiff and awkward,
until their attention returned.
Comedy is a difficult art form,
maybe the most difficult. When
it works, the audience doesn’t
think twice. They walk into
the club expecting to laugh and
leave with their expectations
met. It works because they
paid for it. But when it fails, it
fails hard, and the audience is
quicker to rage than sympathy.
I’ve failed hard, and more than
once, so take it from me: The
comedian is always angrier
than the audience after a bad
show. You gave up one night to
hear their material; they gave
up months trying to write it.
We need slack to operate.
Comedy is based on poking in
all the wrong places in all the
right ways to get laughs. When
we don’t get laughs, it can feel
like we’re just jabbing where it
hurts for no apparent reason.
But we’re not. Writing jokes is a
process — they crash and burn
more often than they land.
At one of my first-ever open
mics, I remember trying a new
bit about infant mortality. It
felt like trudging knee deep
through
mud,
just
trying
to reach the end before the
crowd could start booing. A
few shows later, I repurposed
the punchline. The crowd was
hanging on every word, their
laughs growing louder after
each sentence. It was like
magic.
We’ve got to love the magic
more than we hate the mud,
or the magic dies. And it
is
dying.
Dave
Chappelle’s
Netflix special “The Closer”
is perhaps the best example
of this trend. The roughly
hour-long
set
provoked
outrage, in part because of
Chappelle’s
statement
that
“Gender is a fact.” In July
2022, a Minneapolis comedy
club
canceled
a
scheduled
Chappelle performance over
the controversy. When the
show was moved to a different
location, protesters harassed
fans waiting outside the new
theater, even throwing eggs at
them, Chappelle said.
Comedy requires thick skin
to watch, particularly if you are
watching Chappelle’s brand.
That’s why it’s voluntary. Turn
off the TV, don’t click on the
special — but don’t get in
the way of a good joke. Let
nothing be off-limits or
too offensive to talk about.
Comedy needs freedom to
flourish, and right now, that
freedom is shriveling.
Many of America’s largest
companies take on humor
in
their
anti-harassment
policies. From Amazon to
Apple to Google, jokes in
the workplace are becoming
increasingly less acceptable.
In 2018, a CareerBuilder
survey found that 54% of
employers
had
decided
not to hire someone after
looking into their social
media footprint. Now, even
jokes made before getting
the job are under scrutiny,
and the implications for
aspiring comedians like me
are clear.
A few months ago, I went
to a meeting of my stand-up
club with a new one-liner
I had written (that I won’t
repeat here). I tried it out
— and the other members
laughed.
But
they
were
uncomfortable. I asked for
feedback, and someone said
something to the effect of,
“it’s funny, it’s really funny.
But what if someone records
it? Do you want a future
employer to hear that?”
He was right — in today’s
political
environment,
I
wouldn’t want what I said
heard out in the open.
That’s the problem. Those
performing comedy need
a welcoming environment to
succeed, not one that throws
eggs or ruins careers. Instead,
we’re coming up on the five-
year anniversary of Kevin Hart
being forced out as host of the
Oscars over a gay joke, and the
one-year anniversary of Will
Smith slapping Chris Rock over
a joke about his wife.
Some comedians are truly
mean-spirited
and
full
of
malicious intent. The people
I’ve discussed are not. Cruelty
has no place in comedy. But
more obstruction is not the
answer — it results in good
comics like Chappelle, Hart
and
Rock
being
unfairly
condemned.
We
can
fight
hateful jokes by refusing to
watch those who spew them
when they perform at a club,
rather than shutting down the
clubs themselves.
A
liberated
stage
means
hearing
things
you
don’t
necessarily like, but it also
means a liberated audience.
The freedom of a comedian to
say anything guarantees the
freedom of the crowd to hear
anything — uncurated by the
establishment or mob. That’s
what America needs right now.
Comedy shows us things about
ourselves and our world in a
way no other art can. It cuts
deep through the veneer of our
culture and society, but when
done right, we’re too busy
laughing to feel the blade.
I’ll never forget sitting in bed
one night, shortly after the end
of the COVID-19 lockdowns,
watching a clip of Jon Stewart
talking about the origins of
the pandemic. I had been
feeling down, confused and
angry about everything that
had happened. I felt as though
the media had over-politicized
the issue until I didn’t know
what to believe. And then I
listened as Stewart picked it
all apart, everything he said
making sense, and my emotions
improved.
The world is a dark and
dishonest place, in dire need
of comedy. We cannot destroy
it, especially now, with all the
good material the last several
years have given us.
I
was
frustrated
and
saddened
to
see
the
recent opinion piece in
The
Michigan
Daily
about
“Michigan Math.” As a current
Graduate Student Instructor
in the Math Department who
has taught MATH 115 and is
currently teaching MATH 116,
I would like to try to address
some of the points made in this
article. Many of us in the Math
Department would have been
happy to talk to the author,
and I’m disappointed that they
didn’t reach out to hear from
us.
The author focused on the
idea that math courses at the
University of Michigan follow a
“flipped classroom” model, and
pointed to a meta-study that
found little benefit to flipped
classrooms.
While
MATH
115 instructors indeed expect
students to read the textbook
before class, the intention is
not that this takes the place of
all direct instruction during
class. We are told to give small
lectures during class to explain
key ideas, clear up points of
confusion and provide extra
examples. Since every MATH
115 course relies on the course
lecture content, it is debatable
whether the MATH 115 setup
even qualifies as a flipped
classroom.
Further,
asking
students to read outside of class
and to answer a few questions
before class is a standard
practice across many subjects
(imagine
an
English
class
where you didn’t have to read
outside of class).
The Hechinger Report cited
by the author finds that the
success of a flipped classroom
relies on what actually happens
during class. The University’s
introductory math program is
rare in higher math education
because it actually tries to
put in place decades-worth of
research, much of it from U-M
scholars. The research shows
that doing group work for the
majority of class time is not
only better for the learning of
all students, but also provides
even
stronger
educational
gains for women, non-binary
folks and students of Color.
While I agree that flipping a
classroom does not necessarily
lead to better learning on its
own, the research is definitive
that using class time to have
students work collaboratively
to solve problems with the
support of an instructor will
lead to higher quality, more
equitable education.
The author referred several
times to the idea that students
have
to
teach
themselves
outside
of
class,
implying
that the time spent in class
working on problems is not
“teaching.” This is problematic
for a number of reasons —
chiefly because an effective
teacher
employs
numerous
pedagogical strategies, not just
lecturing, and they are all part
of teaching. This denigration
of teaching, which is present
in many spaces throughout
education
in
general,
can
have a multitude of harmful
effects, many of which are
contributing to the low pay and
poor working conditions that
characterize the profession in
many
different
institutions.
Personally, I think this comes
from a lack of understanding of
all that goes into teaching — it
is not just lecturing.
Where I did find common
ground with the author was in
their frustration that math GSIs
receive little training before
they are sent in to teach MATH
115. You might be stunned, as I
was, to learn that your MATH
115 instructor generally has
one week of training before
they arrive in your classroom.
We receive a small amount of
additional training throughout
our five to six years here in the
form of course meetings, but
these tend to focus more on
logistics than pedagogy. I think
it is important to note that,
from speaking to colleagues
from
doctoral
programs
at
more than 25 peer institutions,
this amount of training is
standard, and so your math
lecturers and even your math
professors don’t have any more
training than us.
The author is calling for a
major overhaul of a program
that serves tens of thousands
of students, is driven by the
work of hundreds of GSIs and
lecturers and is rooted in the
research of hundreds of well-
regarded scholars. I would
encourage the author to solicit
information from sources other
than a few fellow students and a
single research study. Certainly
there is work to do, but let’s not
waste time pointing in random
unhelpful directions.
Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
13 — Wednesday, March 15, 2023
KATIE WADDLE
Math GSI
JACK BRADY
Opinion Columnist
You can never escape the M
Design by Sara Fang
Design by Evelyn Mousigian
Don’t cancel comedy, it’s too important
Letter to the Editor: ‘It’s time to stop dreading
“Michigan Math”’ misses the mark