FACULTY ALERT: There doesn’t seem to be a ceiling on offensive material in our culture. As I plod through the muck and mire of the different categories of this material, please do not lose sight of the perspective on these issues. The decision of not to use offensive jokes, music, videos, and other media in the classroom does not hinge on your preferences about this material; it’s all about the effects of that material on your students and classroom atmosphere. It’s about them, not you. Your classroom should facilitate learning, not shut it down. These categories of offensiveness apply to everyone in the class.
SARCASM
Welcome to sarcasm-land! What a delightful way to begin this week: A blog on sarcasm with an opening sarcastic statement!
BLOGGER CONFESSION: Yup, I’m guilty of the transgression of sarcasm in my classroom, workplace, and home. I regret every time I used it under the guise of humor. The consequences were not worth it. Further, sarcastic remarks to students are a surefire recipe for disaster in their ratings of teaching at the end of semester. I can’t think of one reason to justify the use of sarcasm. DON’T DO IT!
DESCRIPTION: A sarcastic remark is frequently just another form of the ever popular put-down. Some people often perceive sarcasm as a sign of intellectual wit or as an elite verbal art form, even when the comment is directed at them as a put-down. Sarcasm “always has an edge; it sometimes has a sting.” It is usually cutting, caustic, biting, derisive, sneering, harsh, sardonic, or bitter. In sports, coaches use it to taunt, deflate, scold, ridicule, and push athletes to perform.
What makes sarcasm so dangerous is that it is spontaneous. It’s highly risky, because it’s difficult to control comments that come out of our mouths so quickly. If the result is negative and directed at one of your students, your administrative assistant or another staff member, or a colleague, the consequences can be so hurtful and damaging that the victim may not recover from the wound for a long time. You could lose a student or colleague for the entire semester or eternity.
RESEARCH: Research on sarcasm in the college classroom indicates that its intent is almost always negative and it is used most frequently by male professors. A few faculty members who regularly use negative sarcasm have asked me whether there is any way to justify or rationalize its use in the classroom. Read my letters: N O!
If you’re not sure of its effect, check out the sarcasm (and other put-downs) on House, Two and a Half Men, Modern Family, NCIS, and Law & Order: SVU.
My next blog kicks up the nastiness notch to ridicule, designed to humiliate students and others in the workplace. Most of these forms of humor are at someone’s expense, but not our own. We protect ourselves at all costs.
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
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