Ask students of almost any age what the worst possible outcome of a class can be, and many – perhaps most – will say, “They’ll laugh at me.” Students fear being embarrassed, looking foolish, and being cast our socially. They might worry too little about not learning what they’ve come to school to learn, but in almost all cases, students worry too much about being embarrassed.

 
Teachers can help by sometimes taking on the persona of the fool.

 
It’s true that many teachers fear being laughed at, too – the tricky social dynamics of the emotional world our students share can sometimes ensnare us as well. And most teachers, in my experience, want to seem smart and knowledgeable pretty much all the time. But the teacher who allows a class to see a mistake, who strikes the pose that invites a chuckle of derision, can open doors that many students need to have opened for them – even if they go along with the group in posing as the social judges who find all that is unfamiliar to be laughable.

 
Sometimes students laugh because teachers reveal their passions.

“I was talking about geometry,” one math teacher from Chicago told me some years ago, and I just decided on the spur of the moment to testify to how much I love math, how much I love geometry, how much I love angles. I knew the kids would find it odd, and I just got into being odd, like being the crazy old aunt. I spent a couple of minutes talking about why we need to think like mathematicians at least some of the time, why we have to find the answers to hard questions, about how there are angles to be found in every part of our lives – how finding the answer in an equation patiently, carefully, and understanding why an angle is the angle that it is, is like suddenly understanding someone you love, or seeing the hidden logic in the piece of music that fills an empty place for you – understanding that the music turns exactly here, exactly this way in relation to the other bends and turns that all come together to make it whole.
I heard the snickering, but I let myself just go on. I felt I needed to, and not really for self-expression because I wasn’t only speaking from my heart, I was playing a role. I understood that. I was showing them a kind of passion and broad thinking, connecting our work to some deeper and broader meanings, and I just knew in the moment that I was doing something very important. And some did laugh, and some left the class with that harsh high-school judgment and rejection in some nasty little comments, but some were excited, some were confused, and a whole bunch – even the ones who were too nervous not to seem nasty – they saw and heard something that I could tell was important to them.

What had they seen and heard? A teacher who was willing to look silly. Someone who cared enough about an idea that he was willing to be snickered at as the price of exploring and enjoying it. A person filled with passion. A teacher going on a journey without a clear ending in mind – truly setting out to follow a thought wherever it might lead. That risks being the fool, but a fool connected with ideas. A fool who embraces his own passions is not a bad thing to be. Far worse to be only what the crowd gives you permission to be.