Appease the teachers or the students? Humor about Evolution and Black Holes in Walker, Louisiana

I gave two "public science" talks, back to back this past week to two groups of 200 9th graders at Walker High School, which is about 20 miles east of Baton Rouge. (Two because their auditorium only holds 200 students at a time). I give public science lectures in a program run by the Louisiana Board of Regents, and I have several different talks, but this is the first time a high school had requested the talk "Funny Science: Using Humor to Convey Scientific Information". It was a very interesting experiment - and since it was two back-to-back identical talks, I actually did get to experiment. What seemed to have resulted was: Talk #1 was really enjoyed by the students, but made several teachers rather uncomfortable. Talk #2 was fine for the teachers, but less interesting to the students. Having a ninth grader in my own house, Talk #1 was geared more toward humor that skirted the edge of decency (or perhaps went totally over the edge, you decide).

I started both talks with a story about Britney Spears becoming a scientist, which always plays well in Louisiana. The last third of both talks was also essentially non-controversial and dealt with ways of portraying science via dance, and depicting the scientific method in comedic ways (I showed two different short videos at the end of each, but neither video was in any way controversial). It was the middle sections on Black Hole Humor and Evolution that made for two very different talks.

I read excerpts from the piece "Selected Examples of What You Will Learn at the Black Hole Humor Workshop," including riddles like:

"How do you compliment a black hole? Tell it that it sucks."

"What did the macho black hole say to the less macho black hole? My hole is smaller than yours."

And common clichés that sound crude when altered to be about black holes:

"So little time, so many black holes."
"I heard it through the black hole."
"Don't beat around the black hole."
"Black as a black hole."
"Different day, same old black hole."

Then I moved on to the Evolution section, titled: "Make Fun of (Teach) the Controversy," where I read several published Limericks of Evolution. Here's the one I heard a groan on:

There once was a man from Nantucket
Who kept all of his brains in a bucket,
They said, he's the kind
who screams "Intelligent Design"
I.e., when the bucket got full he'd just chuck it.

Now, I don't leave them like this - I spend a moment on all of these discussing the "real science" or issue behind the "joke," and for the evolution limericks I spent a full five minutes discussing humor as social commentary, humor as provocateur, humor as a way to ignite discussion and controversy, and humor as a social weapon, but it was quite clear I was making a number of adults uncomfortable, while the kids were quite clearly enjoying it, and I was asked to "tone down" the controversial stuff for the second talk (very politely and professionally, don't get me wrong).

So- for the "second show" - same talk, the other 200 members of the ninth grade class, I experimented with taking out the most edgy material. For example, I still told the first few Black Hole jokes, but left out several, including the clichés (which had gotten the biggest hoots from the students). In addition, I changed some key lines in the Limericks of Evolution:

For example, I left out the "Nantucket" limerick above, and this limerick in the 1st talk:

They all say we came from a monkey
But I say that theory is bunky
Because as anyone knows
Who talks with creationist pros
Some people are closer to donkey

became:

They all say we came from a monkey
But I say that theory is bunky
Because as anyone knows
Who can think on their toes
Some people are closer to donkey

So, comparing the responses to the two talks, some things really stand out: during the first talk students were laughing loudly and several times spontaneously applauded, but I did hear one teacher groan and saw some not so happy faces on other teachers. After the first talk I got over a half-dozen questions about black holes (real questions) from the students, and when they were dismissed something like twenty students rushed up to me after with questions and comments (and even multiple requests for hugs and handshakes). After the second talk, the requested toned down one, no students came up to talk to me, but the teachers all looked calm and content. My host, the Assistant Principal was absolutely wonderful through both talks. I must say, I don't know which path really is the "correct" one - and like I said, about 80% of the two talks were the same, it was just some edgy stuff in the middle that really distinguished the two. It was definitely a very interesting visit. (And, oddly, Blog Around the Clock's review of "Spring Awakening", just posted yesterday, discusses some of these same issues).